BRIDGES: Build, Research, Invent, Design, Grow and Explore through Science The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the Salvadori Center partner in providing BRIDGES [Build, Research, Invent, Design, Grow and Explore through Science], an after-school program using investigations of the built environment to introduce and reinforce STEM concepts and skills. The program highlights engineering concepts and the design process through hands-on investigations of the built environment done in small groups (with an emphasis on collaborative learning). It is co-taught by Salvadori educators in partnership with NYCHA community center instructors. After an intensive 3-day institute to train NYCHA staff, Salvadori staff members meet weekly with the housing authority staff to provide coaching in facilitation skills and to co-teach projects on building scaled bridges, mapping neighborhoods, investigating tension and compression, and more. In subsequent years, NYCHA after-school instructors take over the teaching with on-going support/professional development from the Center. The target audience is young people 8-12 years old enrolled in after-school programs run by the New York City Housing Authority, who gain content understanding and self concept in terms of their attitude and interest in STEM learning. BRIDGES begins with 5 sites serving 150 children in its first year with five sites added annually. By Year 5, BRIDGES serves 625 children at 25 NYCHA community centers. In addition in Years 4 and 5, the project is disseminated in at least two municipalities outside of NYC. In all 775 youth and 60 after-school educators will be directly impacted by this new program. The strategic impact is to provide strategies and evidence of support necessary for effective scale up of this locally successful program and for bringing school-based materials associated with the project into the after-school time experience. A project book, summative evaluation by The After School Corporation (TASC), and a website will be shared with the field on line, through conference presentations, and publications. The Salvadori Center was founded by Dr. Mario Salvadori (1907-1997), Columbia Professor of Civil Engineering & Architecture, in collaboration with City College of New York Schools of Education and Architecture. Its mission is to stimulate and deepen young people's curiosity and knowledge about math, science, arts and the humanities by using the built environment as an entry point for learning. For over 20 years, the Center has offered research-based teacher development and support, including intensive training institutes, workshops and classroom mentoring programs focused on project-based learning. The Center has reached over 125,000 students in New York City public schools, and its books, videos, and construction kits have been distributed nationally and internationally. The Centers staff are all professionally trained architects, engineers, and science and fine arts teachers.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Leonisa Ardizzone
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This is a five-year project aimed at organizing a DRK-12 Resource Network to provide assistance for projects in areas such as research and development methods, implementation, and analysis procedures; synthesis of findings across the portfolio of projects; and national dissemination of the R&D contributions of the DRK-12 program. To accomplish these goals, Education Development Center (EDC) will join efforts with Abt Associates Inc., and Policy Studies Associates to implement three major strands: (1) Technical Assistance, which consists of (a) a portfolio assessment to define it in terms of composition and major characteristics and identify project needs, (b) individual technical work services to project leadership, (c) focus groups, (d) thematic meetings, (e) Principal Investigators (PI) meetings, and (f) a web portal; (2) Portfolio Analysis, including (a) synthesis activities to capture a comprehensive view of the portfolio in order to understand the role that the program has played in advancing K-12 student and teacher learning, and (b) evaluative studies of selected projects describing specific contributions to the field; and (3) Dissemination, comprising (a) the development of a white paper to summarize research findings on dissemination and implementation of research in practice and policy settings and highlight examples from the portfolio, and (b) a series of dissemination-related workshops.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Barbara BernsAlina MartinezJacqueline MillerE. Paul GoldenbergCatherine McCullochBrenda TurnbullFran O'Reilly
Engaging Latinos in Informal Science Education is designed to address the low participation rate of Latino youth and adults in activities conducted by parks, refuges, nature centers, and other informal science education venues. The project objectives are to expand upon existing studies that attempt to identify barriers to Latino participation, work with communities to identify the tools needed to overcome barriers, and utilize the tools in established programs. Surveys and interviews conducted with Latino communities are designed to identify key measures that will improve participation in informal learning programs which are then implemented in the International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD) program. Park Flight international interns from Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the US will work in Latino communities near seven sites that host annual IMBD. Deliverables include a comprehensive technical report resulting from the analysis of surveys and a toolkit to promote the involvement of Latino communities in informal science education. The multi-stage evaluation includes the annual evaluation of participation levels at seven treatment and five control sites, pilot testing of the key strategies for family involvement identified in the survey results, and formative evaluation of the project toolkit. Project partners are the National Park (NPS) Service, NPS Park Flight Migratory Bird Program, Colorado State University, Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory, PRBO Conservation Services, and six national parks. Strategic impact will be realized through the development and national dissemination of the project toolkit to almost 1000 partner offices across the US.
