STARBASE Minnesota strives to increase the knowledge, skills, and interest of inner-city elementary school youth in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for greater academic and lifelong success. This study examines the potential long-term impacts of participation, including interest and engagement in STEM, academic achievement, high school graduation, and college enrollment.
Innovation spaces are springing up around the world. This phenomenon is driven by emerging technologies in additive manufacturing, by new thinking about learning, by a desire to grow the Michigan economy through the democratization of innovation and entrepreneurship and the need to provide authentic experiences to engage and retain students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) disciplines and careers. We are presently engaged in the project planning phase of the Innovation 5 concept. Innovation 5 will be a community-based rapid prototyping/additive manufacturing facility that will be housed within and will be integral to the Impression 5 Science Center in downtown Lansing, MI. This space is envisioned to house resources such as rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing equipment, meeting spaces and networking facilities for collaboration, This space will also serve as a core element of the informal learning experience for visitors to the Impression 5 Science Center. Impression 5 is currently planning a dramatic renovation and expansion which provides a window of opportunity for development of this new concept. Innovation 5 is planned to function at the intersection of three major trends in education and economic development; additive manufacturing and rapid prototyping, authentic STEM experiences for students and community based innovation and entrepreneurial support.. Additive Manufacturing/Rapid Prototyping: Additive manufacturing and rapid prototyping are poised to be the next great digital revolution, where the barrier between digital concept and physical object ceases to exist. "Machines that turn binary digits into physical objects are pioneering a whole new way of making things" one that could rewrite the rules of manufacturing in much the same way that the PC laid waste to traditional computing (The Economist Technology Quarterly Dec 1, 2012) This technological revolution is becoming a central feature of a new set of institutions that make these facilities available to entrepreneurs as shared community resources. Global networks are already forming as non-profits such as FabLabs and MakerSpaces, commercial entities like TechShop and at the Federal government level, such as the recently announced National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute. Authentic STEM Experiences for Students: There is increasing recognition that student learning can be dramatically enhanced by enabling students to engage in inquiry-driven work that connects their learning to the real world and that involves collaboration and communication. For example, the National Science Foundation is devoting significant resources to promote the concept of learning through innovation through such programs as the I-Corps. The informal science education community has moved strongly towards becoming a center for STEM learning in conjunction with more traditional learning environments. The National Science Foundation recently changed the name of its Informal Science Education (ISE) division to Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL). The Impression 5 Science Center is also actively pursuing the link between informal education and innovation through its new exhibit, the Build Zone where children are encouraged to create and test new structures in a wide variety of physical formats. Community-based Entrepreneurial Support: The Maker/FabLab culture emphasizes the democratization of these new technologies. We feel that this can be a key contribution of Innovation 5 to the City of Lansing community. The population of the City of Lansing is diverse with a high proportion of members of underrepresented groups. In addition, Lansing is undersupported compared to neighboring communities in terms of access to technology and related educational resources. By becoming the local "on ramp to innovation," Innovation 5 can provide low-cost, easy-entry access to these new technologies for community members, whether as microentrepreneurs or just to access these technologies for personal interest. The goal of the Innovation 5 proposal is to meld these threads into a new type of institution. We view the Innovation 5 space as a graded environment for STEM learning through innovation. The facility is envisaged to have a "front end" that serves as an inviting informal education setting where children and families can learn about and participate in the process of innovation and where they can actually see and interact with, in a controlled fashion, the rapid prototyping facility. The "back end" of the facility will have multiple spaces with various levels of controlled access. There will be a collaboration space with visual global networking capability and access to design tools that will be relatively open. Beyond that area would be a space with rapid prototyping tools that require training and supervision for access and operation. One step beyond this might be small spaces for entrepreneurs to pursue more advanced projects. Students will participate integrally in all aspects of Innovation 5's functioning, from interacting with children in an informal setting to serving as team members in developing products from concept to market. Students will also provide the core of the group managing the facility, with substantial input into the direction Innovation 5 will take. Consistent with this vision, 6 student interns are diligently working this summer as a project planning team. They are focusing on various aspects of the facility, from design and equipment needs to marketing and social media. We anticipate completing the project planning phase this summer, to be followed by focused fundraising efforts to install and maintain Innovation 5. Impression 5 Science Center is strongly supportive of this project and has generously offered to provide ample space within their current building envelope for Innovation 5. With this support as well as financial support already received from Lansing area community, education and economic development groups, we are confident that we are well on our way to creating Innovation 5, the first facility of its kind in the United States, and one that has great potential to be replicated nationally.
The Chester County intermediate Unit developed strong collaborations between school districts and informal education providers across Pennsylvania to engage thousands of students in high quality learning experiences. NASA will support these partnering institutions as they engage local teachers in professional development in high quality instruction during the school year. Requirements for both summer activities and school year activities necessitates cooperative agreements with secondary education partners to ensure fulfilling participation requirements such as reaching a large number of middle school students and teachers. The CCIU has many potential partners in the PA SoI project who have expressed interest in participating; including Carnegie-Mellon Robotics Academy, Cheyney University, Widener University, the Philadelphia School District, the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the NASTAR flight facility. With a renewed effort by the CCIU the PA Summer of Innovation Program will be implemented through the PAIU NET to provide quality STEM programming to students and STEM training to teachers while monitoring student outcomes. In Eastern PA camps will be held August 1-5 at 36 sites in the 20 participating school districts statewide. In Chester County, camp sites include Gordon Elementary School and Pope John Paul II Regional Catholic School. Additionally several NASA SoI Mini-Camps were held increasing the breath and depth of the program's impact.
