Creating Sustainable Community, Museum, and University Collaborations

通过越来越多地关注校外环境，研究表明，当帮助年轻人看到位于STEM领域内的日常实践时，强大的科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）意义建构是可能的。博物馆和科学中心长期以来一直是公众参与STEM的中心；然而，在过去的几十年里，博物馆与社区相关的需求变得越来越重要。这促使人们认识到与社区合作而不是为社区工作的重要性，以及建立更好的机制以发展有意义的伙伴关系的必要性。因此，该项目旨在通过一系列在线和面对面的研讨会，为博物馆和科学中心的工作人员、社区成员（高中青年）和大学研究人员建立伙伴关系。通过这个为期一年的系列研讨会，将实现三个主要目标：a)了解在博物馆、当地社区和研究人员之间建立和促进道德社区伙伴关系的意义；B)为参与伙伴之间建立关系奠定基础，以便在系列研讨会之后继续建立网络和协作；c)创建一个生成式的协作空间，用于分享、探索和发展关于博物馆中设计、制定和研究文化上可持续的STEM青年项目的意义的想法。来自美国三个大城市（波士顿、费城和芝加哥）的博物馆和科学中心的与会者将相互学习如何为当地居民服务以及如何改进这种服务。该项目以Bang的社区设计研究（CBDR）为基础，将吸引博物馆教育工作者和工作人员，青年博物馆项目的现任和校友参与者，以及大学研究人员围绕几个感兴趣的问题：博物馆工作人员，社区成员和大学研究人员如何建立研究伙伴关系，为理论化和实现文化可持续的STEM学习开辟新的可能性？我们如何在本地和远端地理空间发展多层次的伙伴关系？我们如何考虑可能处于紧张状态的不同利益相关者的目标，并将它们转化为目标导向的活动，以实现共同繁荣？在让青年参与设计和制定研究与发展补助金方面还有哪些障碍？我们该如何减轻这些障碍呢？每个城市的团队将由来自六个博物馆/科学中心的两名博物馆工作人员、一名青年项目校友和三名青年项目参与者以及四名教育/学习科学研究人员组成。这些团队将参加当地和各地的面对面研讨会。项目将遵循三项核心原则，确保所有参与者公平、合乎道德地参与：(1)促进关系发展；(2)权力共享和尊重决策；(3)确定确保互惠互利的未来拟议项目。Photovoice被选为支持构思、分享和记录利益相关者的观点和经验的核心方法。叙事话语分析将是分析团队会议和研讨会数据的主要方法。该领域将受益于项目在地理位置内和跨地理位置的协作，参与者如何创建和共享知识，以及建议下一步的大纲。在项目结束时，可交付成果包括一套以社区为基础和包容性规划的原则，所有科学中心和博物馆都可以使用这些原则，以及新的合作，包括合作伙伴之间旨在为社区服务的新的可能的研究和开发项目。该伙伴关系发展和规划项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划支持以下项目：(a)促进研究和实践，考虑非正式STEM学习在STEM公平和归属方面的作用；(b)促进个人和教育在STEM方面的成功；(c)促进公众参与科学发现；(d)培养对STEM职业的兴趣；(e)为有效的非正式STEM学习创造和加强理论和经验基础；(f)改善社区活力；及/或(g)加强科学传播和公众对STEM和STEM过程的参与和理解。通过研究ISL领域的基础和有时有问题的实践，必须对这些实践进行审查，才能在该领域做出有意义的改变，该项目支持AISL扩大STEM参与的目标。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。

Through increasing attention paid to out-of-school contexts, research is showing that powerful science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) meaning-making is possible when helping young people see the everyday practices that are situated within STEM domains. Museums and science centers have long been centers of public engagement with STEM; however, over that last few decades there has been growing importance of the need for museums to be relevant to their communities. This has spurred the recognition of the importance of doing work with, rather than for, communities and the need to create better mechanisms for developing meaningful partnerships. Thus, the project is designed to examine partnership building through a series of online and in-person workshops for museum and science center staff, community members (high school-aged youth), and university researchers. Through this year-long workshop series, three primary goals will be accomplished: a) understand what it means to build and foster ethical community partnerships between museums, local communities, and researchers; b) create the foundation for relationship building between participating partners for continued networking and collaboration beyond the workshop series; and c) create a generative collaborative space for sharing, exploring, and developing ideas on what it means to design, enact, and study culturally sustaining STEM youth programs in museums. Participants from museums and science centers in three major metropolitan areas of the United States (Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago) will learn from one another about how each serves their local populations and how to improve that service. Grounded in Bang's community-based design research (CBDR), the project will engage museum educators and staff, current and alumni participants of youth museum programs, and university researchers around several questions of interest: How can museum staff, community members, and university researchers build a research partnership to open new possibilities for theorizing and actualizing culturally sustaining STEM learning? How can we develop multi-layered partnerships in local and distal geographical spaces? How do we consider diverse stakeholder goals that may be in tension, and translate them into goal-directed activities for mutual flourishing? What are other obstacles in including youth to design and develop research and development grants? How might we mitigate those obstacles? Teams in each city will be comprised of two museum staff, one youth program alumni, and three youth program participants from each of six museums/science centers along with four education/learning sciences researchers. The teams will participate in in-person workshops locally and virtually across locations. The project will adhere to three core principles to ensure equitable and ethical participation from all participants: (1) fostering relationship development; (2) power sharing and respectful decision making; and (3) identifying future proposed projects that ensure reciprocal benefits. Photovoice is selected as the core methodology to support ideating, sharing, and documenting the range of perspectives and experiences from the stakeholders. Narrative discourse analysis will be the primary approach to analyzing data from team meetings and workshops. The field will benefit from what the project learns about collaborating within and across geographic locations, how the participants create and share knowledge, and an outline of recommended next steps. At the end of the project, deliverables include a set of principles for more community-based and inclusive programming that all science centers and museums can use as well as new collaborations, including new possible research and development projects between the partners aimed at serving their communities.This Partnership Development & Planning project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports projects that: (a) contribute to research and practice that considers informal STEM learning's role in equity and belonging in STEM; (b) promote personal and educational success in STEM; (c) advance public engagement in scientific discovery; (d) foster interest in STEM careers; (e) create and enhance the theoretical and empirical foundations for effective informal STEM learning; (f) improve community vibrancy; and/or (g) enhance science communication and the public's engagement in and understanding of STEM and STEM processes. By examining the foundational and sometimes problematic practices in the ISL field that must be interrogated to make meaningful change in this space, the project supports AISL's goal for broadening participation in STEM.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.