Beyond Individual Impacts: Identifying Characteristics of Youth STEM Programs that Yield Community-Level Impacts
Presenter(s): Amanda Sullivan
Session slides/materials: LT1-ASullivan
While many informal STEM programs excel at measuring individual youth outcomes (e.g., agency, skill, confidence), current evaluation frameworks often miss the larger story of how youth-led initiatives address real-world community issues. Our session will introduce the new NSF-AISL project “Beyond Individual Impacts: Identifying Characteristics of Youth STEM Programs that Yield Community-Level Impacts” (Award #: 2517238) that is addressing this gap. We will briefly share the project’s motivation for developing a documentation framework that programs can use to capture broader community impacts, including sharing high-level insights from our initial research. During the last five minutes of our lightning talk, we will engage participants in a discussion on the future directions of our project and invite participants to share suggestions to inform our framework design and guide youth involvement in our research.
Born in the Abyss Larval Quest
Presenter(s): Nadia Stoker
Session slides/materials: LT7-NStoker
The lightning talk will begin with background information on the Born in the Abyss film and outreach materials presented at the NSF 75th Anniversary event on May 10th, 2025. During the presentation, participants will have the opportunity to engage by using the QR codes on their own devices to access the Born in the Abyss Larval Quest website. After they are invited to the Quest, the session will include a guided tour of the website and examples of larval pages. Each larval landing page features a video showing the movement, feeding behaviors, and anatomy of the microscopic baby, and we will view one video together. We will also view a short personal story from one of the cruise participants. Once on the website, participants are invited to navigate to other pages to learn more, including additional short interviews and lesson plan examples for educators.
Broadening Participation of Veterans in the STEM Workforce through Service Learning
Presenter(s): Prem Durairaj
Session slides/materials: LT3-PDurairaj
Prem Durairaj, the project’s PI, will be joined by Martha Palacio, a veteran and graduate of the intervention (the “Impacting Communities Through Data” program), to have a conversational discussion on the messaging and references that led to her interest in joining the program. The discussion will also provide a glimpse into the type of overall messaging that veterans typically resonate with, when it comes to career transitions and STEM skill training programs.
CAREER: Supporting Families’ Collective Agency as Learners in Science Centers and Museums through an Integrated Research and Practice Agenda
Presenter(s): Susan Letourneau
This lighting talk will describe how the collaborative group’s understanding of visitor agency has shifted over the course of the project. This journey led us to three key insights that have had an impact on our work: 1) Open-ended, visitor-driven experiences are not sufficient for supporting visitors’ agency; 2) Staff members also have agency in how they structure, support, and enrich visitors’ learning experiences; and 3) Supporting staff in exercising their own agency within and across their professional roles is critical for creating conditions that ultimately support families’ agency during museum visits. These realizations have resulted in a more systemic view of how the design of museum experiences can create space for both staff/institutional expertise and visitors’ existing knowledge.
Collaborative Research: Advancing language research and outreach in a language museum
Presenter(s): Charlotte Vaughn
This lightning talk will describe the current state of the art in the way that scientists working with human subjects typically do research and public engagement, and how we can take the model we’ve developed at the museum and bring it back to the lab and online, reaching more and more learners.
Collaborative Research: Identifying Features of Informal Engineering Programs that Foster Youths’ Engineering Identities
Presenter(s): Jerrod Henderson
Session slides/materials: LT2-JHenderson
In this lightning talk, we will present preliminary results that address 2 of our 4 research questions. Namely, (1) What aspects of engineering learning are exhibited within the informal learning environment? (2) What does student-centered practice mean in this learning environment, and how do mentors implement these student-centered practices?
In line with the conference theme, “Storytelling for Impact,” we will share findings from the photovoice component of our research with youth (n = 14) and program mentors (n = 4), in which we asked participants to capture images of their own experiences. Preliminary results, through participants’ eyes and voices (i.e., images), illuminate how they experience informal STEM learning and how it is advanced. The youth demonstrate early evidence for the development of engineering habits of mind. Namely, youth exhibit creativity in problem-solving, resilience through optimism, and strong collaboration skills. Mentors advance informal learning through transformative practices such as active engagement, fostering the socio-emotional development of youth, and creating spaces for exploratory learning where youth feel comfortable trying on the work of scientists and engineers without fear of failing a test, but rather embracing failure and redesign.
