Pathways Project: KC Empower: Universal Access To After School STEM,

动感城市课后活动是一个由之前的NSF奖项支持的项目，该项目已经在计算机游戏/模拟、动手活动、积极玩耍以及艺术和写作等典型的课外活动领域产生了80多项活动。这个名为KC Empower的路径项目将重新设计和测试Kinetic City目前制定的80项活动中的5项活动，使用一种新的方法来增加残疾儿童和青年在非正式科学环境中的代表性。该项目将测试如何将通用设计原则与新技术相结合，以满足残疾学生的需求。在大多数课外STEM内容创建时，新技术是不可用的。重新设计中使用的技术包括先进的移动平台和应用程序；筛选音频、图像和视频文件的搜索引擎；响应身体动作的游戏输入设备；以及允许多种内容表示的信息重组。该项目将测试通用设计指南如何与新技术相结合，在短期内为残疾学生提供更多的动手活动，同时增加所有学生的机会。该项目预计将导致一个全面的开发项目，将在放学后更新Kinetic City的所有模块。该项目的目标受众是3-5年级的学生。该项目的假设是，为残疾设计可以加强旨在增加科学知识的活动。与其说为残疾人提供便利，不如说是环境和设计是残疾的，更好的教育做法是从包括残疾人在内的所有学习者的角度重新思考这项活动。因此，通用设计的使用将涉及如何在受到残疾用户提出的挑战的影响的同时，最好地向所有用户呈现材料。该项目包括课后科学联盟、应用特殊技术中心和课后联盟。

Kinetic City After School is a project supported by a prior NSF award that has produced over 80 activities in areas typical of after school activities such as computer games/simulations, hands-on activities, active play, and art and writing. This pathways project, KC Empower, will redesign and test five activities of the 80 activities currently developed by Kinetic City using a new approach to increase the representation of children and youth with disabilities in informal science settings. The project will test how universal design principles can be integrated with new technologies, not available when most after school STEM content was created, to address the needs of students with disabilities. The technologies used in the redesign include advanced mobile platforms and applications; search engines that sift through audio, image and video files; gaming input devices that respond to body movements; and information restructuring that allows multiple representations of content. The project will test how universal design guidelines will work with new technologies, in the short-term providing hands-on activities more accessible to students with disabilities, while increasing access for all students. The project is expected to lead to a full scale development project that will update all modules in Kinetic City After School. The target audience is 3rd - 5th grade students.The hypothesis of the project is that designing for disability can strengthen activities designed to increase science knowledge. Rather than making accommodations for persons with disabilities, it is the environment and design that are disabled, and it is better educational practice to rethink the activity from the point of view of all learners, including those with disabilities. Thus the use of universal design will address how best to present material for all users while influenced by the challenges presented by disabled users. The project includes the Coalition for Science After School, the Center for Applied Special Technology and the Afterschool Alliance.