RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
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resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
A brief summary of the results of an analysis of 137 pieces of literature reviewed as part of the project’s comprehensive literature review, focusing specifically on the range of ways imagination is positioned in relation to STEM (as a trait or capability, an outcome, a process, a theoretical framework, or as valuable).
This resource presents a list of categories of “imaginative ways of thinking” as well as word clouds illustrating the huge range of ways imagination is described in literature at the intersections of imagination and STEM. This resource reflects results from a comprehensive review of 137 pieces of literature addressing the intersections of imagination and STEM.
This document categorizes several strategies for fostering imaginative thinking, emergent from our review of literature. Strategies are organized by high-level categories, sub-categories, and specific actions educators or experience designers can take to foster imagination in a range of contexts. The resource also includes relevant citations for further exploration of these strategies. This resource reflects results from a comprehensive review of 137 pieces of literature addressing the intersections of imagination and STEM.
The Joseph Moore Museum at Earlham College will revise its interpreter training and educational programs to reflect current best practices in participatory STEM education. This project will include strengthening their programs to better prepare undergraduate educators, as well as updating the delivery of their top three requested programs to ensure learner-centered experiences. The project will include the development of a training program modeled on a combination of principles set out by the National Association of Interpretation and the Reflections on Practice program. Undergraduate educators will undergo systematic training in the fundamentals of educational theory and practice and benefit from a program of sustained evaluation and mentorship.
The Springfield Science Museum will increase participation in informal science learning by making its educational programs and learning spaces more accessible and inclusive. Museum staff will undergo Disability Inclusion and Universal Design training to redesign and enhance a core multi-use learning space and principle STEM program that can remove physical, cognitive, and social barriers to learning. External evaluators will measure access needs and learning outcomes before and after project upgrades in order to track progress and develop a scalable model of inclusive practice for all the museum’s science programming. The result will be an improved educational experience for visitors of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
The Discovery Museums will develop and implement a continuous improvement process to improve the impact of its STEM programming by strengthening staff skills in using evaluation data. The project will begin with a series of training sessions for learning programs staff based on feedback from youth regarding the quality of the museum's program delivery and an assessment of staff competencies in positive youth development. Participating staff will benefit from a deeper understanding of data and the ability to build ongoing evaluation and positive youth development practices into their program presentations in a way that supports Social-Emotional Learning outcomes. The project will potentially result in a process and set of tools to quantify the impact of STEM programming that can be shared with other informal learning organizations.
In response to a growing demand for early learner, in-school services for New York City's Universal Pre-kindergarten program, the Brooklyn Children's Museum will expand its outreach to schools in surrounding districts. The museum will create 24 new collections cases containing cultural and natural science objects. It will also develop related curricula and activity guides. A pre-K educator advisory council will work with the museum to ensure that the themes of the cases align with New York State Learning Standards for Pre-kindergarten and Pre-school students. The museum will also provide professional development workshops for up to 100 pre-K educators to support inquiry and object-based learning.
DuPage Children's Museum will enhance visitor engagement by incorporating current research on infant and toddler development to redesign two exhibits and develop an educational program for low-income caregivers. The museum will partner with two community-based organizations, Teen Parent Connection and Family Focus DuPage, to collaborate in the project and refer clients to participate in the educational programs. The museum will present twelve onsite sessions that will enable parents and caregivers to nurture an understanding of STEM fundamentals at the museum and at home for their young children. Participants will be given educational videos and take-home kits that correspond with the educational sessions. Project activities will also include training to help museum staff use the exhibits to further a visitor's learning experience. The museum will disseminate project results to other children's museums and early childhood educators and professionals.
The paper presents and discusses the Research and Development and related reflective practice process for the design of an approach to STEM school education. It focuses on Future Inventors, an education project of the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci which aims to design, develop, test, and define an approach for teaching and learning in STEM at junior high school. Through this case study, the authors argue for the need to design for learning activities in which children can learn creatively building on their own potential and, for educators, to develop and maintain
This project aims to formally define what a sense of belonging means in the science & natural history museum context as a way to measure inclusivity efforts. We think that most of the experiences that make up a museum visit have a relatively neutral effect on visitor sense of belonging. However, visitors may experience moments that make them feel distinctly positive or negative, and these moments that matter may influence a visitor’s STEM engagement, interest, and/or identity.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Conversations with parents during engagement in informal learning settings, such as museums, can play a critical role in facilitating young children’s early experiences and interest in STEM (Jant et al., 2014; NRC, 2012). There is an acute need to support early STEM engagement for underrepresented families. Successful community partnerships between informal learning settings and Head Start are one way to broaden participation, interest, and success in the STEM fields for underrepresented children and families.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.