GSE/DIS: Creating a Community of Practice on Science, Gender and Afterschool

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Educational Equity Concepts, Inc. (EEC), lead agency, in collaboration with the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research at the Academy for Educational Development (AED) and in partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), proposes to create a unique web-based community of practice on science, gender and after-school (SGA). Objectives are to: (1) further research in the STEM, gender, and after-school fields; (2) aid after-school program practitioners in accessing high quality STEM content that they can incorporate into their existing programs; and (3) foster connections between researchers, policymakers and practitioners.The SGA Community of Practice will continue and extend the dialogue that began at a conference in September 2002 which resulted in a Research-Action Agenda. Participants will be able to communicate through online video and web-cast forums, threaded discussions, bulletin boards, and listservs, and disseminate science curriculum designed to address girls' interests. While the immediate audience will be the core leadership group of 50 experts who participated in the SGA Conference and/or contributed to the development of the Research-Action Agenda, others will be recruited through extensive outreach and marketing strategies.Participants will access the site through a portal in the website (www.afterschool.org) developed and managed by the AED Center. The site receives 14,000 visits and over 300,000 hits monthly. The site will be launched with a webcast forum at the AAAS Annual Conference in February 2005; this launch date is critical in that it will coincide with the new science achievement provisions mandated by No Child Left Behind, slated to go into effect the same year. Intellectual Merit: The SGA Community of Practice is a unique and innovative resource for leaders of after-school programs concerned with informal STEM education. The programs are scattered across the country but in the aggregate represent significant research, program evaluations, curricula, best practices and publications in need of dissemination and exchange.Broader Impacts: The overall goal of the SGA Community of Practice is to broaden the participation of underserved girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The goal is to develop a large and geographically distributed of researchers, practitioners and policymakers into a community of practice.