Co-led by the University of Washington and Science Gallery Dublin, this project aims to drive and transform the next generation of broadening participation efforts targeting teen-aged youth from communities historically underrepresented in STEM fields. This project investigates how out-of-school time (OST) programs that integrate epistemic practices of the arts, sciences, computer science, and other disciplines, in the context of consequential activities (such as creating radio segments, designing museum exhibitions, or building online games), can more broadly appeal to and engage youth who do not already identify as STEM learners. STEM-related skills and capacities (such as computational thinking, design, data visualizations, and digital storytelling) are key to productive and creative participation in many future civic and workplace activities, and are driving the 30 fastest-growing occupations in the US. But many new jobs will entail a hybrid blend of skills, such as programming and design skills that many students who have disengaged with academic STEM pathways may already have and would be eager to develop further. There is not currently a strong foundation of research-based evidence to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation transdisciplinary programs - in which STEM skills are embedded as tools for meaningful participation - or how such approaches relate to long-term outcomes. Hypothesizing that OST programs which effectively engage youth during their high-leverage teenage years can significantly impact youths' longer-term STEM learning trajectories, this project will involve: 1) Five 3-year studies documenting learning in different technology-rich contexts: Making Afterschool, Media Production, Museum Exhibition Design, Digital Arts Programs, and Pop-Up/Street Science Programs; 2) A 4-year longitudinal study, involving 100 youth from the above programs; 3) The creation of a number of practical measurement tools that can be used to monitor how programs are leveraging the intersections of the arts and sciences to support student engagement and learning; and 4) A Professional Development program conducted at informal science education conferences in the EU and US to engage the informal STEM field with emerging findings. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences to better understand, strengthen, and coordinate STEM engagement and learning. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments.
Transdisciplinary, equity-oriented OST programs can provide supportive social contexts in which STEM concepts and practices are taken up as the means for meaningful participation in valued activities, building students' STEM skills in ways that can propel their future academic, career, and lifelong learning choices. This project will build the knowledge base about these emerging 21st century transdisciplinary approaches to broadening participation investigating: 1) The epistemic intersections across a range of disciplines (art, science, computation, design) that operate to broaden appeal and meaningful participation for underrepresented youth; 2) How transdisciplinary activities undertaken in the context of consequential learning (e.g., producing a radio segment, designing an exhibition for the general public) can illuminate the relevance of STEM to young people's lives, concerns, and futures; and 3) How participation in such programs can propel students' longer-term life choices and STEM learning trajectories. The project is a collaboration of the University of Washington, Science Gallery Dublin, Indiana University, Youth Radio in Oakland California, Guerilla Science in New York and London, and the London School of Economics.
Mathematics is a notoriously disliked subject; there is so little stigma associated with being "bad at math", that educated adults openly describe themselves in this way. There are many reasons for math's unpopularity; chief among them is that school mathematics seldom offers opportunities to engage with the richness of this potentially fascinating subject. As a result, the mathematics education pipeline in the United States is more often a filter than a pump, siphoning students out rather than bringing them along. Children have libraries to help them fall in love with literature: where do they get a chance to fall in love with math? This project presents a unique opportunity to study children engaged with mathematics in an informal setting, the Minnesota State Fair, facilitated by mathematically knowledgeable volunteers. The Math On-a-Stick mathematical playground provides a place for children to engage with mathematics by exploring patters, asking quantitative questions, and investigating shape and space to mathematize their play. The project will observe and videotape this engagement to inform the design of mathematical learning environments in a variety of outside of school time settings, such as after school programs and summer camps, that are accessible to a wider range of the population. This project is co-funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) and Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) programs. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in three thematic areas: STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation, and STEM workforce development. The AISL program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.
The project will investigate three research questions: (1) How does the design of various parts of the exhibit differently support rich mathematical interactions between children and mathematicians? (2) How do children engage different parts of the exhibit? How do differences in engagement relate to (a) exhibit design and (b) prior mathematical experience? (3) How do exhibit volunteers, mathematicians, and caregivers interact to support (or undermine) students' mathematical play? The project will use participant observation and videography to capture visitors' activities through the exhibit, analyzing them as qualitative case studies.
The Exploratorium, in collaboration with the Boys and Girls Club Columbia Park (BGC) in the Mission District of San Francisco, is implementing a two-year exploratory project designed to support informal education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) within underserved Latino communities. Building off of and expanding on non-STEM-related efforts in a few major U.S. cities and Europe, the Exploratorium, BGC, and residents of the District will engage in a STEM exhibit and program co-development process that will physically convert metered parking spaces in front of the Club into transformative public places called "parklets." The BGC parklet will feature interactive, bilingual science and technology exhibits, programs and events targeting audiences including youth ages 8 - 17 and intergenerational families and groups primarily in the Mission District and users of the BGC. Parklet exhibits and programs will focus on STEM content related to "Observing the Urban Environment," with a focus on community sustainability. The project explores one approach to working with and engaging the public in their everyday environment with relevant STEM learning experiences. The development and evaluation processes are being positioned as a model for possible expansion throughout the city and to other cities.
Free-choice learning and, derivatively, free-choice environmental learning emerges as a powerful vehicle for supporting diversity in learning styles (Falk & Dierking, 2002). In this article, I argue that free-choice environmental learning holds great potential for enabling us to understand what is at stake in environmental learning and thus help us build a sustainable future. I examine the different informal learning contexts for children, home (family and play), museums, zoos, nature parks and wilderness, among many others, and offer an explanation for how learning occurs in these settings
There has been little work done on the early experiences of children looking at plant exhibits in botanical gardens. This project, a parallel study to one carried out in zoos, sought to establish what the groups talked about and whether there were differences in content when adults were present and between single sex and mixed groups. The conversations were collected during primary school visits to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, England, whilst the groups looked at plant specimens. Transcripts of the conversations were analysed using a systemic network. The results show that children talked
Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Project Green Reach (PGR) is a children's program that has offered garden-based youth education since 1990. PGR focuses on Grade K-8 students and teachers from local Title I schools who work in teams on garden and science projects. In this exploratory study, the authors used field observations, document analysis, and past participant interviews to investigate PGR's program, model informal science education, and document the influence of the program on urban youth. In all, 7 themes emerged: (a) participants' challenging home and school environments, (b) changes in
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Susan MorganSusan HamiltonMichael BentleySharon Myrie
This paper discusses a collaboration between the Brooklyn Children's Museum and Brooklyn Botanic Garden on a series of educational programs and exhibits entitled "Breaking Ground." Developers aimed to create programs to teach basic science principles related to botany, ethnobotany, and urban ecology, promote urban children's understanding of the importance of plants to humans, biologically and culturally, and foster positive environmental ethics in children 6 to 12 years of age. Findings from a research study to support the development of these programs are briefly outlined in this paper.
Visitors to the Museum of Life and Science (MLS) in Durham can now explore acres of new exhibition space, called BioQuest Woods. To get to BioQuest Woods, visitors walk outside and away from the Museum building a quarter of a mile, passing Loblolly Park, the Farmyard, the trail to the Butterfly House, and Grayson's Cafe. Upon approaching BioQuest Woods, they encounter a fork in the trail where they can choose to enter one of two exhibition areas: Catch the Wind or Explore the Wild. On the backside of either exhibition area, people can choose to take a full loop (which is a total of a half-mile