REVISE Vision

Our Vision

The REVISE Center aims to disrupt conventions and institutional barriers to transforming physical and digital ISE environments. We align our equity framework with the work of those devoted to social justice in STEM education educational spaces (Rose, 2020; Adams, 2020; Sonnie & GARE, 2018). We begin with this definition of STEM education equity: 

The process and product of working in community and solidarity with others to understand, reimagine and enact what it means to construct a STEM identity aligned with one’s epistemology, cultural values, and goals; to redefine and foster STEM competencies that are responsive to different cultures and abilities and address the needs of diverse communities; to forge new STEM career paths; and to generate and provide evidence-based information to allow everyone to make informed decisions leading to successful outcomes for themselves and their communities.

The Vision and Challenge

The above language serves to lay out an initial framework, a springboard for how we envision equity – what it feels like, how it sounds, tastes, and looks. Additionally, it sets forth a process for improving ISE research, practice, and evaluation, a hope for realizing justice, and a vision for how the collective efforts of the REVISE Center, the ISE field, and NSF will cultivate enriching environments for all STEM learners. Finally, it aims to identify and address historical inequities to reimagine a future embracing full participation and inclusion in STEM. 

As a team, we are also challenged to dig deeper into our own language, clarifying definitions and ways to operationalize equity. Thus, we sought to craft a vision devoid of academic jargon, not as a means to subvert or vilify academia or Western traditions of thought and communication, but to make an enduring statement that is accessible to all readers and distills our language to its simplest ideals:

We envision an equitable world where STEM is for everyone, led by everyone, and belongs to everyone. 

Acknowledgement

This article serves to summarize the Vision for the Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education (REVISE) Center. 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.

The RE-Vision Statement 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 RE-Vision Statement also reminds us that the work of equity is often 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 vision 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, RE-Vision 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