Florida State University and partner University of Alabama will collect and analyze data on how STEM teachers can most effectively collaborate with librarians. The data will be collected at focus groups held at four national conferences: the American Association of School Librarians, the Public Library Association, the National Science Teachers Association, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This variety of participants at these conferences will allow for diverse opinions, thoughts, and ideas to be compiled, supporting the analysis of how the collaboration between STEM teacher and librarian is working today and providing recommendations on how it could be improved. The overall goal of this planning grant is to assess what is happening in the field so the information can then be shared with the educational and library communities for greater impact.
This report describes key findings from the Chicago Public Library (CPL) Maker Lab, a hands-on collaborative learning environment for residents of Chicago to create and design items while enhancing their 21st century skills. The key outcomes of the Maker Lab are building basic literacy; building digital, information, and cultural literacy; advancing critical thinking and problem solving; advancing creativity and innovation; and fostering communication and collaboration.
Westport Library, with its partners, Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and Connecticut State Library - Division of Library Development (CSL-DLD), and with SPARK! Consulting, will introduce a new model of maker space in libraries and a way to systematically integrate the culture of interactive "making" into the library profession. Westport will introduce a culture of innovation, while honoring the needs of more traditional libraries. There will be self-directed, hands-on maker experiences; maker workshops; and makers-in-residence who will support workshops and innovation labs on topics such as robotics, LED quilt creations, and tinkering with home electronics repairs. The library will also create Interactive Innovation Stations (iStations) to introduce people to the concepts and techniques of innovative thinking. It will be an environment where people can experiment, take calculated risks, and work collaboratively.
The Howard County Library System (HCLS), in partnership with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, will use this grant to enhance the teen digital media lab at the Savage Branch Library by adding science, technology, engineering, and math projects and implementing that same STEM-focused model in three other libraries. The "Hi Tech Academy: The Road to a STEM Career" project will address the increasing demand for workers with STEM-related skills as the number of college graduates in these fields decreases. This program will create a model to be replicated at other libraries, bring awareness of how to best teach these skills, increase interest in STEM for youth, and address the demand for these skills in the community.
NOVA Labs (www.pbs.org/nova/labs) is a web-based platform designed to engage teens and educators with authentic data, scientific games, tools, and opportunities to communicate with and assist working scientists. The present study sought to investigate the outcomes achieved by users of the fourth NOVA Labs platform developed: RNA Lab. The RNA Lab includes several key components of the previous labs (e.g., videos, educator guides, etc.). The major difference is that the RNA Lab “research challenge” is a game component. The NOVA Education team's overarching goals for teens using the Lab focused
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
This report provides a brief summary of a research meeting on making and makerspaces organized by Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center. The meeting took place July 21st and 22nd, 2014 at The Children’s Museum. Motivated by a resurgence of interest in DIY (do-it-yourself) culture and prompted by the introduction of new technologies, physical computing and fabrication, the Maker Movement offers new opportunities for learning experiences that develop creativity and innovation. Making and makerspaces represent an emerging
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Children's Museum of PittsburghUniversity of PittsburghPeter WardripLisa BrahmsKevin Crowley
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Based on nearly two decades of museum programming for low-income Hispanic and African American girls at the Miami Science Museum, this extension service project employs a train-the-trainers approach to build a network of museum-based Extension Agents dedicated to helping informal science educators attract the interest and support the persistence of minority girls, grades 6-12, currently underrepresented in STEM studies. Led by the Miami Science Museum, the collaboration brings together an experienced group of institutions with representation from the informal science, gender research, and engineering communities. In addition to the Museum, the Expert Project Team consists of key staff from the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), and SECME Inc. (formerly the Southeastern Consortium of Minorities in Engineering), who serve as the conduit for the participation of minority engineering professional organizations. An advisory/research panel of researchers in gender in STEM, whose work complements those of the project investigators, works closely with the Expert Project Team to prepare Extension Agents from ten geographically dispersed museums, who in turn provide a range of training and peer mentoring services to the practitioner community of informal science educators in science-rich institutions nationwide. Participating museums include: Connecticut Science Center (Hartford, CT), New York Hall of Science (New York, NY), Maryland Science Center (Baltimore, MD), Miami Science Museum (Miami, FL), COSI (Columbus, OH), St. Louis Science Center (St. Louis, MO), Louisville Science Center (Louisville, KY), Sci-Port (Shreveport, LA), Explora (Albuquerque, NM), and California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco, CA).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Judy BrownLaura Huerta MigasMichele Williams
Oramics to Electronica was a 2011 Science Museum project designed to put the tools of museum participation in the service of research into public history, taking the history of electronic music as our example. The primary output was a temporary exhibition. Whereas the term ‘public history’ is often used to denote popularisation of academic history, in this inflection we are primarily concerned with how lay people like our visitors think about the past in general, and about the past of science and technology in particular. Taking the opportunities that arose, we worked with two ‘expert’ groups
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Tim BoonMerel van der VaartKaty Price
This report applies a practice-based approach to learning and making in the context of a museum makerspace (The Makeshop at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh). This perspective draws upon theories of cultural and social learning, which assert an understanding of learning as fundamentally tied to the social and cultural contexts in which it occurs and focuses on the "practices" that define learning communities. The practices identified in this report are observable and/or reportable evidence of learners' engagement in making as a learning process.