Developing and researching making activities for stem innovation with youth in care facilities

The National Science Foundation's Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings awarded Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) a $1.97M project grant on October 15, 2025, under the STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) to develop and research making activities for youth ages 12-18 in care facilities. The three-year project, concluding September 30, 2028, will co-develop maker activities with previously hospitalized youth and child life specialists, grounded in the real-world experiences of youth receiving care in hospital settings. The project will produce evidence-based educational materials, including specific maker activity curricula and implementation guidelines, designed to advance science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning and agency among youth in these understudied out-of-school settings. Research activities will evaluate the impact of these making activities on participant STEM interest and understanding, with results disseminated nationally.

EDC partnered with two key sub-awardees to execute the project. Bank Street College of Education, which received its subaward on January 8, 2026, will coordinate with child life specialists in New York City hospitals, facilitate co-design sessions with youth participants, manage youth recruitment, and support field testing of maker resources. The Franklin Institute, under a subaward dated October 20, 2025, will provide science communication training, serve as the STEM content expert throughout development and review stages, contribute to video storyline development, and ensure accurate presentation of STEM concepts in companion videos and asynchronous child life specialist training materials.

Abstract

Out-of-school stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning settings can foster a prepared future workforce through offering a wide range of novel, real-world applications of stem concepts and skills. Care facilities, such as hospitals, are one setting in which many people spend a substantial amount of time. They afford numerous opportunities for people to learn and apply a range of stem concepts and skills, yet research and development activities have not fully explored how these settings can maximize stem learning in support of a more innovative and prepared workforce. This project will address this GAP by developing and researching making activities for youth (ages 12-18) who spend time in care facilities. Youth, who have previously spent a substantial duration of time in hospitals, will partner with the project team and other expert care providers to CO-develop making activities that are grounded in the experiences of youth in care facilities. For example, the youth and project team may CO-develop making activities designed to improve various technologies, such as stethoscopes, used to provide care. Research will explore whether and how these making activities supported the stem agency, interest, and understanding of youth participants. The resulting educational materials, such as specific maker activities and guidelines on how to implement them responsibly among youth receiving care, will be disseminated nationally to all, resulting in the advancement of youths' stem learning and the application of their stem skills in a previously understudied learning context. The project team will partner with previously hospitalized youth and child life specialists, trained professionals who provide expert guidance and support to families whose children are receiving care, to iteratively develop, test, and refine making activities that can be used by professionals in similar positions across the united states. Research will identify which maker activity formats and topics are feasible for child life specialists to implement among youth with a range of different conditions and durations of stay in care facilities. After determining feasibility in partnership with expert providers, the project team and partners will implement making activities with youth in care facilities. Mixed methods research will explore whether and how the youth CO-designers experienced an increase in stem agency, and whether and how the use of maker activities and accompanying learning materials impacted the stem understandings and interest of youth who stay in care facilities. Resulting learning materials will include making activities, and companion videos, which can be used to increase the stem interest and skills of youth who receive care in hospitals and similar settings. These materials will be widely disseminated nationally to care providers, informal stem educators, and other audiences in order to advance the application of stem skills across a broad range of settings and to result in a more proficient stem workforce that is prepared to evaluate and innovate upon existing technologies. This integrating research and practice project is funded by the advancing informal stem learning (aisl) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of stem learning in informal environments. This includes providing everyone multiple pathways for accessing and engaging in stem learning experiences. 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.- subawards are planned for this award.