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This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. The project created a multi-person, collaborative touchtable museum exhibit experience engaging guests in Zooniverse’s Galaxy Zoo citizen science project. ...

Inclusive science communication, or ISC, upends the traditional approaches of science communication by centering the values of inclusion, equity, and intersectionality. To help more science communication and informal learning practitioners and researchers apply the key traits of ISC in their work, collaborators at the University of Rhode Island, the University of Oregon, and Florida International University created a new “Inclusive Science Communication Starter...

As several recent National Academies of Sciences reports have highlighted, greater science communication research is needed on 1) communicating chemistry, and 2) building research-practice partnerships to advance communication across science issues. Here we report our insights in both areas, gathered from a multi-year collaboration to advance our understanding of how to communicate about chemistry with the public. Researchers and practitioners...

Chemistry is a vital and highly relevant field of science that is under-represented in science centers and museums. Amidst concerns that the public is ambivalent about the chemistry field, the Explore Science: Let's Do Chemistry project sought to understand how to design hands-on activities that could increase the feelings of interest, relevance, and self-efficacy around chemistry. Using design-based research, the team tested...

ChemAttitudes: Using Design-Based Research to Develop and Disseminate Strategies and Materials to Support Chemistry Interest, Relevance, and Self-Efficacy (ChemAttitudes, NSF DRL-1612482) is a collaborative project between the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS), the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) among others. As a part of this project, researchers and educators from MOS and...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. Very little is known about the experiences of people with learning disabilities in informal learning environments. The Intrinsic Motivation in Science Museums: Learning from and Broadening Participation of Visitors with Learning Disabilities project will describe ways engagement and intrinsic motivation for learning are and are not supported for science museum...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. The project's goals are to: Develop systems thinking skills in youth Increase understanding of sustainable agricultural systems Raise awareness of STEM careers related to agricultural systems Leverage scientific research models and data for educational video games Use the Corn-Water-Ethanol-Beef System as a model for interconnected Food, Energy, Water Systems (FEWS) ...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. The Rural Activation and Innovation Network (RAIN) project aims to engage, support and better understand rural communities in:  Changing perceptions of the importance of STEM Learning Leveraging of local STEM resources and expertise with Rural Innovation Councils (RICs) Strategic Planning embedding asset maps, gap analysis, budget, media, and communication. ...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. Collaborative robots – cobots – are designed to work with humans, not replace them. What learning affordances are created in educational games when learners program robots to assist them in a game instead of being the game? What game designs work best? ...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. Free-choice learning occurs when individuals make choices about what, where, how, and who they participate with in their self-motivated learning activities. This project explores how different people, living in the same geographic region, make plants and gardening a part of their lives. We explore how adult community members choose to participate...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. Project Harvest is a co-created citizen science project that investigates the quality of household environments in Arizona communities neighboring active or legacy mining and/or toxic release. Project Harvest is a response to the community-driven questions, “Are there pollutants in harvested rainwater? Can I use the harvested rainwater for my garden?" ...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. To engage youth in global challenges such as energy issues, students’ own community can serve as personally relevant venues for scientific inquiry. For example, after students learn about heat transfer in school, they can use this knowledge to inspect the energy efficiency of their own schools and public buildings in their...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. The Reflecting on Practice program is designed for organizations to adopt and implement themselves, rather than having an outside expert come on-site or sending select individuals out to participate. The intention is for the community to learn about learning together, and in the process shape the language and meanings by which...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. This research draws from scholarship on bonds between people and places to help understand the growing knowledge, community, and personal outcomes linked to place-based citizen science experiences. Following an analysis of the place attachment (PAT) (an emotional bond between a person and a place) of participants in the Coastal Observation and...

This pilot and feasibility project will explore whether participation in informal science initiatives like citizen science, which is a form of Public Participation in Scientific Research, can foster or enhance participant attachment to the natural places participants investigate via these programs. The project also examines if participant attachment to place influences the development or application of critical thinking skills among...

This poster was presented at the 2021 National Science Foundation (NSF) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Awardee Meeting. The goal of this two-year project is to examine systemic issues within learning spaces and provide educators with anti-racist approaches that validate and uplift Black learners. Through a combination of media, educator and role model professional development, and intentional outreach, Black SciGirls will create more...

This poster was presented at the 2021 National Science Foundation (NSF) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Awardee Meeting.  The project’s goal is to create media-rich citizen science experiences for girls, particularly girls of color and/or from rural areas, which broaden their STEM participation, build positive STEM identity and increase understanding of scientific concepts, while leveraging the citizen science endeavors occurring at 16...

The September/October 2021 issue of Informal Learning Review (ILR) reflects on the state of the field during the ongoing pandemic, and the ways in which institutions are adapting to the "new normal." ...

Identity development frameworks provide insight into why and to what extent individuals engage in STEM related activities. While studies of “STEM identity” often build off previously validated disciplinary and/or science identity frameworks, quantitative analyses of constructs that specifically measure STEM identity and its antecedents are scarce, making it challenging for researchers or practitioners to apply a measurement-based perspective of participation...

An individual's sense of themselves as a “STEM person” is largely formed through recognition feedback. Unfortunately, for many minoritized individuals who engage in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in formal and informal spaces, this recognition often adheres to long-standing exclusionary expectations of what STEM participation entails and institutionalized stereotypes of what it means to be a STEM person. However,...

This report presents summative evaluation results for a National Science Foundation funded project entitled Grounding Institutional Partnerships in Structures for Broader Impacts Design (BID). The project represents a collaboration between five institutions: Institute for Learning Innovation, The STEM Research Center at Oregon State University, Scicenter, University of Washington-Bothell, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. BID aimed at creating an inter-institutional structure and...

Background: Authentic research experiences and mentoring have positive impacts on fostering STEM engagement among youth from backgrounds underrepresented in STEM. Programs applying an experiential learning approach often incorporate one or both of these elements, however, there is little research on how these factors impact youth’s STEM engagement during the high school to college transition. Purpose: Using a longitudinal design, this...

The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago will conduct a research study that measures a sense of belonging for museum guests, helping museums identify and address social exclusion issues. Project activities include developing and testing a survey instrument with museum visitors along with a comparison group of non-museum goers, culminating in the production of the final instrument, a user's guide,...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. The project aims to engage students who had no or negative STEM experience in science and engineering through site visits and learning what is behind the scenes of entertainment and hospitality projects. ...

This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting. Youth Radio (YR) Media is a national network of journalists, designers, developers and artists ages 14-24 who create media and technology that address key social issues — including, since 2019, A.I. through an ethics and equity lens. Participants are primarily youth of color and those contending with economic and other barriers to...