This project identifies TV meteorologists as a potentially important source of informal science education on the topic of climate change. These professionals are a well-respected source of scientific information in their local communities, yet rarely address climate change in their weather broadcasts. Proposers will conduct a series of studies that explore both mechanisms and obstacles to using TV broadcasts as effective informal communication vehicles for scientific information about climate change. In Study 1, they will identify methods already in use by "early adopters," compare them to best explanatory practices in informal science education, and make recommendations to improve practice. In Study 2, they will survey meteorologists and their news directors to determine their motivations and needs for information and materials regarding climate change. Based on their findings, and informed by prior work, they will develop a set of educational materials, principally a set of 30-second segments that can serve as a resource for TV meteorologists nation-wide. In Study 3, they will conduct a quasi-experimental evaluation of the materials with a TV station in Columbia, South Carolina to determine their impact on viewers. The core project team includes experts in science communication and education, physical oceanography, broadcast meteorology, and media effects evaluation, and the advisory board includes the Vice President of Programs at the National Environmental Education Foundation and the Chief Meteorologist at The Weather Channel. Dissemination mechanisms will include a range of publications and presentations for the research findings, and a website for the sharing of materials used by the early adopters. Overall, the project will advance the informal science education field's understanding of both effective explanatory practices in broadcast media and the motivations and practices of an understudied group of professionals. It will investigate an innovative means of increasing public awareness and understanding of important topics in climate change, and as well as creating a set of video-clips and related materials based on careful study and best practices.
Following their experience with the 2003 NSF-funded conference, "Best Practices in Science Exhibition Development," the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) is creating for informal science education practitioners a dynamic online system, "ExFiles," for contributing to, using and conducting communications about a database on exhibitions. At least 1,000 practitioners are expected to use the site over the course of the three-year project, which will be sustained by ASTC after the grant period. The website is being populated initially with a set of at least 40 exhibitions representing a variety of scientific domains, sizes and interpretive and design strategies. Promotion of the site is being assisted by several associations: National Association of Museum Exhibitions, Association of Children's Museums, American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, American Zoo and Aquarium Association and the European Network of Science Centres and Museums.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Wendy PollockWendy HancockKathleen McLean
The Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), in collaboration with the Yale Project on Climate Change and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, is conducting a three-year project whose goal is to build the capacity of twelve science centers as well as of twelve NSF-funded Long-term Ecological Research Centers (LTER) for the purpose of engaging the public in climate change science. The twelve sites span the USA from the east coast to Hawaii. The goal of these simultaneous projects is to illustrate local indicators of global change. Additional partners include ScienCentral, Inc. (TV media producers), the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the American Geophysical Union, NOAA, Natural History magazine, and a national board of advisors. Deliverables include: (1) twelve local demonstration projects with launch programs, exhibits/programs, TV spots, citizen science activities, and an interactive map illustrating the work of the twelve sites, (2) professional development for informal STEM education professionals and LTER research faculty, (3) a national survey to assess the USA population's climate literacy, and (4) a culminating workshop for the ISE field, a permanent resource database, and a final publication. Evaluation processes are being conducted by David Heil & Associates.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is creating a new type of interactive, question-driven, online bird-identification tool called "Merlin," along with associated games, social networking tools, and other media. Unlike existing bird-identification guides, which are based on traditional taxonomic keys written by scientists, Merlin uses machine learning algorithms and crowd-sourced data (information provided by thousands of people) to identify birds and improve Merlin's performance with each interaction. The tool will help millions of people identify birds and participate in a collective effort to help others. The Crowd ID project will make it easier for people to discover the names of birds, learn observation and identification skills, find more information, and appreciate Earth's biodiversity. The summative evaluation plan is measuring increases in participants' knowledge, engagement, and skills, as well as changes in behavior. Impacts on participants will be compared to a control group of users not using Merlin. Merlin tools will be integrated into the Cornell Lab's citizen science and education projects, which reach more than 200,000 participants, schoolchildren, and educators across the nation. Merlin will be broadly adapted for use on other websites, social networking platforms, exhibits, mobile devices, curricula, and electronic field guides. Once developed, Merlin can be modified to identify plants, rocks, and other animals. Merlin will promote growth of citizen science projects which depend on the ability of participants to identify a wide range of organisms.
