This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by engaging in hands-on field experience, laboratory/project-based entrepreneurship tasks and mentorship experiences. This ITEST project aims to research the STEM career interests of late elementary and middle-school students and, based on the results of that research, build an informal education program to involve families and community partners to enhance their science knowledge, attitudes, experiences, and resources. There is an emphasis on underrepresented and low income students and their families.
The project will research and test a new model to promote the development of positive attitudes toward STEM and to increase interest in STEM careers. Phase 1 of the project will include exploratory research examining science capital and habitus for a representative sample of youth at three age ranges: 8-9, 9-10 and 11-12 years. The project will measure the access that youth have to adults who engage in STEM careers and STEM leisure activities. In phase II the project will test a model with a control group and a treatment group to enhance science capital and habitus for youth.
Citizen science is a form of Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) in which the participants are engaged in the scientific process to support research that results in scientifically valid data. Opportunities for participation in real and authentic scientific research have never been larger or broader than they are today. The growing popularity and refinement of PPSR efforts (such as birding and species counting studies orchestrated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) have created both an opportunity for science engagement and a need for more research to better implement such projects in order to maximize both benefits to and contributions from the public.
Towards this end, Shirk et al. have posted a design framework for PPSR projects that delineates distinct levels of citizen scientist participation; from the least to the highest level of participation, these categories are contract, contribute, collaborate, co-create, and colleagues. The distinctions among these levels are important to practitioners seeking to design effective citizen science programs as each increase in citizen science participation in the scientific process is hypothesized to have both benefits and obstacles. The literature on citizen science models of PPSR calls for more research on the role that this degree of participation plays in the quality of that participation and related learning outcomes (e.g., Shirk et al., 2012; Bonney et al., 2009). With an unprecedented interest in thoughtfully incorporating citizen science into health-based studies, citizen science practitioners and health researchers first need a better understanding of the role of culture in how different communities approach and perceive participation in health-related studies, the true impact of intended educational efforts from participation, and the role participation in general has on the scientific process and the science outcome.
Project goal to address critical barrier in the field: Establish best practices for use of citizen science in the content area of human health-based research, and better inform the design of future projects in PPSR, both in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Genetics of Taste Lab (Lab), and importantly, in various research and educational settings across the field.
Aims
Understand who currently engages in citizen science projects in order to design strategies to overcome the barriers to participation that occur at each level of the PPSR framework, particularly among audiences underrepresented in STEM.
Significantly advance the current knowledge regarding how citizen scientists engage in, and learn from, and participate in the different levels of the PPSR framework.
Determine the impact that each stage of citizen science participation has on the scientific process.
This annual report presents an overview of Saint Louis Science Center audience data gathered through a variety of evaluation studies conducted during 2015. This report includes information on the Science Center's general public audience demographics and visitation patterns, gives an overview of visitors' comments about their Science Center experience, summarizes major trends observed in the Science Center's tool for tracking educational programs, and presents highlights from a Membership study, a formative evaluation of a new Makerspace exhibition, and program evaluation of a workshop for the
As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is conducting regional STEM workshops in partnership with local science museums, entitled NFB STEM2U, for blind youth [youth], grades 3 – 6 and 9-12 [apprentices]. During the sixth and final regional workshop in Minneapolis, MN, the NFB operated two different programs simultaneously: one program for youth and a second program for their parents/caregivers. A third program, for the Science Museum of Minnesota staff, was conducted earlier to prepare the museum staff to assist with the youth program
BioEYES, a nonprofit outreach program using zebrafish to excite and educate K–12 students about science and how to think and act like scientists, has been integrated into hundreds of under-resourced schools since 2002. During the week-long experiments, students raise zebrafish embryos to learn principles of development and genetics. We have analyzed 19,463 participating students’ pre- and post-tests within the program to examine their learning growth and attitude changes towards science. We found that at all grade levels, BioEYES effectively increased students’ content knowledge and produced
The Space and Earth Informal STEM Education (SEISE) project, led by the Arizona State University with partners Science Museum of Minnesota, Museum of Science, Boston, and the University of California Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and Space Sciences Laboratory, is raising the capacity of museums and informal science educators to engage the public in Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics, and their social dimensions through the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net). SEISE will also partner on a network-to-network basis with other existing coalitions and professional associations dedicated to informal and lifelong STEM learning, including the Afterschool Alliance, National Girls Collaborative Project, NASA Museum Alliance, STAR_Net, and members of the Association of Children’s Museums and Association of Science-Technology Centers. The goals for this project include engaging multiple and diverse public audiences in STEM, improving the knowledge and skills of informal educators, and encouraging local partnerships.
In collaboration with the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD), SEISE is leveraging NASA subject matter experts (SMEs), SMD assets and data, and existing educational products and online portals to create compelling learning experiences that will be widely use to share the story, science, and adventure of NASA’s scientific explorations of planet Earth, our solar system, and the universe beyond. Collaborative goals include enabling STEM education, improving U.S. scientific literacy, advancing national educational goals, and leveraging science activities through partnerships. Efforts will focus on providing opportunities for learners explore and build skills in the core science and engineering content, skills, and processes related to Earth and space sciences. SEISE is creating hands-on activity toolkits (250-350 toolkits per year over four years), small footprint exhibitions (50 identical copies), and professional development opportunities (including online workshops).
Evaluation for the project will include front-end and formative data to inform the development of products and help with project decision gates, as well as summative data that will allow stakeholders to understand the project’s reach and outcomes.
