This project will use a complex systems approach to hazard reduction across multiple scales of risk by developing a new generation of socio-technical digital twin that integrates models of physical infrastructure systems and virtual networks of communication with social games to engage community awareness and commitment to collective action.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kenichi SogaLouise ComfortStephen CollierMichael GollnerJ. Keith Gilless
This project will apply a mixed-methods approach to assess how sociotechnical networks can be leveraged to increase knowledge and awareness of environmental and industrial hazards and to build community adaptive capacity equitably among diverse residents of the Coastal Bend Region of Texas.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Michelle HummelKarabi BezboruahKathryn MastenYonghe LiuOswald Jenewein
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. Informal STEM learning opportunities are often rare in rural locations where the early childhood education system is also under-resourced. Through partnerships with educational researchers, early math educators, pediatric health experts, and pediatric clinics, this project will develop and study a new opportunity for informal math learning. The project will work with pediatric clinics that serve rural immigrant families who are racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse. The project leverages the high levels of trust many caregivers have in their child’s pediatrician to improve math learning during critical early years. This project will build on a previous program where physician text messages to caregivers supported youth literacy development. In this instance the project will support caregivers’ math interactions with their 3- and 4-year-olds to cultivate children's math knowledge and skills. The text messaging program will be grounded in research in child development, mathematics learning, parenting practices, and adult behavior change. Texts will also provide caregiver supports for how to engage their children in mathematical activates in their everyday lives and provide information about the important skills children are developing. Text messages will be co-developed with caregiver input, and focus on content underlying mathematical development such as Number Sense, Classification and Patterning, Measurement, Geometry, and Reasoning. Caregivers will receive text messages from their pediatric clinics three times a week for eight months. For example, three related texts supporting Number Sense include: “FACT: Kids enjoy counting and it prepares them for K! Mealtimes are a fun time to practice counting objects;” “TIP: At a meal, say: Can you count all the cups on the table? All the plates? What else can you count? (Forks) Tell them: Great job!” and “GROWTH: You are helping kids to count & get ready for K. At the park, ask: How many bikes are there? How many birds? Count together & find out!” Throughout the planning and implementation phases of the project the team will work closely with early education math experts, key advisors, and caregivers to ensure the text messaging program is tailored to meet the cultural, linguistic, and contextual needs of rural caregivers and children.
The project will research impacts of the text messaging program on children, caregivers, and clinical staff. First, the project will investigate the impact of the texting program on children through a randomized trial, and pre-and-post measures of early childhood math skills and abilities. Second, using interviews at baseline and in a 9-month follow-up, the project will study the texting program’s impact on caregivers’ perceptions regarding the importance of math learning for young children. Third, the project will explore the impact of the text messaging program on health professionals’ understanding of math learning in early childhood by collecting qualitative data and assessing attitudes about the clinic’s role in supporting early math. Caregivers and clinic staff will also participate in focus groups to better understand impacts for each of these groups. The project will reach 1000 families, who will be randomly assigned to treatment or control groups through block-randomization, stratified by caregiver language and child’s age. This parent-informed project will build evidence toward new approaches to promoting early math in the pediatric clinic, an informal environment that can reach all families and can leverage innovative technology. Findings will be shared widely though a communication and engagement plan that includes children, caregivers, physicians and clinic staff, informal STEM educators, researchers, and policy makers.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lisa ChamberlainSusanna LoebJaime Peterson
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The goal of this pilot and feasibility study is to increase participation in informal STEM learning in rural Idaho through Stories of Fire, a program based on personal narratives of wildland fire. Idaho is a rural state, with an average population of just 19 people per square mile, the fourth lowest population density in the United States. The state is experiencing increasingly severe wildfire, and effective responses to such environmental change require a better understanding of the underlying science. Contextualizing science learning, making connections between everyday lives and a sense of place can engage learners and bring about a better understanding of wildfire. This project will bring together a science communicator, a narratologist, a fire ecologist, and a specialist on emotions and public lands. They will work collaboratively with informal educators based in rural areas of Idaho underrepresented in STEM fields. Rural areas are rich in knowledge based on years of cumulative observations, cultural beliefs, and practices shared through community networks. This project builds on these rural assets while addressing the challenges rural populations face. The project addresses broadening participation in STEM through narrative practices that encourage more diverse ways of knowing, being, and representing science.
