REVISE Mission

Our Mission

The Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education (REVISE) Center inspires and transforms the informal STEM education space by:

  • Continually challenging the ISE community to center equity in their practice
  • Collaborating, convening, and connecting people to accessible stories and resources (that help them) to re-envision the role that equity plays in their work 
  • Celebrating the communities thriving on their own terms

Background and Context

We are primarily inspired from conversations and experiences held during our inaugural retreat in San Diego, CA, USA (facilitated by The Canizales Group and Daniel Aguirre from Pueblo, and hosted by The Fleet Science Center, World Beat Center and The Museum of Us), and reflections from our original National Science Foundation Advancing Informal STEM Learning (NSF-AISL) proposal. We began with the following set of goals and objectives:

The Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education (REVISE) Center will advance equity within the informal STEM education (ISE) field through (a) diverse, cross-sector, community-building and sharing of resources and ethical practices to establish long-lasting compassionate relationships; (b) bolstering infrastructures to extend research capacity and expand access to funding; (c) promoting critical reflection and dialogue on historical and contextual factors that underlie systemic inequities, mistrust, and power hierarchies in STEM; and (d) inclusive communication and culturally responsive evaluation that broadens participation and promotes organizational change and transformative social justice.

Through additional iterative discussion with NSF, we then categorized our goals and objectives into four distinct functional areas for the Center:

  • Cultivate a multi-sector, diverse community dedicated to promoting equity in informal STEM learning experiences and environments. 
  • Raise the visibility and impact of equity-focused research and practice in the informal STEM learning field and its contributions to the overall STEM endeavor. 
  • Support AISL PIs (Principal Investigators), prospective PIs, and partners in enacting their commitments to equity with respect to research and practice. 
  • Promote equitable practices that support the AISL program. 

The Mission Statement above represents a small, yet critical, step in recognizing our positionality and sphere of influence. While our Mission offers REVISE’s intended contributions, it also posits a shared role the field plays in advancing equity, holding itself accountable, and celebrating joyous moments where equity is enacted. We labor in collaboration with the growing ISE ecosystem dedicated to change. Taken together with our background goals and functions, this mission statement succinctly espouses how we view partnership and how the Center will walk alongside the field collectively finding our footing on our journey toward equity.   

Acknowledgement

The REVISE Mission and other documentation shared by the REVISE Center are fluid and in a constant space of evaluation and reevaluation. This means we are actively engaging in research, collecting input from the ISE community, and drawing on equity-centered practices and resources to refine this document. As we welcome and meet everyone where they are in their equity journey, this Mission remind us that as we connect people to resources that support them envisioning equity in their work, we acknowledge that the many of these resources are created and shouldered by the “intellectual labour of marginalized folks BIPOC, disabled artists, activists, scholars) and those occupying precarious positions in the academia (graduate students, adjuncts, emerging scholars) who are not properly (sometimes, never) recognized” (AIM Lab, 2022). We encourage and welcome novel ideas for how to value the collective contributions of those who labor to make the aforementioned Mission a reality.

Specifically, we are appreciative of the generative work of the Access in the Making (AIM) Lab and the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR). Their work and that of others underscore not only the importance of process in interrogating hierarchical norms and advancing equity, but also the significance of transparency in building trust, especially with the communities that have been historically and continue to be disenfranchised from the STEM endeavor.

Recommended Citation

It is our hope that REVISE Center activities, including webinars, convenings, amplification of ISE projects, etc. create a ripple effect that engenders greater equity across ISE institutions, research, practice, and evaluation. We share this document as an example of our synthesis process and how we choose to model equity in our practice. We hope this benefits the field in the same way. If you quote or reference any aspect of this document, whether in text or approach, please cite as the following:

The REVISE Center, Mission Statement. United States: Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education Center, 2024.

References

Adams, J. D. (2020). Designing frameworks for authentic equity in science teaching and learning: Informal learning environments and teacher education for STEM. Asia-Pacific Science Education, 6(2), 456-479. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/23641177-BJA10016

AIM Lab. Access in the Making (AIM) Lab Principles. Montreal: Access in the Making Lab, 2022. https://accessinthemaking.ca/protocol/

CLEAR. CLEAR Lab Book: A living manual of our values, guidelines, and protocols, V.03. St. John’s, NL: Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, 2021. https://civiclaboratory.nl/clear-lab-book/

Rose, K. M., Markowitz, E. M., & Brossard, D. (2020). Scientists’ incentives and attitudes toward public communication. PNAS, 117(3), 1274-1276. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916740117

Sonnie, A., & Government Alliance on Race and Equity,. (2018). Advancing racial equity in public libraries: Case studies from the field.

The Canizales Group, LLC