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
MobiLLab is a mobile science education program designed to awaken young people’s interest in science and technology (S&T). Perceived novelty, or unfamiliarity, has been shown to affect pupils’ educational outcomes at similar out-of-school learning places (OSLePs) such as museums and science centers. A study involved 215 mobiLLab pupils who responded to three surveys: a pre-preparation, at-visit, and post-visit survey. Results provide evidence for four dimensions of pupils’ at-visit novelty: curiosity, exploratory behavior, oriented feeling, and cognitive load. Findings also show that classroom
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 March of 2016, a total solar eclipse occurred in the southwestern pacific; and in August of 2017, a total solar eclipse occurred across a broad swath of the United States. The Exploratorium launched a 2.5 year public education program—Navigating the Path of Totality—that used these two total solar eclipses as platforms for sparking public engagement and learning about the Sun, heliophysics, and the STEM content related to both. These sequential eclipses provided an unprecedented opportunity to build and scaffold public engagement and education. Our strategy was to start the public engagement process with the 2016 eclipse, nurture that engagement with resources, activities and outreach during the 17 months between the eclipses, so that audiences (especially in the U.S., where totality was visible in multiple areas across the country) would be excited, actively interested, and prepared for deeper engagement during the 2017 eclipse. For the August 2017 eclipse, the Exploratorium produced live telescope and program feeds from Madras, OR and Casper, WY. The Exploratorium worked with NASA to leverage what was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for millions to bring heliophysics information and research to students, educators, and the public at large through a variety of learning experiences and platforms.
The core of this project was live broadcasts/webcasts of each eclipse. To accomplish these objectives, the Exploratorium produced and disseminate live feeds of telescope-only images (no commentary) of each eclipse originating them from remote locations; produce and disseminate from the field live hosted broadcasts/webcasts of each eclipse using these telescope images; design and launch websites, apps, videos, educator resources, and shareable online materials for each eclipse; design and deliver eclipse themed video installations for our Webcast studio and Observatory gallery in the months that lead up to each eclipse and a public program during each eclipse; and conduct a formative and summative evaluation of the project.
These broadcasts/webcasts and pre-produced videos provide the backbone upon which complementary educational resources and activities can be built and delivered. Programs and videos were produced in English and Spanish languages. As a freely available resource, the broadcasts/webcasts also provide the baseline content for hundreds if not thousands of educational efforts provided by other science-rich institutions, schools, community-based organizations, and venues. Platforms such as NASA TV and NASA website, broadcast and online media outlets such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and PBS, as well as hundreds of science institutions and thousands of classrooms streamed the Exploratorium eclipse broadcasts as part of their own educational programming, reaching 63M people. These live broadcasts were relied upon educational infrastructure during total solar eclipses for institutions and individuals on the path and off the path alike.
This longitudinal research study will contribute to a broader understanding of the pathways of STEM-interested high school students from underrepresented groups who plan to pursue or complete science studies in their post-high school endeavors. The project will investigate the ways that formative authentic science experiences may support youth's persistence in STEM. The study focuses on approximately 900 urban youth who are high interest, high potential STEM students who participate in, or are alumni of, the Science Research Mentoring Program. This program provides intensive mentoring for high school youth from groups underrepresented in STEM careers. It takes place at 17 sites around New York City, including American Museum of Natural History, which is the original program site. Identifying key supports and obstacles in the pathways of high-interest, under-represented youth towards STEM careers can help practitioners design more inclusive and equitable STEM learning experiences and supports. In this way, the project will capitalize on student interest so that students with potential continue to persist.
In order to understand better the factors that influence these students, this research combines longitudinal social network and survey data with interviews and case studies, as well as an analysis of matched student data from New York City Public Schools' records. The research questions in the study are a) how do youths' social networks develop through their participation in scientists' communities of practice? b) what is the relationship between features of the communities of practice and youths' social networks, measures of academic achievement, and youths' pursuit of a STEM major? and c) what are the variations in youth pathways in relationship to learner characteristics, composition of social networks, and features of the community of practice? The research design allows for a rich, layered perspective of student pathways. In particular, by employing social network analysis, this study will reveal relational features of persistence that may be particularly critical for underrepresented youth, for whom STEM role models and cultural brokers provide an otherwise unavailable sense of belonging and identity in STEM. The study will also access a New York City Public Schools data set comprised of student-level records containing biographical and demographic variables, secondary and postsecondary course enrollment and grades, exam scores, persistence/graduation indicators, linked responses to post-secondary surveys, and post-education employment records and wages. These data enable examination of inter-relationships between in-school achievement and out-of-school STEM experiences through comparison of program participants to similar non-participant peers. This project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field.
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.
This project, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Berkeley, seeks to discover what makes middle school students engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The researchers have developed a concept known as science learning activation, including dispositions, practices, and knowledge leading to successful STEM learning and engagement. The project is intended to develop and validate a method of measuring science learning activation.