This research study will explore: 1) what mechanisms of narrative (storytelling) most effectively integrate individuals? personal experiences and accurate STEM content in fire science communication, and 2) what audience-centered approaches best facilitate narrative approaches to informal STEM learning. This project engages four levels of participants over four phases of research and programming: 1) The research team will interview and analyze the narratives of 40 Frontliners (e.g., wildland firefighters and evacuees) from the inland Northwest region with first-hand experience with wildfire. 2) They will conduct a narrative workshop to train 20 informal STEM Educators from across the state on audience-centered approaches that facilitate participant storytelling about fire. 3) Educators will pilot their own narrative-based informal science learning programs with program participants in their rural home communities across the state, 4) A professional podcaster will create two podcasts modeled on our research findings for public audiences reached through media.
This Pilots and Feasibility Studies award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Teresa CohnLeda KobziarJennifer LadinoErin James
The University of South Carolina will develop and research an educational program in the Southeastern United States designed to recognize and foreground the scientific contributions of the descendants of West Africans and West Indians. Though these contributions have been vital to many scientific enterprises, including land stewardship and aquaponics, they have remained largely underappreciated in educational programs. To address this issue, this project will develop an informal science education program for youth from Gullah/Geechee communities whose ancestors were formerly enslaved West African and West Indian peoples. Across centuries, Gullah/Geechee people have developed historical and contemporary scientific, engineering, and technological practices that enabled the mastery of fishing and the cultivation of numerous crops across barrier islands and coastal cities from North Carolina to Florida. Guided by Gullah/Geechee scholars and community members, pre-service and in-service teachers will co-design culturally sustaining summer programs, which provide Gullah/Geechee youth with opportunities to engage in culturally-embedded scientific and engineering practices as they learn about numerous STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) career pathways related to these practices. The University of South Carolina will host these summer programs in partnership with the historic Penn Center, an African American historical and cultural institution, and in partnership with the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences, a research organization dedicated to improving the management of marine and coastal resources. Researchers will study how the in-service and pre-service teachers enact pedagogies that sustain Gullah/Geechee cultural practices. They will also study how the Gullah/Geechee youth share their understandings of culturally-embedded scientific content through creating iMovies and through giving community presentations hosted by the Penn Center, Baruch Institute, and other community partners. This project will advance knowledge on broadening participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) career pathways in informal settings through culturally sustaining pedagogies. This project will also advance partnerships through illuminating how different institutions and stakeholders?such as community leaders, cultural centers, university educator programs, and scientific research organizations can work together to support culturally-embedded learning across informal settings.
The University of South Carolina will conduct a mixed-method study grounded in principles of design-based research and community-based participatory research. Pre-service and in-service teachers from underrepresented groups will participate in an immersive two-year professional development experience during which they co-design and teach culturally sustaining summer programs with Gullah/Geechee scholars and leaders. In these programs, fifth- and sixth-grade Gullah/Geechee youth will engage in project-based learning by applying historical and contemporary scientific practices grounded in Gullah/Geechee cultures. Guided by cultural mentors, youth will engage in STEM practices similar to those of STEM professionals in the community. Researchers will study how the educators understand and apply culturally sustaining pedagogies by using constant comparative analytic methods to analyze transcripts from observations and interviews, as well as the educators' work materials (e.g., lesson plans). They will also study how the youth convey their understandings of culturally-embedded scientific content and practices by using constant comparative and multimodal analysis to analyze transcripts from interviews and observations, as well as youth-generated artifacts such as the iMovie. Additionally, pre- and post-tests will enable the research team to determine changes to the youths' understandings of scientific content and perceptions regarding participation in STEM enterprises and careers. Deliverables, such as youth-generated products, will be shared with local media and with relevant cultural centers, while empirical results will be widely disseminated through local and national conferences. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts, and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers. This project is also co-funded by the Advanced Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the AISL program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Fostering greater inclusion in science creates benefits for both science and society. In this Innovations and Development project, the University of Utah will investigate how to sustain and scale the STEM Ambassador Program (STEMAP), begun in 2016 with AISL funding. STEMAP developed an innovative process to train scientists to engage members of the public, who cannot or do not gain access to science via conventional science education venues (such as museums, schools, zoos), by implementing activities in non-traditional settings. The 65 scientists trained by the initial STEMAP effort effectively engaged in over 45 settings including an affordable housing development, a youth residential treatment center, a state prison, a cooking class, a daycare facility, and several senior centers. The number of scientists applying to the program quickly exceeded STEMAP's capacity. Other institutions expressed interest in replicating the training. This project will explore strategies for scaling and sustaining public engagement training to support more scientists who can engage more people in more venues. Outcomes will serve to inform the broader implementation of STEMAP and the efforts of other public engagement programs, many of which face similar scaling and sustainability challenges.