There is a growing need for citizens to be able to work with data and consider how data is represented. This work employs a design, make, play framework to create data modeling learning experiences for young children and their caregivers in an informal setting. The project develops and tests a curriculum for a workshop series for 5-8 year old children to engage them in playful exploration of data modeling. Children engage in data collection, data representation, and data analysis by drawing on their own experiences of museum exhibitions. The curriculum supports developing children's interest and engagement with data science and data literacy, which are foundational knowledge for a range of STEM careers and disciplines. This project advances efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM).
The project is grounded in a theoretical framework for young children's learning that focus on playful exploration, design, and building on children's own experiences and questions. The research examines how the curriculum needs to be designed to support families in data modeling, foster engagement in data modeling by both younger (ages 5-6) and older (ages 7-8) children, and provide evidence of active approaches to learning about STEM. The design and development project tests and investigates the materials using a design-based research framework. Children who participate in the workshop series should increase their confidence in solving problems, taking initiative, and drawing on available resources to pursue their own questions and respond to novel challenges. Data collected includes interviews with participants, artifacts of children's work throughout the series, and an observational instrument to document families' problem solving, persistence, and engagement with data science concepts.
Designing Our World (DOW) was a four-year NSF-funded initiative in which the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) sought to promote girls’ pursuit of engineering careers through community-based programming, exhibition development, and identity research. The overarching aim of DOW was to engage girls ages 9–14 with experiences that illuminate the social, personally relevant, and altruistic nature of engineering. In addition to programming for girls, the project also included workshops for parents/caregivers, professional development for staff from community partners; and an exhibition
In March of 2016, the Exploratorium transmitted a live webcast of a total solar eclipse from Woleai, a remote island in the southwestern Pacific. The webcast reached over 1 million viewers. Evaluation reveals effective use of digital media to engage learners in solar science and related STEM content.
Edu, Inc. conducted an external evaluation study that shows clear and consistent evidence of broad distribution of STEM content through multiple online channels, social media, pre-produced videos, and an app for mobile devices. IBM Watson did a deep analysis of tweets on eclipse topics that
In order to improve science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM) learning, it is crucial to better understand the informal experiences that young children have that prepare them for formal science education. Young children are naturally curious about the world around them, and research in developmental psychology shows that families often support children in exploring and seeking explanations for scientific phenomena. It is less clear how to link children's natural curiosity and everyday parent-child interaction with more formal STEM learning. This collaborative project will team researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, the University of Texas, and Brown University with informal learning practitioners at the Children's Discovery Museum, The Thinkery, and the Providence Children's Museum in order to investigate how family interaction relates to children's causal learning, as well as how modifications to museum exhibit design and facilitation by museum staff influence families' styles of interaction and increase children's causal learning. This project is funded by the Research on Education and Learning (REAL) program which supports fundamental research by investigators from a range of disciplines in order to deepen what is known about STEM learning.
The project team will examine how ethnically and linguistically diverse samples of parents and children engage in collaborative scientific learning in three children's museums across the U.S. The research will combine observational studies of parent-child interaction in a real-world setting with experimental measures of children's causal learning. The investigators will examine how children explore and derive explanations for museum exhibits about mechanical gear function and fluid dynamics. In this way, the researchers will investigate the relation between styles of parent-child interaction and children's causal learning. The team will also investigate novel ways of presenting material within the exhibits to facilitate exploration and explanation. They will explore how signage, conversations with museum staff, parents' attitudes towards learning in museum settings, and parents' own prior knowledge about the exhibits can influence the parent-child interaction and subsequent causal learning. The project will advance the basic research goal of advancing what is known about what affects children's science content learning. It will also advance the practice-oriented goal of developing new strategies for the design of science museum exhibits and make recommendations for how parents can better talk to their children about scientific phenomena.
Increasingly, the prosperity, innovation and security of individuals and communities depend on a big data literate society. Yet conspicuously absent from the big data revolution is the field of teaching and learning. The revolution in big data must match a complementary revolution in a new kind of literacy, through a significant infusion of STEM education with the kinds of skills that the revolution in 21st century data-driven science demands. This project represents a concerted effort to determine what it means to be a big data literate citizen, information worker, researcher, or policymaker; to identify the quality of learning resources and programs to improve big data literacy; and to chart a path forward that will bridge big data practice with big data learning, education and career readiness.
Through a process of inquiry research and capacity-building, New York Hall of Science will bring together experts from member institutions of the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub to galvanize big data communities of practice around education, identify and articulate the nature and quality of extant big data education resources and draft a set of big data literacy principles. The results of this planning process will be a planning document for a Big Data Literacy Spoke that will form an initiative to develop frameworks, strategies and scope and sequence to advance lifelong big data literacy for grades P-20 and across learning settings; and devise, implement, and evaluate programs, curricula and interventions to improve big data literacy for all. The planning document will articulate the findings of the inquiry research and evaluation to provide a practical tool to inform and cultivate other initiatives in data literacy both within the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub and beyond.
By engaging diverse publics in immersive and deliberative learning forums, this three-year project will use NOAA data and expertise to strengthen community resilience and decision-making around a variety of climate and weather-related hazards across the United States. Led by Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes and the Museum of Science Boston, the project will develop citizen forums hosted by regional science centers to create a new, replicable model for learning and engagement. These forums, to be hosted initially in Boston and Phoenix and then expanded to an additional six sites around the U.S., will facilitate public deliberation on real-world issues of concern to local communities, including rising sea levels, extreme precipitation, heat waves, and drought. The forums will identify and clarify citizen values and perspectives while creating stakeholder networks in support of local resilience measures. The forum materials developed in collaboration with NOAA will foster better understanding of environmental changes and best practices for improving community resiliency, and will create a suite of materials and case studies adaptable for use by science centers, teachers, and students. With regional science centers bringing together the public, scientific experts, and local officials, the project will create resilience-centered partnerships and a framework for learning and engagement that can be replicated nationwide.