Equitable Computer Science for All Learning Ecosystems: Developing Underserved Students' Computational Making Literacies Through Community-Embedded Out of School Time Programming

美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的CSforAll计划的核心目标是创建基础设施、途径和激励机制，以开发生态系统，支持和激励所有年轻人成为计算机素养的人，并追求计算机科学相关的学位和职业。该提案提出了两个问题：我们如何培养一个社区学习环境，承认、支持和促进计算能力作为导师、青年和家庭理想的、可获得的社会资本形式？这些社区层面的联系如何影响青少年的计算学习机会、参与、社会网络、知识和理解？在埃文斯顿，西北大学、学区和埃文斯顿基督教青年会之间的合作伙伴关系将共同努力，通过设计和运营一个以社区为基础的计算制作OST中心来理解和回答这些问题，该中心提供学习活动和同伴社区，为学生、有爱心的成年人、教育工作者应重新调整他们对计算机科学相关职业的看法，认为这是社会上年轻人所向往和可以实现的。本提案旨在利用一个独特的机会——在一个种族和社会经济多元化的社区中推出1:1的中学生平板电脑计划，积极致力于解决他们不断扩大的成就差距——来实施一个基于社区的计算制作OST中心，并设想一个旨在支持青年和关心成人（父母和导师）的社区嵌入式方法如何激发年轻人的计算制作参与。具体来说，该提案旨在创建一个学习社区，使用计算思维指导的设计过程来激励和支持学生系统地创建交互式对象，这些对象需要集成编码，数字制作和视觉设计素养，以产生美观强大且具有社会意识的解决方案，以应对学生和社区定义的设计挑战。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

At its core, the National Science Foundation's CSforAll initiative has the goal of creating theinfrastructure, pathways, and incentives that develop ecosystems for supporting and motivating all youthto become computationally literate and pursue computer science-related degrees and careers. Thisproposal makes a case for the extension of the CSforAll infrastructure to include the integration of out-of-school time (OST) learning projects into existing CSforAll funded grants by asking two questions: Howcan we foster a community learning environment that recognizes, supports, and promotes computationalliteracies as a desirable and accessible form of social capital by mentors, youth, and families? And howdo these community-level connections impact youth computational making learning opportunities,participation, social networks, knowledge, and understanding? In Evanston, a partnership betweenNorthwestern University, the district, and the Evanston YMCA will work together to understand and answer thesequestions by designing and operating a community-based computational making OST hub that providesthe learning activities and peer community needed to create an inviting and relevant environment forstudents, caring adults, and educators to reorient their perception towards computer science-relatedcareers as desirable and achievable for youth in the community.This proposal seeks to take advantage of a unique opportunity - the launch of a 1:1 middle grades tabletinitiative in a racially and socioeconomically diverse community actively engaged in addressing theirexpanding achievement gap - to implement a community-based computational making OST hub andreimagine how a community-embedded approach to OST designed to support youth and caring adults(parents and mentors) can ignite youths' computational making participation. Specifically, this proposalseeks to create a learning community that uses the computational thinking guided design process tomotivate and support students in the systemic creation of interactive objects that require theintegration of coding, digital fabrication, and visual design literacies to produce aesthetically powerfuland socially conscious solutions to student and community defined design challenges.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.