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Chester County Intermediate UnitJohn Hall
Educators from K-12 and higher education are collaborating on a new school of the future projects involving humanoid robots and other forms of robots and student and teacher productivity tools. We are working in the areas of STEAM Plus. (science, technology, engineering, visual and performing arts, mathematics, computer languages and foreign languages) All team members will share their action research results through a traveling exhibition to all twelve public libraries in the city of Long Beach, California. Kids Talk Radio through its Backpack Science, Journalism, and Backpack Robotics programs will create video and audio podcasts of the action research and share findings over the Internet with schools, libraries and museums around the world.
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Super School SoftwareBob BarbozaWalter Martinez
Project Exploration’s week-long summer Environmental Adventurers program immersed eleven Chicago Public School middle and high school students into the world of urban bees and biodiversity research. We employed a place-based approach to ground learning experiences and exploration within uniquely urban spaces. Students used mobile technology to explore the environment, document native bees, and engage in authentic fieldwork research and data analysis. Students maximized the potential of the technology in ways that forced program leaders to rethink the potential of mobile technology as an
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Jameela JafriGabrielle LyonStephanie MadziarRebecca ToniettoProject ExplorationChicago Botanic GardenNorthwestern University
Informal Learning Solutions and its subcontractor, Audience Viewpoints Consulting, conducted summative evaluation in 2013 of the Life Beyond Earth Exhibit. Audience Viewpoints was responsible for evaluating student response to the exhibit, with a target audience of students in 4th through 6th grades. Informal Learning Solutions conducted evaluation of weekend, primarily adult visitors response to the exhibit. The key evaluation questions were designed to find out if student visitors show gains in understanding regarding: • How extreme life on Earth is relevant for the search for life in our
The Pueblo of Santa Clara's Community Library will continue its important role as a community anchor in fostering 21st-century learning and information use with a range of interactive projects that will engage community members of all ages. Technology Access Nights will foster responsible technology use and awareness among young learners and their families, especially promoting safe social media practices. For hands-on technology learning, youth, elders, and their families will collaborate on two oral history projects. One will gather stories of Santa Clara Pueblo women's achievements and cultural endurance, and the other will document strategies for academic success. Also, a youth mentor/internship initiative will create a cadre of "Bookworm Interns" trained in the Every Child Ready to Read Program®, allowing the interns to practice their new skills during the Summer Reading Program, which will be extended from one to five weeks.
In this chapter we present and discuss the results and reflections based on our recent developments and experiences in Europe and in Asia regarding how novel educational design patterns, mobile technologies and software tools can be combined to enhanced learning. We propose and recommend possible directions for the design of future educational activities and technological solutions that can support seamless learning. To the end, we discuss how the notion of seamless learning could be used to tackle some of the challenges our educational systems are facing in connection to the introduction of
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Marcelo MilradLung-Hsiang WongMike SharplesGwo-Jen HwangHiroaki Ogata
The maker movement is fundamentally changing the way educators and educational researchers envision teaching and learning. This movement contends making — an active process of building, designing, and innovating with tools and materials to produce shareable artifacts — is a naturally rich and authentic learning trajectory (Martinez & Stager, 2013). Makerspaces are places where making happens in community. I craft my dissertation to explore these two defining characteristics of makerspaces through a comparative case study (Stake, 1995) and a design experiment (Brown, 1992). In the comparative
There is a widely acknowledged, urgent need for improving and increasing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills among our citizenry and students to navigate the modern world and access the opportunities it affords. The need for a more STEM literate workforce has been discussed in respected reports such as “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” from the National Academies, and data on the workforce show clear benefits of a STEM‐related post secondary education in the current job market. This brief from the Afterschool Alliance explores the impacts and outcomes of afterschool STEM
Click! Urban Adventure Game was a mixed-reality role-playing game where girls worked in teams to solve a fictional mystery based on a real-world issue, using technology and science to conduct their investigation. In this article we describe the design of the experience and present evidence that the game increased girls’ confidence, interest, and knowledge of science and technology and helped to build a community of support and conversation-centred learning for girls. This example has implications for the design of informal learning experiences that bridge interest and identity with science and
The UMN MRSEC conducts an ambitious and multi-faceted education and outreach program to extend the impact of the Center beyond the university, providing undergraduates, college faculty, high school teachers, and K-12 students with opportunities that augment their traditional curriculum and increase their appreciation of materials science and engineering (MS&E). Our summer research program provides high-quality research and educational experiences in MS&E to students and faculty, drawn primarily from undergraduate institutions with limited research opportunities, while placing a strong emphasis on inclusion of women and members of underrepresented groups.