RAPID: Advancing Museum-Community Conversations that Intersect STEM and Racial Justice

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）计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，扩大STEM学习经验的获取和参与，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度学习的理解。这个RAPID项目的目标是更好地理解一个非正式的科学教育组织及其STEM资源如何与社区团体及其专业知识合作，以支持人们理解、处理和努力消除系统性种族主义的能力。该项目将利用近二十年来在科学博物馆背景下与STEM、种族和种族主义主题接触而开发和完善的展览和节目资源。STEM编程的例子包括数据和数据可视化，生物学和环境如何塑造行为和感知，以及使用技术进行交流。该项目将以以前在三个地区建立的关系为基础，设计和促进每个地区网站上关于种族的虚拟stem知识活动和对话。这些活动和培训将帮助参与者更好地理解、处理和努力消除系统性种族主义。鉴于2019冠状病毒病大流行和人们对系统性种族主义持续影响的认识不断提高，该RAPID项目非常及时。该项目将解决以下问题：1)什么样的虚拟stem活动允许社区成员探索、理解或采取行动应对系统性种族主义的影响？从参与者的角度来看，这些活动的主要特点是什么？作为这些活动的结果，社区成员报告的有希望的变化是什么？如何感知基于科学的资源，参与者如何感知他们正在学习STEM？2)是什么支持区域项目小组成员和博物馆工作人员成功地合作，是什么阻碍了这种合作？3)本地合作者如何定义他们工作的长期成功，他们如何跟踪他们的进展？项目团队和区域项目小组成员带来了社区参与、科学教育规划和非正式科学学习研究方面的一系列经验。该项目将通过定性和参与性研究以及响应社区成员不断变化的需求的虚拟stem活动，为非正式科学教育领域和其他地方利益相关者开发这种新知识。该项目将于2020年8月开始，因为理解研究问题的能力需要立即收集数据。由于这类研究对非正式STEM学习领域的重要性，该团队计划在2020年秋季之前分析数据并开始初步传播，随着项目的进展，将继续进行额外的数据收集、分析和传播。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 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. The goal of this RAPID project is to better understand how an informal science education organization and its STEM resources can partner with community groups and their expertise to support people’s ability to understand, process, and work toward dismantling systemic racism. The project will draw from exhibition and programming resources that have been developed and refined over almost two decades of engagement with the topics of STEM, race, and racism in a science museum context. Examples of STEM programming include data and data visualization, how biology and environment shape behavior and perception, and the use of technology to communicate. This project will build on previously developed relationships in three regions to design and facilitate virtual STEM-informed activities and conversations about race in each regional site. These activities and training will support participants to better understand, process, and work toward dismantling systemic racism.This RAPID project is timely given the Covid-19 pandemic and the increased awareness of the ongoing impact of systemic racism. The project will address the following questions: 1) What kinds of virtual STEM-informed activities allow for community members to explore, understand, or act upon the impacts of systemic racism? What are key features of those activities, from the perspective of participants? What are promising changes that community members report as a result of these activities? How are science-based resources perceived, and how do participants perceive they are learning STEM? 2) What supports allow the regional project group members and museum staff to collaborate successfully, and what obstacles slow that work down? 3) How do local collaboratives define long-term success of their work, and how can they track their progress over time? The project team and the regional project group members bring a range of experience in community engagement, science education programming, and informal science learning research. The project will develop this new knowledge for the informal science education field and other local stakeholders through qualitative and participatory research and virtual STEM-informed activities that are responsive to the changing needs of community members. The project will begin in August 2020 as the ability to understand the research questions requires immediate collection of data. Because of the essential nature of this type of research for the informal STEM learning field, the team plans to analyze data and start initial dissemination by the fall of 2020 with additional data collection, analysis, and dissemination continuing as the project progresses.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.