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Our multiple case study addresses the lack of opportunities many people have developing positive identification with STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields by investigating STEM identity authoring in three intergenerational collaborative partnerships. Adult and teen partners participated in two-day workshops learning conservation science and geospatial technologies to design and implement community projects. Our research examined how the design and implementation of intergenerational projects provided opportunities to: (1) demonstrate competence in STEM knowledge and understandings, (2) participate in performances of STEM practices, and (3) be recognized for competence and performances in STEM fields. Qualitative methods were used throughout. Data consisted of field observations followed by separate semi-structured interviews with each partner. Artifacts such as presentation posters, online maps and websites, educational materials (e.g., pamphlets and booklets), email, and forum posts were used as secondary data sources. We found STEM identities were promoted in intergenerational collaborative partnerships when personal resources and conservation science competences and performances were positively recognized by meaningful others. Our findings inform how informal STEM education programs can foster positive identification with STEM fields that may lead to increased participation in STEM pursuits across the lifespan, and likely have similar implications for formal STEM learning as well.

Background: It is crucial to support students in better understanding water and sustainability issues because water plays a vital role in maintaining global ecosystems, including human life. A wide range of curricular and instructional supports like those embodied in model-based learning (MBL) are necessary for teachers to engage students in the core epistemic commitments of the Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to inform theory about students' early attempts to engage in the complex kinds of sensemaking experiences inherent in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the NGSS. Sample: Data for this study was collected from 74 10th grade students in a high school in the Northwest region of the New England state. Design and Methods: An explanatory sequential mixed-method research design was used to examine students' learning outcomes, and to better understand these outcomes in connection to their experiences engaging in modeling in the MBL curriculum unit. Results: The results indicated that students' model scores, the number of concepts in models, and the coherence and sophistication of models improved between their initial and final models. Additionally, the following patterns emerged related to ways in which students engaged in the practice of modeling: (1) students attempted to directly represent what they observed, (2) they struggled to pictorially express complex patterns or mechanisms, and (3) students experienced difficulties representing models from a diverse range of perspectives. Conclusion: The patterns identified across student models, as well as their reports of experiences related to the MBL unit implementation, provided insight into student experiences with models, while also providing meaningful implications for the refinement of the MBL curriculum unit investigated in this research specifically, while informing approaches MBL curricular units aimed at supporting NGSS implementation efforts more generally.

Families create contexts for learning to enhance and support the interests of their children, while simultaneously teaching language, morals, and culture. This research examines intergenerational family teams engaged in a long-term conservation project in their community. Participants were interviewed during and after project completion with the central research purpose of exploring how the intersecting experiences of family members explain emerging family cultural learning pathways. Intergenerational family teams shared narratives which were then analyzed using the cultural learning pathways framework [Bell, P., Tzou, C., Bricker, L., & Baines, A. D. (2012). Learning in diversities of structures of social practice: Accounting for how, why and where people learn science. Human Development, 55(5-6), 269-284. doi:10.1159/000345315] that we subsequently used to create family cultural learning pathways for each participating family. Family interactions are powerful influences on the identity development of children, not only in their academic development, but also in their moral, ethical, and social development.

High Leverage Practices (HLPs), as a core set of teaching practices, represent important instructional priorities and provide instructional guidance for students' engagement in practice-based instruction. The goals of this research were to: (1) understand how an epistemic community (the people designing and leading courses and programs) viewed the HLP creation process; (2) understand the processes through which the epistemic community actually engaged in the refinement of the HLPS; and (3) identify and present the HLPs created. Data collected across the 2019-2020 academic year included interviews with seven instructors and seven students and four observations of the integration team meetings. First, thematic analysis revealed that the epistemic community members considered the process of creating and refining HLPs central to improving the quality of their instruction. Second, the processes through which the community engaged in HLP refinement included connecting experience and feedback with educational research, identifying the purpose of instructional strategies, sharing practices for instruction, and creating a model for course expansion. Third, the HLPs produced included: (1) eliciting students' initial ideas; (2) informing approaches to problems; and (3) developing informed solutions to address community environmental challenges. This work informs in the literature, especially in applied STEM education, about HLP creation in the context of an epistemic community.

This research aimed to better understand the interaction between positioning and STEM identity authoring as intergenerational teams collaborated to complete community conservation projects, following a two-day conservation and geospatial technology workshop. Scientists and science educators supported these learners as they developed the focus, resources, timeline, and methods used to accomplish their negotiated pursuits at the two-day workshop and throughout their subsequent community project as a form of public engagement. To better understand the ways in which intergenerational teams located or positioned themselves and their partners, the ways in which teens and adults engaged in STEM identity authoring, and the interplay between positioning and STEM identity authoring a two-case study was completed. In this, field observations, interviews, and project artifacts were collected as the primary data sources. Findings emerging from the qualitative analysis of the data collected revealed how positioning and STEM identity authoring were found to be entangled and concurrently reinforcing even at the outset of the intergenerational teams' work. Additionally, positioning and STEM identity authoring in intergenerational teams were influenced by societal and cultural norms. These findings as well as recommendations emerging from the findings are further elaborated with the aim of supporting future intergenerational work of teens and adults in informal STEM learning contexts.