Open Exhibits has released a suite of open source multitouch-enabled exhibit modules and templates with the goal of transforming the way in which museum professionals and other informal educators assemble interactive computer-based exhibits for use in museums and other informal settings. Ideum Inc., proposes a full-scale development project that will develop, test, and disseminate a free suite of original, multitouch-enabled, open source exhibit software that will transform the ability of science museum professionals to assemble interactive computer-based exhibits for use in museums and on the Web. The project offers a novel approach to exhibit development that enhances the interoperability of science content and computer-based exhibit authoring tools to promote cyber-learning in informal settings. Open Exhibits will fulfill the need for a shared platform for interactive computer-based exhibits, driven by the exponential growth of cyber-learning and the need to streamline resources and investment in the exhibit development field. There has been a rapid rise in the development and use of open source software, but few of these technologies have been designed specifically to meet the needs of the ISE field, and few have been applied directly to enhancing the visitor experience. Open Exhibits will provide a model that promotes the sharing of technology, provides access to high-quality flexible tools to develop interactive computer-based exhibits, and strengthens cyber-infrastructure for the ISE field. It will also make interactive and new media technologies more accessible for small and rural museums with limited funding. The project will develop a library of extensible software modules for all major platforms that exhibit developers can configure in specific ways. These modules (developed using the popular Adobe Flash and Flex authoring tools) will be configured as three flexible templates that have broad application across the ISE field: 1) a current science news aggregator, 2) a timeline-based exhibit, and 3) a collections viewer. The templates will also be available in the form of universal modules that more advanced users can mix and match to build customized exhibits, allowing for modification that will yield further advancements to the software. Ideum will work closely with three partner museums: The Don Harrington Discovery Center (Amarillo, TX), Maxwell Museum of Anthropology (Albuquerque, NM), and New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science (Albuquerque, NM) which represent a broad range of STEM topical areas, and the content that they develop will show the breadth of possibilities of the software modules and templates. Other deliverables include a mini-summit to convene museum and technology experts; user support strategies; and a community of practice centered around OpenExhibits.org that will standardize interoperability and design principles and serve as a hub for user support, prototype downloads, and as an exhibit showcase.