Scaling and sustaining public engagement of science (PES) programs is a central challenge for many in the informal science learning community. This project will explore strategies to scale and sustain the STEM Ambassador Program. Research questions include: (1) How do different program formats increase or restrict program capacity and engagement outcomes? (2) What benefits accrue to scientists and their institutions by participating in public engagement in science activities that might serve as motivators to continue these activities? (3) Are funding and organizational models developed in business and other professional settings applicable to sustaining these programs? To address scalability, this project will explore the effectiveness of three dissemination formats: (1) the creation of a mentorship program for in-person trainees, (2) a train-the-trainer approach, and (3) online training with in-person mentorship. The project team will create an evaluation toolkit with participant surveys, rubrics for observers, and "on-the-spot" assessment tools developed under AISL Award 1811022 to assess the effectiveness of engagement activities delivered by trainees in each of the three formats. To address sustainability, the project team will document the values of public engagement training to both the participating scientists and their institutions via surveys and interviews. Consultants from the business sectors will create a PES Campus Council to explore possible financial, organizational, and leadership plans that will help sustain engagement efforts. Outcomes will be published in peer-reviewed journals and compiled into a dissemination framework to inform actions to scale and sustain STEMAP and other public engagement of science programs to engage more hard-to-reach audiences. Inverness Research will serve as the project's external evaluator.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
Future educational robots are emerging as social companions supporting learning. By socially interacting with such a robot, learners can potentially reason and talk about the things they are learning and receive help in seeing the relevance of STEM in their daily lives. However, little is known about how to design educational robots to work with youth at home over a long period of time. This project will develop an informal science learning program, called STEMMates, in collaboration with a local community center, for youth with little interest in science. The program will partner learners with an in-home learning companion robot, designed to read books with youth and provide science activities for them at the community center, where youth will engage in exciting and personally relevant science learning. As the learner reads books, the robot will make comments about what is happening in the book to help connect the reading to the science activities at the community center. The overarching goals of STEMMates are to: (a) positively support youth's individual interest in science and future science learning, (b) connect in-home learning experiences with out-of-school community-based learning, (c) bridge the gap between formal and informal engagement and learning in science, and (d) encourage the participation of youth who are underrepresented and who have low interest in STEM learning. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments.
Researchers will work with youth and staff at the community center, alongside experts in informal science learning, to design the program and then test how learners respond to reading with the robot and participating in the science activities and whether this program has a lasting impact on their science interest. Social interactions with a robot may help distribute cognitive load during learning activities to help youth reason about STEM and also supplement learning by improving feelings of value and belongingness in order to facilitate lasting interest development. Following a mixed-methods research approach using qualitative and quantitative data-collection techniques, the research team will investigate the following research questions: (1) What social and interest-development supports and activities can be utilized as socially situated interest scaffolds in an informal and in-home, augmented reading and science activity program to promote individual interest and learning in science for low interest learners? How can a social robot best facilitate this program? (2) How do learners perceive and interact with the robot in authentic, in-home, long-term situations, and how does this interaction change over time? (3) Does working with a robot designed with socially situated interest scaffolds increase individual interest in science when compared to a pre-intervention baseline, and do these effects impact future (long-term) interest and engagement in formal science learning? To answer these research questions, researchers will implement the science learning program during an 11-week summer deployment and utilize an AB single-case research design. Interview-based qualitative data and self-report surveys to examine the learner?s perception of the robot and their evolving interest in science and quantitative data on science learning using pre-/post-measure comparisons will be collected. Log data of time-on-task, reading rate, book selection and reading goal attainment will also be collected by the robot. The outcomes of this project will lay the groundwork for future investigations of the design of social robots for a diversity of learner populations and their use in different informal learning settings.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
Traditionally, programs designed for community audiences are designed by the STEM institution or organization seeking to “serve” a given community, using top-down design processes that are framed by the perspectives of the lead organizations, and typically reinforcing dominant cultural norms in STEM and therefore marginalizing certain audiences. Co-design offers an approach that can lead to more robust and sustainable results by developing programs that are culturally responsive, respectful, and inclusive.
About this resource:
This is a practice brief produced by CAISE's Broadening
Science educators and communicators must value and appreciate science that already takes place in the community, which may look different than traditional (school-like) representations of science, which have historically excluded many communities. "Community science programs" are designed by community members to advance community priorities and recognize that communities themselves—not just the nearby universities or research labs—are rich with people, resources, and practices that make up science in everyday life.
About this resource:
This is a practice brief produced by CAISE's
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Angela Calabrese BartonEdna TanDaniel BirminghamCarmen TurnerCenter for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE)