Teen Science Cafes for Advancing STEM in Rural Places

作为加强非正式环境中学习的总体战略的一部分，推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）项目资助了用于各种环境的创新研究、方法和资源。在这个项目中，科学咖啡馆多年来已经成为向公众展示科学信息的有用机制。最近，这个论坛被成功地用作青少年的交流机制。虽然这种机制在城市和郊区的青少年中很成功，但在农村青少年中却并不有效。因此，该项目旨在找出青少年科学咖啡馆（tsc）在农村环境中面临的挑战，并找到克服这些挑战的方法。长期目标是吸引大量的青少年，让他们成年后成为对科学过程有深刻理解的公民，并通过各种途径进入美国的STEM劳动力市场。这项研究将集中在农村地区青少年科学咖啡馆的关键组成部分和结果方面，研究什么是有效的，对谁有效，在哪里有效。在最广泛的层面上，该项目将通过制定一个将校外STEM （OST）引入农村社区的国家模式，加强基础设施和能力建设。在为期两年的项目中，大约600名独特的参与者将参加青少年科学咖啡馆，这些咖啡馆将激发他们对STEM的好奇心，提供领导机会，并使STEM职业更加引人注目、参与性更强、更容易接触到那些经常无法在学校获得高质量STEM课程的农村群体。该项目的具体目标是：(1)测试以非正式STEM教育工作者领导青少年科学咖啡馆的面对面和虚拟实践社区为中心的国家专业发展模式的可行性和有效性。(2)形成涉及pi和咖啡馆领导者的研究实践伙伴关系，以：i)确定并记录现有的当地条件、资源和挑战及其对OST STEM教育的意义；ii)与同伴和pi合作，系统地测试让农村青少年参与tsc的新策略；(3)在青少年中培养“STEM无处不在”的观念。农村青少年往往是孤立的，他们在社区中的STEM职业对他们来说基本上是不可见的。到目前为止，已有19个地理位置和人口分布不同的活跃青少年咖啡馆网站致力于该项目。这些指数将采用多方面的方法来描述乡村性，它们将使用已建立的相对乡村性指数（IRR），其中包括四个空间变量（偏远程度、总体人口规模、密度和建设用地比例）。咖啡馆系列在每个站点的影响将通过多种方法确定，包括：(1)对青少年进行前后调查，采用STEM态度和参与度的测量；(2)成年领导者在博客中详细描述青少年的挑战/成功；(3)对领导者进行访谈，揭示他们对战略成功相关原因的看法。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。

As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. In this project, Science Cafe's have emerged over the years as a useful mechanism for exposure of scientific information to the public. More recently, this forum has been successfully used as a communication mechanism for teens. While this mechanism is successful with urban and suburban youth, it has not been efficacious with rural teens. Thus, this project is designed to ferret out the challenges faced by Teen Science Cafe's(TSCs) in rural settings and find ways to surmount them. The long-term goal is to engage a large number of teens who will enter adulthood as citizens with a sophisticated understanding of the science process and who will follow a myriad of pathways into the U.S. STEM workforce. The research will focus on what works, for whom, and where with respect to the key components and outcomes of teen science cafe's in rural areas. At the broadest level, the project will strengthen infrastructure and build capacity by producing a national model for bringing OST (out of school time) STEM to rural communities. Over the two project years, approximately 600 unique participants will participate in teen science cafe's that engage their curiosity in STEM, provide leadership opportunities, and make STEM occupations more visible, participatory and approachable for rural teems who often lack access to high quality STEM programs in school. Specific goals of the project for rural settings are: (1) To test the feasibility and effectiveness of a national model of professional development centered on an in-person and virtual community of practice for informal STEM educators leading teen science cafe's. (2) Form research-practice partnerships involving the PIs and the leaders of cafe's to: i) identify and document existing local conditions, resources, and challenges and their significance for OST STEM education; ii) work collaboratively with peers and the PIs to systematically test new strategies for engaging rural teens in TSCs; (3) Cultivate a mindset among teens that STEM IS EVERYWHERE. Rural teens are often isolated and the STEM careers in their communities are largely invisible to them. To date, 19 geographically and demographically diverse active teen cafe's sites have committed to the project. The PIs will use a multifaceted approach to characterizing rurality, They will use the established Index of Relative Rurality (IRR) which includes four spatial variables (remoteness, overall population size, density, and proportion of built-up land). The impact of the Cafe's series at each site will be determined via multiple methods, including: (1) pre-post-surveys with teens, employing the measure of STEM attitudes and engagement; (2) detailed blog postings by adult leaders describing the challenges/successes of teen and (3) interviews with leaders to uncover their perceptions of the reasons associated with success of the strategy.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.