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Infographics present information or data in an accessible and concise manner to help a viewer understand a phenomenon. Creating infographics requires students to make sense of multiple sources of data and synthesize these data into a compelling visual form to make a central claim. Unlike posters, which tend to be purely informational with disjointed facts, news infographics can be journalistic, make an argument, and have an overarching message. Constructing infographics, or visual displays of information, encourages student creativity in selecting a topic, strategically and visually organizing the topic, and sharing it with a public audience. The STEM Literacy through Infographics (SLI) project has partnered with secondary teachers to explore infographics in science classrooms and has found that student creativity is tied to their level of engagement, authenticity of work, and ultimately pride in their final product. For this article, the authors interviewed 15 teachers about their experiences with infographics. They report on the accomplishments and challenges the teachers have had using them in science classes.

This article compares how visual design tools are used during an internship for high schoolers co-researching science journalism through infographics. Drawing on interns' documentation of design processes, we demonstrate that tools shape both how youth create visual representations and how features of tools enable and constrain youth in positioning themselves in socially valued ways. Thus, affordances of tools can be interpreted according to their cognitive and identity fostering properties. We argue identity affordances of tools are under-theorized and are consequential for learners and learning. Educators should be mindful of, if not make explicit, properties of tools when designing for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks on the partnership of the STEM Literacy through Infographics (SLI) project with secondary teachers for exploring infographics in science classrooms. It states that infographic encourages student creativity in selecting a topic, organizing the topic strategically and visually, and sharing the topic with a public audience. It also focuses on the challenges that teachers face in the project including data, software and design expertise.

Design has been called one of the defining characteristics of engineering, and it has been long-argued that design is equally social and technical in practice. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has a research tradition of exploring the interwoven social aspects of technical fields like engineering design. We borrow a concept from STS--the notion of intermediary objects -to better understand first-year engineering design teams and explain how prototypes mediate technical skill development and social relationships. An intermediary object is both a conceptual framework and an analytic tool that enables researchers and educators to identify critical aspects of design coordination. In this paper, we compare two differently organized sections of a first-year engineering design course as a way to highlight the importance of prototypes in mediating these technical and social relations. It is not until these two courses are compared side-by-side that we uncover the critical importance of prototypes as intermediary objects. Based on this comparative case analysis, we argue that prototypes are pivotal intermediary objects that aid in students' development of their engineering skills and pathways toward becoming an engineer. This paper contributes to the field of engineering education by connecting traditions from STS and exploring how the creation of prototypes impacts design education. In doing so, we provide some immediate recommendations for organizing engineering design courses, and we indicate future research on understanding the role of prototypes in design education and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]