CAREER: Engineering in Youth-led Technology-rich Settings: Promoting Belonging and Preventing Harm

我们生活在一个越来越多地使用技术来完成基本日常任务的世界，使用技术的STEM和非STEM工作的数量正在稳步增加。然而，只有那些能够获得昂贵资源的学生，或者由于许多因素（包括大众媒体的形象）而认为自己擅长技术的学生，才有机会在工程和技术方面发展得舒适和流利。这种动态对历史上在STEM领域被边缘化的个人产生了不利影响。通常，年轻人不参与工程和技术，因为他们觉得他们不“属于”工程。在这个项目中，初高中青年将领导设计不同类型的技术（例如3d打印机，激光和乙烯基切割机，微控制器板，传感器和其他电子产品，缝纫机和手动工具）的空间，年轻人将在一个低风险的环境中解决与他们相关的工程问题。这些空间的设计将有两个目标：1)支持年轻人发展对空间和工程的归属感；2)将防止对社区和环境的危害作为解决工程问题的核心。青年还将与研究小组合作，研究如何将防止对人类和环境造成伤害的理念作为工程的基本原则，并开发最佳实践，以创建类似的由青年主导的技术丰富的空间。该项目还将汇集管理这些空间的协调员小组和正在或可能成为这些空间领导者的学生，向他们学习并支持他们学习新思想。利用技术来创造符合学生兴趣和动机的人工制品，在促进包容性和吸引学生学习工程方面有很大的希望。然而，在这些包容性努力中，女性、社会经济背景较低的学生以及来自未得到充分服务的种族和族裔群体的学生仍然没有得到充分的代表和服务。在工程和STEM环境中缺乏归属感发挥了明显的作用，教师、店员和协调员的无意把关行为也是如此。该项目通过开展青年参与性工作来解决这些障碍，以满足工程教育中技术丰富空间的未实现承诺。该项目有两个主要目标：目标1：支持青年领导探索技术使用和创造如何支持工程归属感。目标2：与青年一起制定一个框架，以防止工程时对人和环境造成伤害为中心。对于该项目的研究部分，该团队将开发1)促进在技术丰富的环境中归属感的最佳实践和评估工具，2)在工程设计实践中集中预防危害的框架，以及3)青年领导技术丰富的工程空间的开发和维护的最佳实践。该提案的教育计划将侧重于将研究成果与一年级工程课程中的工程设计课程相结合，并为非正式工程教育者和青年领袖提供培训和发展计划。这项工作将大大有助于PI的长期职业愿景，以支持历史上缺乏服务的学生利用工程和技术在日益工程化的世界中过上有目的和联系的生活。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。

We live in a world where we increasingly use technology to do essential daily tasks, and the number of STEM and non-STEM jobs that use technology is steadily increasing. Yet, only students who have access to expensive resources or see themselves as people who are good with technology due to many factors, including images in popular media, have opportunities to develop comfort and fluency in engineering and technology. This dynamic adversely impacts individuals who have been historically minoritized in STEM fields. Often, youth do not engage with engineering and technology because they feel like they do not "belong" in engineering. In this project, middle and high school youth will lead the design of spaces where different types of technologies (for example, 3d printers, laser and vinyl cutters, microcontroller boards, sensors and other electronics, sewing machines, and hand tools) will be used, by youth, to solve engineering problems relevant to them in a low-stakes environment. The spaces will be designed with two aims: 1) to support youth in developing a sense of belonging to the space and in engineering; and 2) to consider preventing harm to communities and the environment as central to their engineering problem-solving. The youth will also work with the research team to develop ways to introduce the idea of preventing harm to people and the environment as an essential tenet of engineering and develop best practices to create similar youth-led technology-rich spaces. The project will also bring together groups of coordinators who run such spaces and students who are or might become leaders in such spaces, to learn from them and support them in learning new ideas.Using technology to create artifacts aligned with students’ interests and motivations has great promise in promoting inclusion and attracting students to engineering. However, women, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and students from underserved racial and ethnic groups remain underrepresented and underserved in these inclusion efforts. A lack of sense of belonging in engineering and STEM contexts plays a clear role, as do the inadvertent gatekeeping behaviors of teachers, shop staff, and coordinators. This project addresses these barriers by conducting youth participatory work to meet the unmet promises of technology-rich spaces in engineering education. The project has two primary goals: Goal 1: To support youth in leading explorations of how technology use and creation can support a sense of belonging in engineering. Goal 2: To develop a framework along with youth that centers preventing harm to people and the environment when engineering. For the research component of this project, the team will develop 1) best practices to promote belonging in technology-rich settings and an instrument to assess it, 2) a framework to center preventing harm in engineering design practices, and 3) best practices for youth to lead the development and maintenance of technology-rich engineering spaces. The educational plan of the proposal will focus on integrating research findings with an engineering design curriculum in a first-year engineering course and training and development programs for informal engineering educators and youth leaders. This work will significantly contribute to the PI’s long-term career vision to support historically underserved students in using engineering and technology to live lives of purpose and connection in an increasingly engineered world.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.