Broadening Participation by Middle-School Students in STEM via Integrating Hands-on Experiences in Science Learning

作为其整体战略的一部分，以加强在非正式环境中的学习，推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划旨在推进新的方法，并以证据为基础的理解，在非正式环境中的STEM学习的设计和开发。这包括提供多种途径，以扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验，推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及发展参与者对深入学习的理解。 这个探索性的试点研究项目汇集了各种各样的合作伙伴，包括波士顿西部的沃特敦儿童剧院（WCT），以及波士顿学院的科学教育工作者，学习科学研究人员和积极的青年发展专家团队。目标是为中学生设计和开发一个项目。该试点项目将实践科学学习经验，实验和实地考察与学生主导的短剧制作相结合，将通过研究如何交叉技能和实践，让年轻人表达他们对STEM的信仰，激情和自己的身份。在这两个领域使用（科学和戏剧）可以使他们了解科学概念、原则和方法，并发展以科学为重点的身份。中学生将参加为期三周的暑期项目，在科学教师、剧作家和高中生的带领下，进行科学实践调查，并围绕与他们生活经验相关的特定科学主题开发原创的十分钟戏剧，例如，水中重金属和空气质量差对他们生活的潜在影响。 在选择了一个科学主题后，主要研究人员将确定对年轻人理解和能够解释的重要思想。一旦确定了关键的科学思想，青年将参与相关的科学活动，参观当地的网站，阅读当前的新闻文章，然后确定当地的影响，以及基础科学如何与这些当地的影响联系起来。 在夏季节目结束时，年轻人将表演他们的十分钟戏剧。在这次展示活动之后，他们将参与额外的科学学习体验，并在整个学年中修改他们的作品，为青年科学节做准备，他们的创作将由专业成人演员作为春季剑桥科学节的一部分进行表演。这项工作的更广泛影响侧重于扩大对STEM的参与，特别是来自科学领域代表性不足的人口的青年的参与，例如非洲裔美国人，拉丁美洲人和波士顿公立学校的女性。 试点研究将调查学生的学习和正在开发的模型的组织层面。波士顿学院的研究人员将研究青年对科学的目的感和认同感，特别是青年的认同差异如何通过参与该项目而改变。该作品将青年的声音置于基于STEM的戏剧创作的中心。这部著作的理论基础部分是基于“通往目的之路”的概念。“主要的研究问题是：青年的看法（兴趣，科学焦虑，身份）如何向科学转变，因为他们参加了项目？ 对父母（家庭成员）和青少年讨论科学的剩余影响是什么？参与项目如何影响这些讨论？ 研究方法包括调查、访谈和观察。 外部评价研究将侧重于了解项目执行情况和实现项目目标的进展情况，特别是，该计划在为非正式STEM学习领域建立一个模型方面的工作如何，该团队和其他人可以在试点研究之外应用该模型。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估来支持的搜索.

As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. This exploratory Pilot study project brings together a diverse set of partners that include the Watertown Children's Theatre (WCT) which is west of Boston, and, from Boston College a team of science educators, learning science researchers, and positive youth development experts. The goal is to design and develop a project for middle school-aged youth. The pilot project, which integrates hands-on science learning experiences, experiments, and field trips with the student-led production of short plays, will engage youth in expressing their beliefs, passions, and their own identities about STEM by examining how the intersection of skills and practices used in both domains (science and theatre) can enable them to learn about science concepts, principles and methods as well as to develop science-focused identities. Middle-school youth will be engaged in a three-week summer program where they will be led by science teachers, playwrights, and high school students to conduct hands-on investigations in science in conjunction with developing original, ten-minute plays around a specific scientific theme relevant to their life experience, for example, the potential impact on their lives of heavy metals in water and poor air quality. After a science theme is chosen, the principal investigators will identify the big ideas that are important for youth to understand and be able to explain. Upon identification of the key science ideas, youth will then engage in pertinent science activities, visits to local sites, reading current news articles and then in identifying the local impacts and how the underlying science relates to those local impacts. The youth will perform their ten-minute plays at the end of the summer program. Following this showcase event, they will engage in additional science learning experiences and also revise their productions throughout the academic year in preparation for a youth science festival, where their creations will be performed by professional adult actors as a part of the Cambridge Science Festival taking place in the spring. The broader impact of the work focuses on broadening participation in STEM, specifically, the engagement of youth from under-represented populations in the sciences, such as African-Americans, Latinxs, and women with partner Boston Public Schools. The Pilot study will investigate the student learning and organizational dimensions of the model being developed. The Boston College researchers will study youth's sense of purpose and identity toward science, particularly how youth's identity discrepancy changes through participation in the project. The work places youth voice at the center of the creation of STEM-based theatre plays. The theoretical foundation of the work is grounded in part in the concept of "path to purpose." The major research questions are: How do youth perceptions (interest, science anxiety, identity) toward science shift as they participate in the project? What is the residual impact on parents (family members) and youth on their discussions about science, and how does participation in the project impact those discussions? Research methods include surveys, interviews and observations. The external evaluation study will focus on understanding project implementation and progress toward meeting the project goals, in particular, how well the initiative works to establish a model for the informal STEM learning field that the team and others can apply beyond the Pilot study.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.