The expansion of a mobile making project that engages underserved youth across california in stem

Active Project Grant Awarded Last action

Award ID
2215653
Recipient
Awarding agency
Obligated
$1,486,832

Award facts

Completion date 83% complete
Place of performance
San Marcos, CA 92096, USA

Award details come from USAspending.gov.

Description

As the agency reported it.

Abstract
This project is expanding an effective mobile making program to achieve sustainable, widespread impact among underserved youth. Making is a design-based, participant-driven endeavor that is based on a learning by doing pedagogy. For nearly a decade, california state university SAN marcos has operated out-of-school making programs for bringing both equipment and university student facilitators to the sites in under-served communities. In collaboration with four other CSU campuses, this project will expand along four dimensions: (a) adding community sites in addition to school sites (b) adding rural contexts in addition to urban/suburban, (c) adding hybrid and online options in addition to in-person), and (d) including future teachers as facilitators in addition to stem undergraduates. The program uses design thinking as a framework to engage participants in addressing real-world problems that are personally and socially meaningful. Participants will use low- and high-tech tools, such as circuity, coding, and robotics to engage in activities that respond to design challenges. A diverse group of university students will lead weekly, 90-minute activities and serve as near-peer mentors, providing a connection to the university for the youth participants, many of whom will be first-generation college students. The project will significantly expand the mobile making program from 12 sites in north SAN diego county to 48 sites across california, with nearly 2,000 university facilitators providing 12 hours of programming each year to over 10,000 underserved youth (grades 4TH through 8TH) during the five-year timeline. The project research will examine whether the additional sites and program variations result in positive youth and university student outcomes. For youth in grades 4 through 8, the project will evaluate impacts including sustained interest in making and stem, increased self-efficacy in making and stem, and a greater sense that making and stem are relevant to their lives. For university student facilitators, the project will investigate impacts including broadened technical skills, increased leadership and 21ST century skills, and increased lifelong interest in stem outreach/informal science education. Multiple sources of data will be used to research the expanded mobile making program's impact on youth and undergraduate participants, compare implementation sites, and understand the program's efficacy when across different communities with diverse learner populations. A mixed methods approach that leverages extant data (attendance numbers, student artifacts), surveys, focus groups, making session feedback forms, observations, and field notes will together be used to assess youth and university student participant outcomes. The project will disaggregate data based on gender, race/ethnicity, grade level, and site to understand the mobile making program's impact on youth participants at multiple levels across contexts. The project will further compare findings from different types of implementation sites (e.g., school VS. Library), learner groups, (e.g., middle VS. Upper elementary students), and facilitator groups (e.g., stem majors VS. Future teachers). This will enable the project to conduct cross-case comparisons between CSU campuses. Project research will also compare findings from urban and rural school sites as well as based on the modality of teaching and learning (e.g., in-person VS. Online). The mobile making program activities, project research, and a toolkit for implementing a mobile maker program will be widely disseminated to researchers, educators, and out-of-school programs. This research 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 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.

Transactions

Action Obligated Date
Amendment $304,793
Amendment $299,167
Amendment $293,257
Original award $589,615

Subawards

Subrecipient Amount Awarded
San Diego State University Foundation Dr. James Marshall will serve as external evaluator and thought partner for the project. He will advise on developmental evaluation approaches to generate… $210,979
California State University During the project period, Dr. Frank A. Gomez (Executive Director, STEM-NET, CSU Office of the Chancellor) and Monica Alarcon (Administrative Analyst/… $137,303

Quick answers

Who received award 2215653?

2215653 was awarded to California State University San Marcos Corp by Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (National Science Foundation) on September 1, 2022.

How much is award 2215653 worth?

$1,486,832 has been obligated on 2215653.

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