Project+and+Program+Design


 * IDEAS:**
 * Take a concept that exists among the current PIs.
 * Work with an existing PI and JCC has met the requirements. (CCLI Ellen Lehning is a PI). Connect the findings from CCLI anatomy and physiology) Undergraduate research and participatory model + professional development and community integration.
 * Multidisciplinary Science focus
 * Holy Family Model
 * Local Job Market: manufacturing (Chaut and Catt Counties), engineering, sustainability in green technologies
 * Hybrid academies: student and teacher interaction and joint training
 * Community involvement
 * Summer Seminar
 * Community:
 * Dinner series
 * Annual conference
 * Website
 * Evaluation: rigorous logic model MJ’s has one in mind.
 * Pete Scheira Suburban Blend JC: Physics of skateboarding.
 * Separate overarching topic is climate change
 * Need a Project Manager to back the PIs.
 * Impacting attitudes toward math and science and careers and opportunities in science involving parents and family in the community.


 * STEP Programs**: @http://www.highered.nysed.gov/kiap/step/documents/STEProster2011-2012.pdf

Informal Science Education Models (NSF) Funded Projects: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/progSearch.do?WT.si_n=ClickedAbstractsRecentAwards&WT.si_x=1&WT.si_cs=1&WT.z_pims_id=5361&SearchType=progSearch&page=2&QueryText=&ProgEleCode=7259&RestrictActive=on&Search=Search#results

**RESEARCH: Master Science Hobbyists: Characteristics, Motivations, Experiences, and Career Trajectories** : $286912 This research will determine who these individuals are, their career pathways, how they engage in science activities and what motivates, sustains, and defines their science interests. One of the particular goals of this research is to develop new understandings of how science hobby interests develop for women and underserved minorities. @http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1114500&WT.z_pims_id=5361

**Full-Scale Development Project: Marcellus Matters: Engaging Adults in Science and Energy (EASE)** This Full-Scale Informal Science Education award focuses on the physical and social science surrounding the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus shale formation beneath the surface in north central and western Pennsylvania. The project targets the adult residents of the impacted or soon-to-be-impacted areas of Pennsylvania. This is a complex project involving the disciplines of geology, engineering, chemistry, social science, performance, and land management. Further, the project team includes a mix of physical scientists, educators, theater arts faculty, social scientists and engineers from Pennsylvania State University, the Pennsylvania State Cooperative Extension Service, and Juniata College. @http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1114670&WT.z_pims_id=5361

**SciGames: A Technology-enhanced Model for Bridging Informal and Formal Science Learning** The New York Hall of Science, in collaboration with the Tufts Center for Engineering Education, the Learning Games Network, and New York City departments of education and of parks and recreation, is creating and testing two innovative science games to support student learning about frictional force and linear motion. SciGames integrates rigorous, highly motivating, data collection activities conducted in museum and playground settings, with in-depth data analysis and additional scientific investigation in the classroom. The primary goals of the SciGames project are to increase student motivation and interest in science and improve student learning about core physical science concepts. This exploratory project targets underrepresented urban students and their teachers from 20 schools in New York City (NYC) and through its partnership with NYC department of parks and recreation has great potential for scale-up throughout NYC, as well as dissemination to other urban communities. @http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1135202&WT.z_pims_id=5361

**Collaborative Research: Research Culturally Based Citizen Science: Rebuilding Relationships to Place** The purpose of this three-year collaborative design research project is to examine the role of culture in the development of knowledge and reasoning about the natural world and the subsequent sense-making of and participation in natural resource management. The PIs propose to examine the ways in which culture impacts observational habits, explanation constructing, uses and forms of evidence, and orientations towards socio-scientific challenges such as natural resource management. Collaborating on this project are researchers from the American Indian Center of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. The audience for this study includes the academic informal science education community and indigenous science educators. This project also offers extensive cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary research opportunities for pre- and post-doctoral research trainees. @http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1114555&WT.z_pims_id=5361