We will engage participants through brief visual prompts using youth and mentor-generated photovoice images, inviting them to interpret evidence of engineering learning and student-centered practice in real time. This interactive moment positions participants as co-meaning makers and mirrors the asset-based, storytelling-centered approach used in our research.
Collaborative Research: Investigating the Most Impactful Culturally-responsive Informal Pedagogical Practices for STEM Afterschool Programs Engaging Marginalized Youth
Presenter(s): Taylor Wycoff
Session slides/materials: LT1-TWycoff
We will begin with a concise overview of the full culturally responsive practices framework to ground participants in its structure and purpose. We will then share illustrative examples–short narrative excerpts from youth and mentor interviews–that bring selected dimensions of the framework to life. These stories highlight how culturally responsive practices emerged through small but meaningful interactions, such as mentors encouraging students without judgement, listening to youth’s problem-solving approaches, or connecting math concepts to cultural practices and shared backgrounds.
Participants will be invited to reflect briefly via chat on how these examples resonate with their own informal STEM contexts (e.g., “Which part of the framework feels most relevant to your informal STEM context?” and “Where do you see opportunities for culturally responsive practices in your informal STEM setting?”).
Collaborative Research: Learning In and From the Environment through Multiple Ways of Knowing (LIFEways)
Presenter(s): Martin Storksdieck
Session slides/materials: LT4-MStorksdieck
The short talk will present the findings and implications from our national survey. As a lightning talk we will provide a big picture overview and engage participants in a short keyword sharing exercise on the implications of our findings for their professional practice. The focus of the work lies in telling stories in outdoor interpretation that honors Native presence in the spaces and environments people are visiting, and in ways that are collaborative and co-creative, using principle of collaboration that have long been established as best practices when working with community partners, and particularly with Native Tribes.
Creating a Teen Science Café Movement
Presenter(s): Katey Ahmann
Session slides/materials: LT7-KAhmann
After learning about the TSC model and its design elements, participants will be able compare and contrast ideas that may help them critically consider design elements in their existing or future ISE projects. Participants will see how relatable a TSC program is to other ISE projects, either as an enhancement or a gateway activity. Participants will become aware of TSC programs near them.
Deaf in Motion: Extreme Force Environments in Early Space Studies
Presenter(s): Brian Greenwald
For this 10-minute lightning round, we will discuss the background of this story and if available show a brief film clip. We welcome questions from participants.
Developing a Network to Coordinate Research on Equity Practices and Cultures in STEM Maker Education
Presenter(s): Jill Castek
Session slides/materials: LT5-JCastek, LT5-JCastek2
We will provide brief background and goals, and share some highlights from gatherings that led to three themes. These themes are tangible outcomes that others may find useful in their own network building and project outgrowth. We will discuss our new ideas for growing the network, seeking a wider group of collaborative partners.
Expanding the Capacity of Outdoor Science Programs to Measure Meaningful Outcomes
Presenter(s): Melissa Collins
Session slides/materials: LT5-MCollins
In this session, we will describe how we used storytelling as a way to both (1) build community and shared understanding, and (2) generate research ideas and operational definitions. Storytelling was invited through guiding, open-ended prompts, such as (a) What has been your relationship with the outdoors? And (b) Think of one outcome that really resonates with you. Why does this outcome speak to you? Was it based on something you experienced, or wish you had experienced? We, as the research team, reciprocated their vulnerability by sharing our own experiences. Through these stories, the CRN was able to coalesce around five key outcomes of value to their communities: Relationship to Self, Relationality and Reciprocity, Ancestral and Spiritual Connection and Knowledge, Sense of Liberation and Joy, and Critical Consciousness.
