The "Mentored Youth Building Employable Skills in Technology (MyBEST)" project, a collaboration of the Youth Science Center (YSC) and Learning Technology Center (LTC) at the Science Museum of Minnesota, is a three-year, youth-based proposal that seeks to engage 200 inner-city youngsters in learning experiences involving information and design technologies. The goal of the project is to develop participants' IT fluency coupled with work- and academic-related skills. The program will serve students in grades 7 through 12 with special emphasis on three underrepresented groups: girls, youngsters of color, and the economically disadvantaged. Project participants will receive 130 contact hours and 70% will receive at least 160 hours. Each project year, including summers, students participate in three seasons consisting of five two-week cycles. Project activities will center on an annual technology theme: design, engineering and invention; social and environmental systems; and networks and communication. The activities that constitute project seasons include guest presenter workshops; open labs facilitated by guest presenters, mentors and adult staff; presentations of student projects; career workshops and field trips. The project cycles feature programming (e.g., Logo computer language; Cricketalk), engineering and multi-media production (e.g., digital video; non-linear editing software). Each cycle will interface with an existing museum-related program (e.g., the NSF-funded traveling Cyborg exhibit). Mentors will work alongside participants in all technology-based activities. These mentors will be recruited from university, business, community partners and participant families. Leadership development is addressed through teamwork and in the form of internships and externships. Participants obtain work experience related to technology in the internship and externship component. The "MyBEST" project will serve as a prototype for the Museum to test the introduction of technology as central to the design and learning outcomes of its youth-based programs. An advisory board reflecting expertise in youth development, technology and informal science education will guide the program's development and plans for sustainability. Core elements of the "MyBEST" program will be integrated into the Museum's youth-based projects sponsored by the YSC and LTC departments. The Museum has a strong record of integrating prototype initiatives into long-standing programs.
The MyBEST (Mentoring Youth Building Employable Skills in Technology) project, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation's Informal Science Education program, concluded its three years of operation in 2006. This youth-based program was intended to provide participants with in-depth learning experiences involving information and design technologies. These experiences had a dual focus: enabling youth participants to gain fluency in using these technologies while showing them how adults apply them in work and academic endeavors. Appendix includes survey.
The CSMC-OMSI Partnership for Public Engagement (COPPE) project was developed to establish a strong and long-lasting partnership between the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry (CSMC) and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). Through participation in this project, COPPE researchers and OMSI educators sought a deeper understanding of each other's profession while simultaneously developing a suite of Informal Science Education (ISE) outreach programs that engage the public in new and enduring ways. These new ISE platforms were developed to enhance public awareness in the areas
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Oregon Museum of Science and IndustryAnne Sinkey
This is a handout from the session "High Expectations, High Support: Effective professional development strategies for teens" at the 2014 ASTC Conference held in Raleigh, NC. It includes slides from the presentation which discuss how museums and informal institutions can provide professional development for teenagers.
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Lucy GreenDon WittrockKathy FullerLiz WitlingerJosh KemperJoy Delyria
The Ross Sea Project was a Broader Impact projects for an NSF sponsored research mission to the Ross Sea in Antarctica. The project, which began in the summer of 2010 and ended in May 2011, consisted of several components: (1) A multidisciplinary teacher-education team that included educators, scientists, Web 2.0 technology experts and storytellers, and a photographer/writer blogging team; (2) Twenty-five middle-school and high-school earth science teachers, mostly from New Jersey but also New York and California; (3) Weeklong summer teacher institute at Liberty Science Center (LSC) where teachers and scientists met, and teachers learned about questions to be investigated and technologies to be used during the mission, and how to do the science to be conducted in Antarctica; (4) COSEE NOW interactive community website where teachers, LSC staff and other COSEE NOW members shared lesson plans or activities and discussed issues related to implementing the mission-based science in their classrooms; (5) Technological support and consultations for teachers, plus online practice sessions on the use of Web 2.0 technologies (webinars, blogs, digital storytelling, etc.); (6)Daily shipboard blog from the Ross Sea created by Chris Linder and Hugh Powell (a professional photographer/writer team) and posted on the COSEE NOW website to keep teachers and students up-to-date in real-time on science experiments, discoveries and frustrations, as well as shipboard life; (7) Live webinar calls from the Ross Sea, facilitated by Rutgers and LSC staff, where students posed questions and interacted directly with shipboard researchers and staff; and (8) A follow-up gathering of teachers and scientists near the end of the school year to debrief on the mission and preliminary findings. What resulted from this project was not only the professional development of teachers, which extended into the classroom and to students, but also the development of a relationship that teachers and students felt they had with the scientists and the science. Via personal and virtual interactions, teachers and students connected to scientists personally, while engaged in the science process in the classroom and in the field.