**Engineering Children's Learning** The decrease in the number of US students interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has received considerable attention in recent years. The National Science Foundation refers to this as the STEM education problem. This research explores one way to address the STEM problem, by studying how children develop interest and skill in STEM, even at a young age. The work will focus on the fact that many early STEM experiences for children are designed to encourage learning through hands-on activities, such as making models of buildings or other structures. Although children can learn a great deal by working on their own through these hands-on activities, their learning can be improved when they are engaged in conversations with their parents during these activities. With support from the National Science Foundation, Catherine Haden, Ph.D., of Loyola University Chicago and David Uttal, Ph.D., of Northwestern University will examine how parent-child conversational interactions during hands-on activities impact children's STEM learning. The researchers will also determine whether parent-child conversations and hands-on activities help children remember what they have learned and apply it to new situations. The research will take place in a special exhibit within the Chicago Children's Museum that was designed specifically to advance STEM learning. The exhibit focuses on building construction and includes hands-on activities that may promote early understanding of simple engineering principles, such as bracing, as well as more general principles associated with the scientific method. Across two studies, a total of 640 children, ages 4, 6, and 8 will observed building skyscrapers with their parents. It is hypothesized that specific kinds of conversations (such as those that involve What, How, and Why questions) will be linked to more hands-on activity, as well as more learning of engineering principles and a better understanding of the scientific method. An important test of this hypothesis is seeing how and when parents' conversations and children's hands-on learning during the first construction project results in better construction of a second structure (tower or bridge). It is also predicted that parents' talk and children's understanding will differ by age of the child. In Study 2, the researchers will attempt to teach parents the best ways to help their children's STEM learning, based on the findings of Study 1. @http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1122712&WT.z_pims_id=5361

**Scientists for Tomorrow** Through the Scientists for Tomorrow pathways project, The Science Institute at Columbia College in Chicago will test a model for preparing non-science major, pre-service elementary school teachers to deliver three ten-week informal science education modules to youth in after school programs. The initiative will bring engineering concepts, environmental science, and technology to approximately 240 urban Chicago youth (ages 10-14 years old) and their families. The Science Institute will partner with eight minority serving community based organizations and the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, and the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance to develop and implement all aspects of the program. The goals of the program are two-fold. First, the project will develop and implement a high-quality STEM based afterschool program for under-represented youth in STEM. Second, the professional development and experience implementing the curriculum with youth in the local communities and within informal science education (ISE) institutions will extend and enrich the pre-service teachers' STEM content and pedagogical knowledge base and better prepare them to teach science in formal and informal settings.

Thirty teachers will receive specialized professional development through a seminar, course, and other support mechanisms in order to best support the implementation of the modules, while building their STEM content expertise, confidence, and pedagogical knowledge. Each module has a different STEM content focus: alternative energy (fall), the physics and mathematics of sound and music (winter), and environmental science (spring). At the end of each module, a culminating youth-led presentation will be held at one of the partnering Chicago museums. Youth will be encouraged to participate in all three modules. The formative evaluation will be conducted by the Co-Principal Investigators. Pre and post assessments, artifact reviews, and interviews will be used for the summative evaluation, which will be conducted by an external evaluator at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The project deliverables include: (a) a teacher training program, (b) an after school curriculum, and (c) media tools - DVDs, website. Over the grant period, the project intends to reach 120 youth each year, over 100 family and community members, and 30 teachers. The larger impact of this project will be the development of a scalable model for bringing relevant STEM content and experiences to youth, their families, and non-science major pre-service teachers. As a result of this project, a cadre of pre-service teachers will have: (a) increased their STEM content knowledge, (b) gained experience presenting STEM content in informal settings, (c) learned effective approaches to deliver hands-on STEM content, and (d) learned to use museum and other ISE resources in their teaching. In fact, after the grant period nearly half of the teachers will continue to work at the centers as part-time instructors, fully supported by the partnering community centers. @http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1114165&WT.z_pims_id=5361