This CAISE report is designed to track and characterize sector growth, change and impact, important publications, hot topics/trends, new players, funding, and other related areas in Informal STEM Education (ISE) in 2017. The goal is to provide information and links for use by ISE professionals, science communicators, and interested stakeholders who want to discover new strategies and potential collaborators for project and proposal development. Designed as a slide presentation and divided into sectors, it can be used modularly or as a complete report. Each sector reports on research, events
This Science Learning+ project will develop a Youth Access & Equity Research & Practice Agenda, focusing on addressing equity issues for youth, ages 11-14, primarily from non-dominant backgrounds. The project will involve researchers and practitioners from three ISL settings/contexts, (1) Designed spaces, e.g., museums; (2) Community-based, e.g., afterschool clubs; and (3) Everyday science, e.g., science media. The goal of the agenda will be to advance scholarly understanding of equity issues in relation to these three contexts. Taking an ecological view of STEM learning as a sociocultural process of participation and transformation, the project will employ a Complex Adaptive System lens to document multiple pathways youth take (or not) within/across ISL settings over time, the impact these pathways have on learning and development, and their influence on ISL organizations themselves. These lenses will help us identify aspects of learning environments which shape youth access and development, and the value and impact of the equity ideas, tools and practices.
This report presents findings from Goodman Research Group's evaluation of the following: (1) The NOVA scienceNOW series, including viewer feedback on Season Three and the knowledge gained from viewing the six new episodes, (2) The NOVA scienceNOW website, and (3) Focus groups conducted at the Science Café conference in June 2008. Includes survey.
The National Science Foundation funded Roadside Heritage (RH) to produce three major deliverables during this project: (1) STEM-rich audio stories for the traveling public that highlight the science associated with Highway 395; (2) Traveling festival kits that highlight major STEM features of the Eastern Sierra landscape; and (3) The RH website, a STEM-rich site highlighting the natural and cultural landscape associate with Highway 395. During the project’s final year, WestEd conducted summative evaluation activities targeting each of these deliverables. Appendix contains survey.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jerome HippsSharon HerpinDonna Winston
This study compared grandparent-grandchild groups who experienced an informal science exhibition by visiting a museum or by visiting a website. Although intergenerational learning is often the focus of visitor research, few studies have focused specifically on grandparents as an audience. Do they have unique intergenerational needs that museums and websites are not yet supporting? Do they find museums and websites to be good places to learn alongside their grandchildren? Our findings suggested that grandparents prefer museums as locations for intergenerational learning because the museum
The current study compared 90 older adult-child pairs in three different informal settings that focused on the topic of heart health: a museum, the web, and an educational workshop. Pre/post interviews showed that learning in the museum and web was more similar than learning in the workshop condition. Participants learned more about prevention in the workshop, and systems in the museum and web. In addition, older adults in the museum and workshop, reported that they would learn more in the company of children, while older adults would prefer to learn alone while on the web. These findings have
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) conducted a summative evaluation of the second season of NOVA scienceNOW, the PBS series that explores cutting-edge scientific and technological innovation in real time. (GRG also served as the external evaluator for NOVA scienceNOW during Season One). In addition to the television series, WGBH-TV developed a companion website, a series of high school classroom activities, and a Science Cafe outreach initiative, designed to discuss, in non-academic environments, the latest developments in science. The Season Two evaluation included: 1) a viewer study
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) conducted a summative evaluation of the first season of NOVA scienceNOW, the PBS series that explores cutting-edge scientific and technological innovation in real time. The evaluation included two primary components: 1) an evaluation of the television series, and 2) an evaluation of the outreach, which consisted of a companion website and a series of Science Cafes hosted around the country. GRG's evaluation was designed to assess the project's effectiveness in meeting its overall goal of engaging a variety of audiences more deeply with scientific research in
“The Fabric of the Cosmos” is a special four-hour NOVA series that takes viewers to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture we have ever had of space, time, and the universe. Based on the book of the same title by Columbia University physicist and author Brian Greene, "The Fabric of the Cosmos" explores a world just beneath the surface of our everyday experience that we would hardly recognize a startling world far stranger and more wondrous than anyone expected. Interweaving provocative theories, experiments, and stories with clear
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Pam CastoriWGBHBecky CarrollLaura Stokes
The NSF-funded 400 Years of the Telescope project was a unique partnership among a public television station, a production studio, two planetariums and a leading astronomical society in the United States. Its five main components included a one-hour PBS documentary, a 22-minute planetarium program, a website with astronomical infromation, "star parties"(nighttime astronomical viewing events) and promotional events hosted by PBS affiliate stations. The summative evaluation focused on three main evaluation questions: 1) What are the individual and cumulative impacts of the menu of deliverables
To address a lack of informal science education opportunities and to increase community capacity to support STEM education for their children, Washington State University's Yakima Valley/Tri Cities MESA program, the Pacific Science Center, and KDNA Educational Radio have developed a set of informal science initiatives that offer complementary learning opportunities for rural Latino families. The goal of this four-year program is to create a sustainable informal science infrastructure in southeastern Washington State to serve families, increase parental awareness, support and involvement in science education and ultimately increase the numbers of rural Latino youth pursuing STEM-related under graduate studies. This program is presented in English and Spanish languages in all of its interconnected deliverables: Two mobile exhibits, beginning with one focused on agricultural and environmental science developed by The Pacific Science (PCS) Center; Curriculum and training in agriculture, life sciences and facilitating learning; Curriculum and training for community members to provide support to parents in encouraging the academic aspirations of their children developed by PSC and MESA; 420 Youth and parents from the MESA program trained to interpret exhibits and run workshops, community festivals, family science workshops and Saturday programs throughout the community; Four annual community festivals, quarterly Family Saturday events, and Family Science Workshops reaching 20,000 people over the four-year project; Take home activities, science assemblies, a website and CDs with music and science programming for community events; A large media initiative including monthly one hour call-in radio programs featuring science experts, teachers, professionals, students and parents, 60-second messages promoting science concepts and resources and a publicity campaign in print, radio and TV to promote community festivals. These venues reach 12,500-25,000 people each; A program manual that includes training, curriculum and collaborative strategies used by the project team. Overall Accesso la Ciencia connects parents and children through fun community activities to Pasco School District's current LASER science education reform effort. This project complements the school districts effort by providing a strong community support initiative in informal science education. Each activity done in the community combines topics of interest to rural Latinos (agriculture for instance) to concepts being taught in the schools, while also providing tools and support to parents that increases their awareness of opportunities for their children in STEM education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
James PrattD. Janae' LandisDonald LynchMichael Trevisan