Helpful Tools: Informalscience.org
Two girls work with an informal educator on a robotics project
Welcome back to our Insights! In 2024, we will be sharing a series of helpful tools, resources, and deep dives that focus on informal STEM education (ISE). These will include websites, podcasts, research briefs, news on emerging technologies in the ISE space, and other items that we think you’ll find valuable.
In this edition, we’ll be highlighting informalscience.org
The Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education (REVISE) Center, funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, manages informalscience.org, a website offering a collaboratively built repository of resources specifically aimed at advancing equity across the informal STEM education field.
The site was initially founded in 2012 as the Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Learning (CAISE) to “strengthen and advance the informal STEM education field by providing infrastructure, resources, and connectivity for practitioners, researchers, evaluators, and other value-holders.” REVISE aims to take the resource center to the next level, focusing on equity within informal science learning research and practice. Alongside community listening sessions (like upcoming focus groups), REVISE is connecting with the informal science learning community to better understand the needs for the next phase of this work.
Informalscience.org is truly one of the best resources available to informal science learning practitioners, researchers, and evaluators. On it, you can find a multitude of helpful tools, research and evaluation reports, overviews of important terms, and equity resources.
These primers on informal STEM learning can be used to communicate with grantmakers and communities about what informal STEM learning is and its importance, two things that can be challenging to convey to folks not in our field.
Screenshot of Informal STEM Education webpage on informalscience.org
The page linked above also includes a variety of toolkits and guides for those who are just getting started with informal STEM learning.
Another incredible feature of informalscience.org is its Project Planner page. Have a great idea for an informal STEM learning program but unsure how to get started? For those interested in formulating projects that advance knowledge of informal STEM learning or science communication, this page pulls together a collection of resources, information on collaboration, examples of successful projects, and funding opportunities available through NSF AISL and other avenues.
Screenshot of Project Planner webpage on informalscience.org
Informalscience.org is also a great place to learn about informal STEM learning constructs (e.g., STEM interest, identity, and engagement), things that often form the basis of intended outcomes, logic models, and evaluation questions. You can also develop your evaluation knowledge and practices by learning about topics like what’s the difference between a summative evaluation and a formative evaluation? Or where can I go to learn more about data visualization?
Perhaps most crucially, the site also has an open-source library of research and evaluation reports, tools, and other resources. You can review these materials according to whatever questions guide your interests: by learning context (what zoo and aquarium programs have been conducted around the U.S. that are similar to my idea?), audience (e.g., what is most effective in serving parents and caregivers?), discipline (how are ISE institutions teaching about physics?), and so much more. This section is a great reference point for folks looking to understand recent research, evaluation, and field-wide learning.
Search results for youth informal STEM programs on informalscience.org’s Community Repository page
REVISE even grants access to the ISE community to education resource journals and databases like Communication and Mass Media Complete, Education Source, and Ethnic Diversity Source through EBSCO. To get access, contact the center at the address listed on the site.
There is so much to explore that we cannot cover it all. We hope you check it out and keep an eye out for more to come on informalscience.org. As we highlighted in our last newsletter, the REVISE Center is currently conducting peer focus groups for individuals in the informal STEM education community to help them reimagine the website. We’re looking forward to seeing what comes next!
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