Our research centered on developing the Conservation Science and Technology Identity (CSTI) instruments as an empirical way to measure STEM identities and the intersection of identity constructs such as competence, performance, recognition, and ways of seeing and being. The surveys were used in a large funded multi-year project for teens and adults learning geospatial technologies and conservation science to use in intergenerational community conservation projects. We investigated whether an informal STEM learning program was developing new STEM identities or advancing well-developed identities. The instruments' content validity was determined through a vetting process from national STEM identity research experts. Reliability was estimated with Cronbach coefficient alpha. Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests were used to determine participants' STEM identities and the workshop's effect on specific identity constructs. We found teens and adults had historically similar STEM identities, with stronger conservation science than technology. Both science and technology competences, as well as technology ways of seeing and being, significantly increased, suggesting CSTI can be a valuable instrument in empirically assessing STEM identities.

This research analyzed two years of data from a 5-year NSF-funded informal STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) program. Our program aims to support development and maintenance of STEM identities in intergenerational teams learning geospatial technologies and conservation science to develop and implement community land-use projects. The conservation science and technology identity (CSTI) surveys were developed as a potential method to characterize and quantify a person's STEM identity. The surveys examined five identity constructs for science and technology: competence, performance, external recognition, self-recognition, and ways of seeing and being. CSTI was administered before the workshop to evaluate the participants' historical STEM identity, and after to determine the workshop's impact on science and technology competences and ways of seeing and being. CSTI was also administered as a delayed-postsurvey after the year-long project was completed. This work is needed due to: (1) the importance of the development and maintenance of STEM identity for persistence in engaging in science-related work; (2) the lack of reliable, quantitative measures supported by research on the constructs of identity; and (3) the need for development of empirical instruments to determine the impact of informal science learning programs on STEM identification.

It is crucial to support students in better understanding water and sustainability issues because water plays a vital role in maintaining global ecosystems, including human life. A wide range of curricular and instructional supports like those embodied in model-based learning (MBL) are necessary for teachers to engage students in the core epistemic commitments of the Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The main purpose of this study is to inform theory about students' early attempts to engage in the complex kinds of sensemaking experiences inherent in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the NGSS. Data for this study was collected from 74 10th grade students in a high school in the Northwest region of the New England state. An explanatory sequential mixed-method research design was used to examine students' learning outcomes, and to better understand these outcomes in connection to their experiences engaging in modeling in the MBL curriculum unit. The results indicated that students' model scores, the number of concepts in models, and the coherence and sophistication of models improved between their initial and final models. Additionally, the following patterns emerged related to ways in which students engaged in the practice of modeling: (1) students attempted to directly represent what they observed, (2) they struggled to pictorially express complex patterns or mechanisms, and (3) students experienced difficulties representing models from a diverse range of perspectives. The patterns identified across student models, as well as their reports of experiences related to the MBL unit implementation, provided insight into student experiences with models, while also providing meaningful implications for the refinement of the MBL curriculum unit investigated in this research specifically, while informing approaches MBL curricular units aimed at supporting NGSS implementation efforts more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our multiple case study addresses the lack of opportunities many people have developing positive identification with STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields by investigating STEM identity authoring in three intergenerational collaborative partnerships. Adult and teen partners participated in two-day workshops learning conservation science and geospatial technologies to design and implement community projects. Our research examined how the design and implementation of intergenerational projects provided opportunities to: (1) demonstrate competence in STEM knowledge and understandings, (2) participate in performances of STEM practices, and (3) be recognized for competence and performances in STEM fields. Qualitative methods were used throughout. Data consisted of field observations followed by separate semi-structured interviews with each partner. Artifacts such as presentation posters, online maps and websites, educational materials (e.g., pamphlets and booklets), email, and forum posts were used as secondary data sources. We found STEM identities were promoted in intergenerational collaborative partnerships when personal resources and conservation science competences and performances were positively recognized by meaningful others. Our findings inform how informal STEM education programs can foster positive identification with STEM fields that may lead to increased participation in STEM pursuits across the lifespan, and likely have similar implications for formal STEM learning as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study was conducted to determine if an alternate seed treatment approach based on plasma chemistry would offer a more viable alternative over traditional seed coating technologies. Seed germination characteristics were modified in five agricultural species by coating the surface of the seeds with macromolecules from a cold plasma process using a rotating plasma reactor. The source gas entering the plasma chamber during the reaction process determined the type of coating, and coatings were typically much less than 5.0 µm in thickness. To delay germination we utilized two different hydrophobic source gases, carbon tetrafluoride ([CF.sub.4]) or octadecafluorodecalin (ODFD). Seeds of radish (Raphanus sativus) and two pea cultivars (Pisum sativum cv. Little Marvel, P. sativum cv. Alaska) treated with [CF.sub.4], resulted in a significant delay in germination compared with untreated controls. Similarly, plasma treatment with ODFD significantly delayed germination in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], corn (Zea mays L.), and bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) seeds. The degree of delay was dependent on the amount of coating applied, with an increased thickness of coating resulting in a greater delay in germination. To enhance germination we treated seeds with cyclohexane, or with a gas such as aniline or hydrazine. Seeds treated with cyclohexane resulted in a significant acceleration in germination percentage for soybean but not corn seeds, while hydrazine-treated corn seed showed a small acceleration over control seed. However, both aniline-treated soybean and corn seed had a significant acceleration in germination percentage. Tests of water uptake determined that the major mode of action of the plasma coatings was largely on the rate of imbibition. These results demonstrate a potentially important technique to modify seed germination characteristics in agricultural plant species., A PRODIGIOUS AMOUNT of research has been conducted on alteration of seed germination characteristics. Typically, the underlying objectives of seed treatments are focused on alleviating stress associated with the soil [...]