This blog post was originally posted to UpNext, the official blog of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Susan Hildreth is the Director of IMLS. Quality STEM education is important for the nation as a whole and for individual citizens. A robust and capable STEM workforce is crucial to United States competitiveness. Research … Read more
The Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education is dedicated to strengthening the field of informal STEM education (ISE) by supporting and building on the rich diversity of projects supported by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Under a cooperative agreement with NSF, the Center provides resources and … Read more
InformalScience.org was originally established in 2006 by the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out of School Environments (UPCLOSE). After being refunded by the National Science Foundation in 2012, CAISE assumed management of the site and re-launched InformalScience.org as a single point of access to resources in the ISE field. Since the redesigned site … Read more
In March 2014, CAISE participated in the summit on Advancing Opportunity for Quality Science Learning organized by the Coalition for Science After School. This blog post, prepared by the summit’s organizers, reports out on that meeting, and the conclusion of 10 years of work by the Coalition to advance opportunities for doing STEM outside of … Read more
Welcome, and thanks for visiting! The Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) launched a newly redesigned InformalScience.org in May 2013 to serve as a primary resource for informal science education (ISE) professionals. Site users can share and access project, evaluation, and research resources, as well as get up-to-date news about the ISE field … Read more
Welcome to Albuquerque! We invite you to visit CAISE at our booth (#424 in the Exhibit Hall). Our staff will have several computers set up with InformalScience.org to field questions about the scope of available resources, searching resources, and participating in our online community. We also will be gathering feedback about the interface and noting … Read more
Welcome to the new informalscience.org. We’re glad you’re here! This site is a resource for the informal science education (ISE) field, for people who are conducting or wishing to conduct, ISE activities, research or evaluation, or to collaborate with others who are. It is the culmination of several years of work by the Center for … Read more
A recent Guardian article had some interesting reflections on recent STEM programming in the UK, where critics of a popular science television show argued that it was “dumbing down” science education. One highlight from the article: “Science changes as it makes its way on to television, just as it does as it travels to newspapers, … Read more
By Gary Silverstein, Hannah Putman, and Melissa Bryce, Westat. One of the most compelling aspects of the informal science field is the wide array of techniques that projects employ to deliver innovative science education to public and professional audiences. In our third monthly column highlighting findings from the ISE Online Project Monitoring System (OPMS), we … Read more
By Gary Silverstein, Hannah Putman, and Melissa Bryce Many of the projects that have entered baseline data into the Online Project Monitoring System (OPMS) have wondered whether any interesting findings about the NSF ISE program have emerged from the data. This article is the first in an ongoing series about what the ISE field can … Read more