SCC: I4all (Interests for All): A Smart Socio-Technical Infrastructure to Identify, Cultivate, and Sustain Youth STEAM Interests in a Diverse Midsized American City

该项目是智能互联社区奖。该社区是伊利诺伊州埃文斯顿的一部分，由以下主要合作伙伴组成：-EvanSTEM，这是一个在校/校外时间(OST)计划，旨在改善埃文斯顿表现不佳或在STEM中未被代表的学生的机会和参与度。-McGaw YMCA，由12,000个家庭组成，为20,000个人提供服务，并在安全的社区氛围中支持技术和制作空间活动(元媒体)。-西北大学社区教育伙伴办公室(OCEP)，为大学和社区在研究、教学和服务倡议方面的合作提供支持。这一伙伴关系将开发一种新的方法，通过埃文斯顿所有年轻人的STEAM(科学、技术、工程、艺术和数学)兴趣来学习管理。该项目题为“全民利益”(I4All)，建立在两位首席调查员(PI)的现有研究成果和牵头伙伴之间以前的伙伴关系(EvanSTEM和Metamedia以OCEP为创始伙伴)的基础上。I4All还将埃文斯顿学区、OST提供者、该市和埃文斯顿的西北大学聚集在一起，作为参与者。特别是，该项目建立在Pi Pinkard的学习城市项目和共同的Pi Stevens的FUSE工作室项目的基础上。这两个项目都有明确的目标，即扩大对STEAM追求的参与，这一目标在I4All中得到了显著的推进。在该项目中，I4All基础设施将使用量化指标进行评估，这些指标将告诉研究人员埃文斯顿青年是否以及在多大程度上正在发现和发展他们的蒸汽兴趣，以及I4All基础设施是否支持向青年更公平地分配机会。研究人员还将对青少年兴趣发展进行深入的定性案例研究。这些纵向研究将补充参与的量化指标，并作为基于绩效指标设计的实施研究方法的一部分，提供将用于为I4All中的变化提供信息的措施。I4All制作的人工制品包括FUSE工作室项目、软件基础设施，用于指导学生通过OST和校内活动，并向学生提供有关参与I4All活动的后勤信息，以及将向所有利益相关者提供的数据，以评估I4All的有效性。此外，这项研究有可能将这一模式扩展到不同的社区，利用一个社区的OST网络开始在整个学区更广泛地提供专业发展，并作为其他学区的榜样。这些研究成果还可能影响当地学校官员和社区组织制定的战略和政策，这些战略和政策是关于如何共同努力创建当地学习环境，以创建一个正式和非正式学习空间支持和强化STEAM知识的生态系统。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project is a Smart and Connected Communities award. The community is part of Evanston, Illinois and is composed of the lead partners described below:- EvanSTEM which is a in-school/out of school time (OST) program to improve access and engagement for students in Evanston who have underperformed or been underrepresented in STEM.- McGaw YMCA which consists of 12,000 families serving 20,000 individuals and supporting technology and makerspace activities (MetaMedia) in a safe community atmosphere.- Office of Community Education Partnerships (OCEP) at Northwestern University which provides support for the university and community to collaborate on research, teaching, and service initiatives. This partnership will develop a new approach to learning enagement through the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) interests of all young people in Evanston. This project is entitled Interests for All (I4All) and builds upon existing research results of the two Principal Investigators (PIs) and previous partnerships between the lead partners (EvanSTEM and MetaMedia had OCEP as a founding partner). I4All also brings together Evanston school districts, OST prividers, the city, and Evanston's Northwestern University as participants. In particular the project builds on PI Pinkard's Cities of Learning project and co-PI Stevens' FUSE Studios project. Both of these projects have explicit goals to broaden participation in STEAM pursuits, a goal that is significantly advanced through I4All. In this project, I4All infrastructure will be evaluated using quantitative metrics that will tell the researchers whether and to what degree Evanston youth are finding and developing their STEAM interests and whether the I4All infrastructure supports a significantly more equitable distribution of opportunities to youth. The researchers will also conduct in depth qualitative case studies of youth interest development. These longitudinal studies will complement the quantitative metrics of participation and give measures that will be used in informing changes in I4All as part of the PIs Design Based Implementation Research approach. The artifacts produced in I4All include FUSE studio projects, software infrastructure to guide the students through OST and in-school activities and to provide to the students actionable information as to logistics for participation in I4All activities, and data that will be available to all stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of I4All. Additionally, this research has the potential to provide for scaling this model to different communities, leveraging the OST network in one community to begin to offer professional development more widely throughout the school districts and as an exemplar for other districts. These research results could also affect strategies and policies created by local school officials and community organizations regarding how to work together to create local learning environments to create an ecosystem where formal and informal learning spaces support and reinforce STEAM knowledge.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.