Fostering Learning and Connection to Science and Society Through a Co-designed California Naturalist Course
Presenter(s): Margot Reisner
Session slides/materials: LT2-MReisner
Our lightning talk will begin with an overview of Land Together’s existing program and the collaborative work that has led to this certification program. We’ll share about how the CalNat program aligns with Land Together’s interdisciplinary in-prison curriculum, how it will be integrated as an advanced course for IGP alum, and adaptations that will need to be made to work in a prison environment. We’ll briefly discuss the methods and implementation plan for co-designing this ground-breaking partnership project. And we will discuss the importance of bringing this impactful work inside a prison.
Introducing Synthetic Biology Using Co-Designed, Culturally Responsive BioMaker Activities for Family Engagement in Underserved Communities
Presenter(s): Justice Walker
We will provide starter lists of materials used to conduct co-design activities with biomaterials so that others can procure and try them out on their own, as the youth did in our co-design sessions. We will also field questions about youth projects and synthetic biology for teaching and learning in informal environments.
Investigating How Museum Experiences Inform Youths’ STEM Career Awareness and Interest
Presenter(s): LeNisha Williams
This lightning talk will actively engage participants through guided reflection. We plan to start with asking the audience to briefly reflect on their own adolescent experiences with health and science, including who influenced them, what messages they received, and if a career in this field felt feasible. After these reflections, we will present our research and main takeaways. At the conclusion of the talk, we will return to their initial reflections and invite the audience to consider how their experiences align with or differ from the youth in our sample. This lightning talk will conclude with a discussion on how audience members might apply our findings to their own work with youth.
Learning Theory in Museums: Theorizing the role of serendipity in public engagement and learning of STEM
Presenter(s): Karen Hammerness
Session slides/materials: LT4-KHammerness
This session is interactive; we will be sharing some foundational frameworks but also inviting participants at one or two brief moments to share and discuss their own serendipitous moments and experiences (we have just completed a similar session last week in our own museum with 40 staff in various roles).
Redefining Scientific Literacy at the Community Level – Researching Science Learning Using a Social Network Approach
Presenter(s): Tara Rudo
After a brief overview of the deliberative dialogue held in the coastal community, we plan to share our preliminary results and lessons learned from the process. Participants will be able to ask questions and comment on the methods and preliminary results of the project presented.
Reimagining a collaborative future: engaging community with the Andrews Forest Program
Presenter(s): Ben Archibeque
Session slides/materials: LT6-BArchibeque
During this lightning session, we will discuss how and which community partners have been engaged, how the process has been facilitated, and what lessons have emerged for future development of stronger ties between science and society. We plan to share a brief overview of the entire project, and then focus our presentation on a story about a specific community partner that embodies the findings from the project.
Semantic Transparency of Math Language in Mandarin Speaking Dyads
Presenter(s): Huanhuan Shi
Session slides/materials: LT7-H Shi
Participants will be asked to guess the meanings of several Mandarin words based solely on word-by-word translation into English. Bilingual participants will then be encouraged to reflect on how the two or more languages they know encode mathematical concepts differently.
Space for All: Creating Accessible Technology-Rich Makerspaces and Learning Activities for Youth and Young Adults with Autism
Presenter(s): Foad Hamidi
Session slides/materials: LT5-FHamidi
During this lightening talk, I’ll describe our team’s current findings and outcome so far. Participants are welcome to ask questions.
WaterSIMmersive: Designing and assessing a mixed-reality water sustainability educational game and museum exhibit for communities in the Desert Southwest
Presenter(s): Claire Lauer
Session slides/materials: LT3-CLauer
As a Lightning Talk, the engagement will be concise but active. The talk will weave together three short narrative vignettes, each illustrating a moment when flexibility changed the trajectory of our project—such as shifting research activities, redesigning a game interaction, or rethinking exhibit content based on partner feedback.
Between vignettes, participants will be invited to briefly reflect via chat on parallel moments in their own projects:
- When have you had to pivot with community partners?
- What institutional constraints shaped that flexibility?
- What stories emerged from those pivots that wouldn’t have surfaced otherwise?