ADVANCING INFORMAL STEM LEARNING

Please note, in FY12, NSF changed the name of the Informal Science Education (ISE) program to Advancing Informal STEM Learning to broaden the scope and audience of prospective projects, while keeping the core qualities of the former ISE program.

Grant: Advancing Informal STEM Learning
Agency: National Science Foundation
Division: Directorate for Education and Human Resources; Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings
Deadline: This competition is closed. The deadline was January 14, 2013.

Description: New in FY12, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) grant competition replaces the well-known Informal Science Education (ISE). The AISL program strives to capture the creative and innovative potential of informal STEM learning for the future while targeting learning and learning environments. To achieve these goals, NSF will fund projects that focus on research and/or development. Examples include:

• Advancing science communication to the public via the Internet, broadcast media, podcasting, online scientific databases, and emerging global social learning networks that engage the public, evolve new partnerships and reach broader audiences.
• Advancing the design and development of environments for learning anytime, anywhere, leveraging advances made in adaptive and assistive technologies, virtual and augmented reality, games, visualizations, simulations, mobile phones, and computers and global online social networks.
• Expanding access to the highest quality STEM resources for all Americans, regardless of geographic location, age, gender, affluence or academic background.
• Creating pedagogical links between informal learning and school-based learning that advances more seamless and personalized STEM-learning.

The AISL program maintains five different program priorities. The principal investigators must consider and address the ways their project can address the following priorities:

• Advancing the Field: Demonstrate how the proposed project advances the field of informal STEM learning, describing key issues, hypotheses, opportunities and/or challenges to which the proposed work is responsive.
• Innovation at the Frontier of Informal Learning: Articulate how the project is based upon prior work in the field of interest and how it will demonstrate innovation.
• Broadening Participation: Projects must seek to provide greater access to STEM-learning opportunities for underserved audiences, such as racial and ethnic minorities, women and girls, those with disabilities or learning differences, economically challenged communities and returning veterans.
• Collaborations: Projects are expected to involve the participation of relevant collaborative partners.
• STEM Content: AISL proposals may address any area supported by the NSF, however applicants are encouraged to chose those areas of science that intersect with key STEM disciplines and contribute to any major NSF initiative.

Similar to the former ISE program, NSF will accept and fund proposals to the AISL program under any of the following four project types:

• Research projects work to advance knowledge in the informal STEM learning field, including the creation of any new learning resources, applications, media, artifacts, programs or environments needed to answer research questions.
• Pathways projects include planning activities, pilot studies, feasibility studies and innovative work that are on the path toward a major ISE project, but need to address critical issues or decisions before major projects can be formulated.
• Full-Scale Development projects generate an innovative idea or approach to informal science education, develop and fully implement the concept and evaluate its effectiveness.
• Broad Implementation projects are expected to substantially broaden the reach of products or programs within the informal science education field that have demonstrated success with the audience they already reach without sacrificing quality.

Please note Connecting Researchers and Public Audiences (CRPA), a project type stations have previously received funding under, has been eliminated. Individuals that wish to explore how to better engage the public or professional audiences with the results and societal implications of current STEM research are encouraged to apply under other program types.

Fit for Public Broadcasting: Public Broadcasting stations have a long history of success with this program. NSF strives to enable participation of all citizens, and grow its impacted audience. AISL in particular calls for the need to reach a broader audience and specifically mentions tools such as digital and broadcast media to achieve this goal. Public broadcasting has the ability to reach that target. In the past, many stations received funding under the CRPA grant project type. While this project type is no longer available, stations are encouraged to see how their CRPA project fits into a different project type under AISL.

Past Grantees Include:

• In 2010, $2.9 million was awarded to WGBH for the “PEEP and the Big Wide World” program. WGBH continues to use funds to produce ten new animated PEEP stories in Spanish and English, ten new live-action bi-lingual segments, establish greater collaboration with long-standing partners and pilot new approaches to reach Latino families. [Read the abstract].
• In 2011, $2.8 million was awarded to Twin Cities Public Television for the “SciGirls” television series, website and outreach transmedia project. Funds are being used specifically in the production of ten new television episodes, enhancement of the SciGirls website on pbs.org, use of new technologies to create digital applications, and games and expand collaborative efforts. [Read the abstract].
• In 2011, $150,000 was awarded to Nashville Public Television (NPT) for production of “Tennessee Explorers.” NPT will air two 30-minute programs featuring three NSF-funded scientists. Programs will be broadcast 10 times throughout the state and available online for download. Affiliated PBS states will broadcast the interviews across the state reaching an estimated 100,000 individuals in the first year. [Read the abstract].
• In 2011, $150,000 was awarded to Santa Fe Productions, and partners, for “Valles Caldera, A Grant Land Experiment; Communicating Climate Change Research to Public Audiences.” The goal is to use storytelling as a way to educate the public about the importance of the Caldera in securing the region’s water supply, and how climate changes could impact their lives. A number of additional media platforms will be used to reach a broader audience including Facebook and YouTube. [Read the abstract].

Eligibility: Individuals and organizations in the following categories may submit proposals: universities and colleges; nonprofit, non-academic organizations; for-profit organizations; state and local governments; unaffiliated individuals and foreign organizations.

Anticipated funding: NSF is expected to grant 34 new awards based on anticipated funding totaling $20,000,000, including approximately six Research awards, six Pathways awards, 13 Full-Scale Development awards and two Broad Implementation awards. In addition, NSF will fund seven conferences, early-concept grants for exploratory research (EAGERs) and rapid response research (RAPIDs) projects.

The program encourages research components in all project types and allows for up to an additional $500,000 in funding requests in Full Scale and Broader Implementation proposals that specifically include a research component. 

How to apply: Applications must be submitted electronically via Grants.gov or the NSF FastLane System. The Grant Proposal Guide for the FastLane system is found, here. Online submissions requires registration, a process that usually takes three to five business days but can take as long as four weeks. Be sure to access these platforms and begin registering well in advance of the grant deadline.

Resources:
Program notice
Program website
Recent awards in under the ISE program, with abstracts
Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education
Map of recent ISE awards
Informal Science Education News
Grant Center Webinar 11/10/11: "Meet the Funders: National Science Foundation"
Grant Center Webinar 4/13/10: “National Science Foundation’s Stem Distributed Learning Grant Program”
Grant Center Webinar 2/18/10: “Grants from the National Science Foundation”
Recent awards involving media partners (CRPA only)
The Valles Caldera project, a success story
November newsletter from the National Girls Collaborative Project
CPB/ITVS Women and Girls Lead Initiative
NCME webinar on Women and Girls Lead
Partnership opportunities through the research on Gender in Science and Engineering Program