Shaping an Infrastructure for the Partnership of Informal Science Education and Higher Education

September 15th, 2012 - August 31st, 2015 | PROJECT

Expanding on the encouraging outcomes of an NSF-funded conference, this three-year project led by the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with the Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences, will explore and evaluate ways to support new collaborations between professionals in institutions of higher education and informal STEM education around areas of common interest. The primary goal is to develop the educational infrastructure to grow and efficiently sustain multiple cross-organizational partnership activities at the intersection of learning about science, society and civic engagement around such possible topics as energy, environment, genetics, earth resources, computers and ethics, nanotechnology, etc. The initiative is: 1) creating a joint organizing "secretariat" to provide communications and support through low-cost shared services for at least six partnerships around the country; 2) providing partnership support and technical assistance to seed the six national partnerships, and 3) sharing evaluation and analysis services across all the partnerships. The outcomes of the work pertain to improvements in professional knowledge and practice in higher education and informal science education, as well as the improvement of learning by undergraduates and by the general public.

Project Website(s)

(no project website provided)

Project Products

2014 Poster: SENCER-ISE
2016 Poster: SENCER ISE

Team Members

William Burns, Principal Investigator, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology
Hailey Chenevert, Project Manager, National Center for Science and Civic Engagement

Funders

Funding Source: NSF
Funding Program: ISE/AISL
Award Number: 1237463
Funding Amount: 377532

Tags

Audience: Evaluators | Museum | ISE Professionals | Scientists
Discipline: Ecology | forestry | agriculture | Education and learning science | Engineering | General STEM | Health and medicine | Life science | Mathematics | Social science and psychology | Technology
Resource Type: Project Descriptions
Environment Type: Professional Development | Conferences | Networks | Resource Centers and Networks