This White Paper summarizes the work of C-COVES, a two-year IMLS-funded project designed to Create a Collaboration for Ongoing Visitor Experience Studies. Specifically, C-COVES was intended to research the feasibility of creating a multi-institutional network of science centers across the country united in studying the visitor experience within and across organizations nationwide. In August of 2013, 27 museum professionals from 11 science centers ranging in size, community context, and evaluation capacity, as well as 3 consulting or industry organizations, came together to elaborate the
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Museum of Science, BostonRyan Auster
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. The project will further develop, roll out, and conduct research on a set of materials that will introduce middle school age youth to innovative and engaging engineering challenges in the Boys and Girls Club (B&GCs) context. Building on substantial prior work and evaluation-based learning, WISE Guys and Gals - Boys & Girls as WISEngineering STEM Learners (WGG) will: (1) combine engineering design activities with the (open source, online) WISEngineering infrastructure; (2) scale-up the infrastructure; (3) engage youth in informal afterschool experiences; and (4) collect a wealth of rich data to further our understanding of how youth learn through these experiences. This work will be conducted by Hofstra University's Center for STEM Research in conjunction with Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), The CUNY Graduate Center's Center for Advanced Study in Education (CASE), the Boys & Girls Club of America, and 25 B&GCs in New York and New Jersey. The underlying theoretical framework builds on proof-of-concept work supported by NSF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. An open source, on-line interface (WISEngineering) provides numerous virtual tools (e.g., social networking, Design Journal, embedded assessments) that promote learning and collaboration through challenging, thoughtful, and creative work. WGG will explore how to incorporate creativity, social networking, connections to real-world STEM needs/careers, and teamwork into challenges that can be completed in a one-hour period, an activity time constraint in many B&GC settings. Staff from the clubs will participate in face-to-face and virtual professional development in an effort to build their capacity as facilitators of STEM learning. Research will focus on: (1) how activities developed for 60-minute implementation and guided by informed engineering design and interconnected learning frameworks support youth learning and engagement; and (2) characteristics of the professional development approach that support B&GC facilitators' capacity development. By the end of the project, over 6,000 middle school aged youth, the majority from groups underrepresented in STEM areas, will gain experience with engineering design as they develop engineering thinking, new STEM competencies, STEM career awareness, and an appreciation for the civic value of STEM knowledge.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David BurghardtXiang FuKenneth WhiteMelissa Rhodes
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), in collaboration with the National Park Service and other organizations, will organize a climate adaptation science and education workshop that will focus on engaging diverse public audiences in learning about climate adaptation. The outcomes of the workshop will include: a strong regional network to continue and sustain the initiative; a strategic plan for Sandy Hook that will result in model for using parks as laboratories for climate adaptation education; and the identification of existing climate adaptation education projects that can inform the strategic plan and the model. These outcomes will have broad relevance for the many environmental science and education projects funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning Program. The workshop, centered on Gateway National Recreation Area and surrounding New York/New Jersey communities, will engage diverse stakeholders including community members, research scientists, park staff, and others. Participants will assess and further develop research findings that reveal the potential of place-based contexts, such as parks and recreation areas, as settings for learning about global adaptation issues such as sea level rise, impacts on fish habitat due to inundation and changes in water quality, impacts on recreational fishery, and coastal resilience. Workshop findings will be disseminated broadly through the NPCA national network, national parks, and other organizations concerned with climate adaptation education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Karen Hevel-MingoJodie RiesenbergerGerald GlaserMarc Stern
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This conference at Arizona State University is an early-stage activity inspired by the upcoming 2016 - 2018 bicentennial of the conception, writing and publication of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus." That book, and the dozens of films produced subsequently, have provoked questions for researchers and citizens that have endured for two centuries and are relevant today. - How have we gone from a world in which Mary Shelley could watch public demonstrations of voltaic power on dead animals to one in which the dissection of animals in classrooms is frowned upon, but the creation of new life forms via an international synthetic biology competition (iGEM) is celebrated? - How do literary, artistic and other cultural portrayals of science and engineering inspire and inflect STEM research? - What steps do contemporary scientists and engineers need to take in order to proceed with their innovative activity in a responsible fashion? - What role do lay citizens have in making decisions about science and technology?- How can we understand the broad relationship between creativity and responsibility? The convening brings together a USA and international group of educators in informal science education and multi-disciplinary scholars who study various aspects of the interactions of science, technology and society (STS). This team of natural and social scientists, engineers, museum professionals (Museum of Science, Boston (MOS); Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM)), artists and humanities scholars will begin to formulate plans for producing exhibits, educational programs and demonstrations, fiction and nonfiction writing contests, performances, and curricula that explore science education, ethics and artistry. An overarching goal is to establish a process that could create a national and global network of collaborators to plan programs worldwide and establish new professional collaborations of researchers beyond the bicentennial. The workshop, a first step toward a possible larger initiative, could be significant both for the public's engagement with contemporary issues of science and society and for stimulating new inter-disciplinary research on such issues.