The University of Pittsburgh's Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE), the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University are building an open access cyberlearning infrastructure that employs super high-resolution gigapixel images as a tool to support public understanding, participation, and engagement with science. Networked, gigapixel image technology is an information and communication technology that creates zoomable images that viewers can explore, share, and discuss. The technology presents visual information of scientifically important content in such detail that it can be used to promote both scientific discovery and education. The purpose of the project is to make gigapixel technology accessible and usable for informal science educators and scientists by developing a robotic imaging device and online services for the creation, storage, and sharing of billion-pixel images of scientifically important content that can be analyzed visually. Project personnel are conducting design activities, user studies, and formative evaluation studies to support the development of a gigapan technology platform for demonstration and further prototyping. The project builds on and leverages existing technologies to provide informal science education organizations use of gigapixel technology for the purpose of facilitating three types of activities that promote participatory learning by the public--Public Understanding of Science activities; Public Participation in Scientific Research activities; and Public Engagement in Science activities. The long-terms goals of the work are to (1) create an accessible database of gigapixel images that informal science educators can use to facilitate public-scientist interactions and promote participatory science learning, (2) characterize and demonstrate the affordances of networked gigapixel technologies to support socially-mediated, science-focused cyberlearning experiences, (3) generate knowledge about how gigapixel technology can enable three types of learning interactions between scientists and the public around visual data, and (4) disseminate findings that describe the design, implementation, and evaluation of the gigapixel platform to support participatory science learning. The project\'s long-term strategic impacts include guiding the design of high-resolution images for promoting STEM learning in both informal and formal settings, developing an open educational resource and science communication platform, and informing informal science education professionals about the use and effectiveness of gigapixel images in promoting participatory science learning by the public.
TERC, in partnership with the Boston Museum of Science, will investigate deaf and hard-of-hearing museum visitors' use of App-based signing math and science dictionaries delivered on the iPod Touch. The project is employing a mixed-methods design to study how and the extent to which family visitors, ages 5-12+, and classroom visitors in grades K-12 use the dictionaries to access and communicate about exhibit content and engage in activities. Study participants will visit one of two preselected exhibit areas and do several activities that have Word Lists posted on the activity panels. The Word Lists include key terms for the activity that are also included in at least one of the dictionaries. They will then do several activities that do not have Word Lists posted. A coin toss will be used to randomly assign the first group of visitors to a starting Word List condition. The second group will then begin with the alternate Word List condition. From this point on, subsequent groups will continue to alternate the starting point. Data collection will include observation, videotaping, interviews, and surveys. Results of the study will be disseminated through a report of findings, presentations and publications.
The City as Learning Lab (CaLL) is a comprehensive research and development initiative designed to create new measures of audience impact in technology experiences; identify features of university-community collaboration that facilitate sustainable community programs; and produce a set of tools and resources that allow other cities to tailor creative robotics programs to unique audiences. Project partners include the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE), the Community Robotics Education and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) lab at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, and the Georgia Institute of Technology as well as local museums, community organizations, and afterschool clubs. CaLL builds on the work of three existing youth technology programs in Pittsburgh targeting audiences ages 9-15: the Robot Diaries, Neighborhood Nets, and Robot 250. Research questions relate to creative processes in informal learning settings, use of robotics to engage diverse audiences, and changes in technological fluency after students leave the informal learning setting and apply their new knowledge and skills at home or in other learning contexts. The research incorporates data from up to 1000 program participants. Findings will establish evidence for how technological fluency can be measured, supported, and developed through informal technology learning experiences. Project deliverables include a CaLL curriculum, toolkit, new measures of audience impact, and identification of factors that support university/community collaborations. Broader impacts in informal technology education will be achieved by developing flexible toolkits that allow other communities to adapt and adopt CaLL technologies, curricula, and activities.
Building on their successful traveling exhibition and Web site, "Invention at Play," funded by the NSF Informal Science Education Program, the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation (National Museum of American History) in collaboration with Smithsonian Affiliates around the country developed "Places of Invention" (POI). Major deliverables included an interactive 3,300 square-foot permanent exhibition at NMAH and a Web site that focus on practicing inventive skill-building and illustrating the ways that place and social collaboration shape the creative process. The POI exhibition features six stories about "hot spots" of American invention from the mid-19th century to the present, each providing hands-on experiences that relate to particular "21st Century skills" and to the social, psychological, and spatial dimensions of invention, science, and engineering. The project also intends to establish a new model for the co-creation of exhibition content among NMAH visitors, Web site users, Lemelson Center staff, and 12 partnering Smithsonian Affiliate museums through an Interactive Map. Here both in-gallery and online visitors can explore stories and videos produced by NMAH and Smithsonian Affiliate staff (and their community partners) and also share stories of their own communities as “places of invention.”