The first stage of the project involves developing the questions to measure science activation, with up to 300 8th graders participating. The second stage is a 16-month longitudinal study of approximately 500 6th and 8th graders, examining how science learning activation changes over time. The key question is what are the influencers on science activation, e.g., student background, classroom activities, and outside activities.
This project addresses important past research showing that middle school interest in STEM is predictive of actually completing a STEM degree, suggesting that experiences in middle school and even earlier may be crucial to developing interest in STEM. This research goes beyond past work to find out what are the factors leading to STEM interest in middle school.
This work helps the Education and Human Resources directorate, and the Division of Research on Learning, pursue the mission of supporting STEM education research. In particular, this project focuses on improving STEM learning, as well as broadening participation in STEM education and ultimately the STEM workforce.
This project, “Global, Local, Coastal”, will be led by Groundwork Hudson Valley and Sarah Lawrence College, to integrate and expand the work of three award-winning environmental education centers in Yonkers, NY – The Science Barge, Ecohouse and the Center for the Urban River (CURB). Its primary objective is to prepare low-income students for the impact of a changing climate so that they can participate both personally and professionally in a world in which these issues are increasingly prevalent. It reaches an audience that is not well served by traditional programs and is most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. Over the course of two years, the project will serve 600-700 middle and high school youth, primarily from the Yonkers public school system, through a new, integrated curriculum that teaches about these issues from multiple perspectives. Beyond its impact on students, the project will have a broader impact on people in our region. Together, the Barge, Ecohouse and CURB are visited by close to 10,000 people each year and new exhibits will reinforce key themes related to resiliency and adaptation. Other partners include NOAA’s Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve, Lamont Doherty, and the Center for Climate Change in the Urban Northeast. The state’s NY Rising Program and Yonkers Public Schools are key partners too. The project will be carried out in a community that has been severely affected by extreme weather in the last decade, including three hurricanes. Outcomes will help create “an informed society to anticipate and respond to climate and its impacts.” It also addresses NOAA’s goal of a “Weather-Ready Nation,” and “Resilient Coastal Communities and Economies.
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.
Over three years beginning in January 2016, the Science Museum of Virginia will launch a new suite of public programming entitled “Learn, Prepare, Act – Resilient Citizens Make Resilient Communities.” This project will leverage federally funded investments at the Museum, including a NOAA-funded Science On a Sphere® platform, National Fish and Wildlife-funded Rainkeepers exhibition, and the Department of Energy-funded EcoLab, to develop public programming and digital media messaging to help the general public understand climate change and its impacts on Virginia’s communities and give them tools to become resilient to its effects. Home to both the delicate Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and a highly vulnerable national shoreline, Virginia is extremely susceptible to the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. It is vital that citizens across the Commonwealth understand and recognize the current and future impacts that climate variability will have on Virginia’s economy, natural environment, and human health so that they will be better prepared to respond. In collaboration with NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, Virginia Institute for Marine Science, Public Broadcasting Service/National Public Radio affiliates, and Resilient Virginia, the Museum will use data from the National Climatic Data Center and Virginia Coastal Geospatial and Educational Mapping System to develop and deliver new resiliency-themed programming. This will include presentations for Science On a Sphere® and large format digital Dome theaters, 36 audio and video digital media broadcast pieces, two lecture series, community preparedness events, and a Resiliency Checklist and Certification program. This project supports NOAA’s mission goals to advance environmental literacy and share its vast knowledge and data with others.
The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago (MSI) will develop museum-based education resources to engage high school age youth in the exploration of climate literacy and Earth systems science through its Teen ACES (Teen Advocates for Community and Environmental Sustainability) project. As the future leaders who will make decisions about the issues they face in their communities, youth participants will be positioned to act as advocates for establishing resilient communities in the Midwest. The project will utilize a variety of resources, including NOAA Science On a Sphere® (SOS) technology and datasets, Great Lakes and local climate assets from the Midwest Regional Climate Center and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, and existing local planning guides to develop museum-based youth programming. Teens will explore environmental hazards including severe weather events and temperature extremes, and consider the impact of the Great Lakes on regional climate. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Resilient Chicago, the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago, and the South Metropolitan Higher Education Consortium will advise on the project to support the integration of municipal resiliency plans and their related adaptation and mitigation measures into the program. Teen participants will share their learning with the Chicago community through interactions with public visitors in the Museum, programs at Chicago Public Library branches, and MSI’s teen science program broadcast on Chicago’s public access TV station. Teen facilitated experiences will be tailored for SOS® experiences at MSI. The project will revise content for use in 100 after-school science clubs for students from diverse communities across the Chicago area. Further dissemination to three regional science center partners equipped with SOS® technology (Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton, Ohio; Science Central in Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Hawthorn Hollow in Kenosha, Wisconsin) will build a foundation of knowledge and resources to adapt materials to meet the needs of their communities and consider how their vulnerabilities and resiliency plans may differ from Chicago.