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The Choreographing Science Project Outcomes Report describes the activities, accomplishments, and impacts of the project....

Out-of-school STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) learning settings can foster a prepared future workforce through offering a wide range of novel, real-world applications of STEM concepts and skills. Care facilities, such as hospitals, are one setting in which many people spend a substantial amount of time. They afford numerous opportunities for people to learn and apply a range of...

The Discovery Research PreK-12 Resource Center for Transformative Education Research and Translation (DRK-12 RC) will support the DRK-12 program and its community in fulfilling DRK-12 mission and goals. The resource center will encourage collaboration, translation, and capacity-building in applied STEM education research by connecting a broad range of interest holders, providing technical support, disseminating resources and increasing the visibility of...

Disaster risk reduction and community risk reduction are systemic ways to mitigate and manage events, such as the catastrophic natural disasters that have occurred across the US in recent years. This Partnership Development and Planning project builds on connections and expertise among the Office of Research Experiences & Education at UL Research Institutes, Arizona Science Center, and Viney Jones Library....

Young people are excited about the future and have smart ideas for solving the challenges they see in the world today. Too often, however, youth are left out of conversations that impact their lives, communities, and futures. Afterschool programs and other out-of-school-time (OST) programs that are rooted in principles of positive youth development have recognized this and are increasingly centering...

This Integrating Research and Practice project aims to make lifelong environmental learning and stewardship a reality by using a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach to collaboratively adapt the existing California Naturalist (CalNat) certification program for the context of prison gardens. The study of science learning outcomes will investigate the impacts of two main innovative program features: 1) co-developed hands-on rigorous naturalist...

This five-year CAREER grant will investigate how to design an after-school mathematics space within a school setting that can challenge and expand both students' and teachers' conceptions of what doing mathematics means and teach them to see participation in the discipline in increasingly nuanced and expansive ways. Informal learning contexts can encourage engagement by allowing students opportunities to choose their...

This Partnership Development and Planning project seeks to build a collaboration focused on community perspectives and needs related to wetlands in Metro Detroit. The partnership includes watershed non-profit organizations (WNGOs), Michigan State University professionals, and local community members. The project will consist of two major activities:1) bi-monthly, facilitated meetings between university researchers and WNGOs; 2) a 2-day conference incorporating community...

Informal STEM Learning (ISL) organizations play a vital role in fostering public engagement with science. They have high rates of visitation and are considered among the public as trusted places for education experiences and leisure time activities. ISL organizations are uniquely positioned to support all learners, including intellectually, developmentally disabled (IDD) and neurodivergent individuals, in that they offer choice, multiple...

This project will explore partnerships to learn how to advance accessibility in informal STEM learning experiences for all students including students with disabilities. The project investigates best practices in establishing partnerships for informal science learning organizations that work with elementary and middle school youth who are deaf and hard of hearing, and/or blind and low-vision. Within each Challenger Learning Center are...

The Expressive STEM Centers (ESC) project creates family-driven learning networks that honor shared knowledge and experience while building confidence with technology and science. Located in San Marcos, Texas, this project transforms how informal STEM learning happens by positioning libraries and community centers as hubs for intergenerational innovation. Rather than treating STEM as separate from daily life, the ESC project uses...

The Roads Taken Project utilized fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving STEM involvement of alumnae(i) of six intensive STEM-based youth programs 15 to 25 years after participation. Outcomes included overall STEM involvement (including STEM academics and careers, personal STEM involvement, community STEM involvement, and long-term STEM identity), and post- program and program...

This paper, a product of Roads Taken describes the components needing consideration for conducting a long-term follow-up study of Intensive youth STEM programs such as those that serve high school students in informal learning spaces such as museums and community centers. These programs engage participants over weeks, months, or years, focusing on long-term STEM out- comes, especially for populations...

Library Makers (LM) is an initiative designed to share resources and learnings about how library makerspaces have and will continue to shift their services and programming in the coming years. Supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), this project prioritizes diverse and inclusive community building, both within the professional Community itself and for the...

As engineering becomes more common in museums and other informal learning spaces, educators are often expected to support young people in the moment—especially when designs fail or don’t work as planned. Yet there are few resources that focus on how educators can plan for and respond to these real-time challenges. In this study, we worked with museums across the United...

In this project, we partnered with six informal learning organizations across the United States to explore how adults can better support children when things don’t go as planned. Rather than starting with predetermined research questions, we worked together to develop questions that reflected each organization’s goals, capacities, and ways of working. This paper shares what that collaborative process looked like,...

When visitors encounter challenges during hands-on engineering activities in museums, educators play a key role in shaping how those moments unfold. In this study, we explored how museum educators and visitors work together during moments of failure and use those experiences to improve designs through iteration. By closely examining video recordings and reflective conversations with five museum educators, we saw...

Museums can be powerful places for young people to explore, experiment, and take risks—especially when things don’t go as planned. In this study, we looked at how museum educators think about and talk about failure within STEAM-focused making programs, such as exhibits, workshops, and camps. Drawing on about nine hours of video conversations with educators from six partner museums, we...

In this work, we explored how educators’ views on failure shape their teaching—and how those views can change over time. In the first part of the study, we talked with educators in schools and museums to better understand how they think about failure and how it shows up in their day-to-day practice. We found that many educators held narrow or...

When families visit science museums, adult caregivers play an important role in how children learn—especially during hands-on STEM activities. Yet many caregivers feel unsure about engineering and aren’t always sure how to jump in. This study, developed and led by our partners at the Museum of Science in Boston, explored whether making the engineering design process more visible could help...

Professional development for informal educators is often short, lecture-based, and focused on familiar teaching approaches. But this kind of training doesn’t always prepare educators for the real, messy moments of learning—especially when young people struggle or experience failure. Over four years, we partnered with 27 informal learning organizations to develop a more meaningful, long-term approach to professional development. Together, we...

We often think of failure as something to avoid, but in learning—especially in science, technology, engineering, and math—it can actually be a powerful tool. When educators allow learners to struggle, try again, and work through mistakes, they create space for creativity and real problem-solving to happen. In this study, we looked at how these moments play out in informal learning...

This project seeks to create a coalition of geospatial innovation organizations across all sectors of society (public, private, and governmental) to explore how spatial science can be more fully represented in offerings of informal STEM education in the Greater St. Louis region. The coalition seeks to identify gaps, remove silos, and enable better collaboration, knowledge- and resource-sharing. By establishing shared...

Serendipity, or insight coupled with chance, has been identified as an essential element of scientific discovery and played a key role in the work of countless scholars and researchers. For instance, examples of serendipitous discoveries include penicillin, radioactivity, and the adhesive for Post-it Notes. Yet serendipitous moments are neither rare nor solely the domain of magnificent discoveries; they happen regularly...

Opportunities to learn about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are all around. Yet, people often assume that formal school settings are the only places to learn about the STEM disciplines. A consensus report from The National Academies, Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places and Pursuits (NRC, 2009), helped to upend this assumption and galvanized over a decade of...