STEM Student Reporting Labs: Youth Engagement Through Journalism

Seeking to use narrative as a vehicle for getting more young people interested in STEM, the National Science Foundation supported a WETA/PBS NewsHour initiative to adapt their Student Reporting Labs (SRL) curriculum to feature a focus on STEM content in 2015. NewsHour selected Knology to run a four-year evaluation of the project from 2015 to 2019. Building on earlier research about student-led science journalism (e.g. Polman & Hope, 2014; Nicholas, 2017), this project suggests that having students develop and produce narratives about complex STEM topics may make these topics far less intimidating and serve as the impetus for greater involvement in STEM learning.

Independent evaluation of the four-year initiative by Knology demonstrated that in addition to increased media literacy and critical thinking skills, the STEM SRL program helped students connect concepts learned in class to the world outside. As a result, students said that they gained a more expansive view of what STEM encompasses and a deeper understanding of the civic role of journalism.