Earth Partnership: Indigenous Arts and Sciences (EP) will develop and refine a model for integrating Indigenous and informal and formal K-20 educators in ecological restoration, project-based learning and professional development. EP will involve participants in Native habitat restoration on community spaces, school grounds and nearby natural areas as a context for intergenerational STEM learning across age, ecosystem, discipline, learning style, culture and place. EP integrates Native knowledge and core values including relationship, reciprocity, respect and responsibility with Western STEM concepts and processes. The project will integrate the expertise of university social, physical, life and learning scientists and community and tribal practitioners to design, develop and test informal STEM learning incorporating ecological restoration, citizen science and cultural diversity. EP grows out of a teacher professional development model funded by NSF and is a network that now includes participating individuals and organizations from many states. This network will enhance dissemination and provide a foundation for a larger project growing out of the results of this project. EP will build capacity of Native and non-Native informal educators and citizens to work together to generate engagement among young people and adults with ecological STEM learning and stewardship. The approach will integrate culturally authentic resources, inquiry and citizen science process skills (e.g., data collection, analysis, ecological restoration, water stewardship) in multiple learning settings. Stronger multicultural, intergenerational and community partnerships will be supported to restore aquatic and terrestrial habitats through community-based stewardship projects and Service Learning. Through EP, Native youth will be encouraged to explore STEM careers that will meet future workforce needs for managing tribal resources and become knowledgeable citizens able to use critical thinking and analysis of STEM-related issues in their communities. The project will use a developmental evaluation approach to assess project planning processes and outcomes of educational programs.
A growing body of research suggests that many types of institutions and experiences contribute to science and technology learning by the public. These include the formal education system, libraries, science centers, citizen science, after school programs, television programs, film and video, newspapers, radio, books and magazines, the internet, community and health organizations, environmental organizations, and conversations with friends and family. It is also important that research about who learns and how they learn from these institutions and experiences is informed by and discussed within the communities themselves. This project focuses specifically on STEM learning in interactive science centers. It invites science center professionals from around the country to contribute to and share findings from an on-going research study designed to better understand the influence that interactive science centers have on youth and adult's long-term understanding, interest and engagement with science and technology. The pair of workshops supported by this grant will engage science center administrators, educators, exhibition and program designers, evaluators and researchers in two sets of tasks. The first workshop, held prior to the start of the larger research project, will examine and focus the research's overall goals and help frame a set of specific research questions. Although no research study can answer all important issues, the goal of the workshop is to ensure that the planned investigation attempts to address the issues and outcomes considered most critical to the broader science center community. The second workshop will occur after completion of all data collection and initial data analysis. It will engage a broad cross-section of the science center community in discussing findings, brainstormind implications and usage, and developing dissemination strategies to insure that the findings of the research reach the broader science center and policy communities. The goal of these workshops is to use the collective wisdom of dozens of active professionals from across the country to develop a suite of strategies for grounding research in practice, incorporating research results into practice as well as bringing important research findings to a broader national audience.
This project will research factors influencing the implementation of programs designed to increase diverse participation in informal science. The goal is to provide the informal science education field with information and tools that will help them design effective programs that more effectively engage a broad range of diverse audiences. The project has two major components. First, the project will research the implementation of a citizen science project, Celebrate Urban Birds (CUB), in major U.S. cities. Citizen science projects involve public volunteers in gathering scientifically valid data as part of ongoing research. Second, building on results of the research, the project will launch a website and learning community (called a Community of Practice or CoP) supporting informal science educators that are involved in designing and implementing informal science programs with an emphasis on engaging diverse participants. The project will be lead by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO), a leader in designing and researching citizen science projects, in collaboration with the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) and five science center members of ASTC, where the CUB program will be implemented and researched. The objective of the research is to better understand contextual factors and how they impact implementation even when accepted practices are followed. Such research is key not only to revealing accepted practices but also to understanding how projects are implemented in the face of concrete operational, cultural, economic, and demographic variables. The research will use a comparative case study approach, which is designed for studies requiring holistic, in-depth investigation. The development of the website and the CoP will be guided by a Network Improvement Strategy, a research-based approach to designing educational CoPs. The development of the CoP will involve the project stakeholders including the informal science organization practitioners, community organization representatives, CUB staff, ASTC staff, advisors and consultants. This strategy will allow the project team and pilot sites to leverage their diverse experiences and skill sets to improve practice; provide space for researchers and practitioners to work together as partners; and develop a nuanced set of strategies that can be implemented across a variety of organizational contexts.