Utilizing the Library System and Virtual Reality Learning Experiences To Engage Rural and LatinX Communities in Polar Research

获得STEM信息的机会不平等，农村和贫困社区获得的公共教育科学和科学素养机会往往最少。农村地区还面临着独特的STEM教学和技术整合挑战。事实上，农村地区的拉美裔社区不太可能获得城市中心拉美裔社区可用的教育资源和语言支持。该项目将通过动员农村图书馆员、双语科学传播者、极地科学家和一个技术团队来创建一系列五种双语虚拟现实(VR)体验，以增进对STEM的理解和欣赏，从而帮助解决这些不平等问题。项目研究人员将创建一个传播极地科学的新渠道，首先与威斯康星州的拉丁裔农村社区合作，在农村社区和大学研究人员之间创建一个新的网络。让乡村图书馆员参与教学过程的共同设计将为乡村图书馆创造新的方式，让他们的当地社区和他们日益增长的拉丁裔人口参与极地科学学习经验。五个VR体验中的每一个都将专注于不同的研究领域，以迷人的北极和南极环境为中心主题来传达科学。VR是一种特别强大和恰当的方法，使人们有可能参观大多数人无法第一手体验的地方，同时还可以了解在极地地区进行的广泛的重大研究。在设计、原型和测试完成后，VR体验将在全国范围内免费使用，无论是在农村还是城市。公众对科学的参与创造了大量的互惠互利，这是一个更有见识的社会的结果。这些好处包括对科学的更大信任和更理性的审查，以及对STEM职业的兴趣增加，其中许多职业具有更高的收入潜力。项目小组将与51个农村图书馆合作，这些图书馆是宝贵的社区渠道，是提高科学素养和公众参与科学的宝贵渠道。这个项目的效果将在数千名社区成员中看到，他们在开发过程中参与原型VR体验的测试，并通过正在进行的图书馆项目在未来几年利用最终的VR体验进行规模参与。该项目将创建新的非正式STEM学习评估技术，将以前在教育数据挖掘领域的努力结合起来，用于隐形评估和通过监测凝视方向的视点相似性度量。该项目的成果有助于教育数据挖掘(EDM)领域，重点是采用其方法来获得VR学习体验。EDM是使用来自数字系统的细粒度交互数据来支持与教育相关的结论的过程，并已被广泛应用于智能家教以及最近的教育视频游戏。该项目将继续建立在现有方法的基础上，扩大到包括虚拟现实学习媒体的独特负担能力，特别是凝视。该项目将专注于预测用户戒烟以及评估每一次体验中的关键学习目标，并将这些预测模型与用户观察和经验后调查进行三角划分。这项基础性研究的最终应用将解决使用经验本身之外的衡量标准(即调查)来评估学习者的问题，并提供新的方法，仅使用学习者在学习环境中的行动产生的数据来测试学习者。这些技术将为评估沉浸式技术环境中的非正式学习提供一种新的方法，而不需要明确的标记。该项目的发现将使人们能够更好地理解用户体验和他们的学习结果之间的关系，这可能会被证明是使用VR技术创建教育干预措施不可或缺的一部分。这一创新发展项目由推进非正式STEM学习计划(AISL)资助，该计划旨在：(A)促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解；(B)为扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验提供多种途径；(C)推进对非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估；以及(D)让所有年龄段的公众在非正式环境中学习STEM。该项目也得到了极地计划办公室的支持。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Access to STEM information is unequal, with rural and poor communities often receiving the fewest public education science and science literacy opportunities. Rural areas also face unique STEM teaching and technology integration challenges. In fact, LatinX communities in rural areas are less likely to have access to educational resources and language supports available to LatinX communities in urban centers. This project will help address these inequities by engaging rural librarians, bilingual science communicators, polar scientists, and a technical team to create a series of five bilingual virtual reality (VR) experiences to enhance STEM understanding and appreciation. Project researchers will create a new channel for disseminating polar science, working first with rural Latinx communities in Wisconsin to create a new network between rural communities and university researchers. Involving rural librarians in the co-design of instruction process will produce new ways for rural libraries to engage their local communities and their growing Latinx populations with polar science learning experiences. Each of the five VR experiences will focus on a different area of research, using the captivating Arctic and Antarctic environments as a central theme to convey science. VR is a particularly powerful and apt approach, making it possible to visit places that most cannot experience first-hand while also learning about the wide range of significant research taking place in polar regions. After design, prototyping and testing are finished, the VR experiences will be freely available for use nationally in both rural and urban settings. Public engagement with science creates a multitude of mutual benefits that result from a better-informed society. These benefits include greater trust and more reasoned scrutiny of science along with increased interest in STEM careers, many of which have higher earning potential. The project team will partner with 51 rural libraries which are valued community outlets valuable outlets to improve science literacy and public engagement with science. The effects of this project will be seen with thousands of community members who take part in the testing of prototype VR experiences during development and scaled engagement through ongoing library programs utilizing the final VR experiences for years to come. This project will create new informal STEM learning assessment techniques through combining prior efforts in the areas of educational data mining for stealth assessment and viewpoint similarity metrics through monitoring gaze direction. Results of the project contribute to the field of educational data mining (EDM), focusing on adopting its methods for VR learning experiences. EDM is a process of using fine grained interaction data from a digital system to support educationally relevant conclusions and has been applied extensively to intelligent tutors and more recently, educational videogames. This project will continue building on existing approaches by expanding to include the unique affordances of VR learning media, specifically gaze. The project will focus on predicting user quitting as well as assessing key learning goals within each experience and triangulate these predictive models with user observations and post-experience surveys. The eventual application of this foundational research would address the problem in assessing a learner using measures external to the experience itself (i.e., surveys) and instead provide new methods that instrument learners using only data generated by their actions within the learning context. These techniques will provide a new means for evaluating informal learning in immersive technology settings without need for explicit tagging. The findings from this project will enable a greater understanding of the relationship between a user’s experience and their learning outcomes, which may prove integral in the creation of educational interventions using VR technology. This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments. This project is also supported by the Office of Polar Programs.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.