The National Science Foundation has awarded Prof. Michael Nitsche from the School of Literature, Media and Communication a 298,885$ Grant as part of their Advance Informal STEM Learning program for Prototyping Puppets: Combining Craft and Performance to teach Physical Computing. The project started this term (Fall’16) and will run until 2018. It aims to combine craft and performance art to teach early middle school students basic prototyping skills. Through their projects, the research team is proposing informal STEM workshops following three steps: 1) Narrative Framing2) Craft-inspired Building3) Validation through Performance This key approach combines craft, self-expression through performance, and basic hardware prototyping with the goal to attract new students to STEM related fields. Researchers from Georgia Tech’s Digital Media program and from the Center for Puppetry Arts will use the grant to develop and test this approach through multiple puppet-building workshops aimed at informal education for middle-schools children between the ages of 10 to 12 years. The project will serve as a prototype for a larger research agenda to enable engaging new student populations in physical computing through interest-driven exercises - realized through different creative practices in many informal learning institutions, such as science museums and after school education etc. Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts is an internationally acclaimed center for performance (hosting upwards of 600 performances a year), education, and research of puppetry. It is conveniently located in Midtown at the corner of Spring and 18th Street in Atlanta near the Georgia Tech campus.
The Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments for public and professional audiences; provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and develop understandings of deeper learning by participants (National Resource Council, 2012). To achieve the greatest return on its investments, the AISL program encourages projects that will "raise the bar" in the fields of informal STEM education. It invests in projects that advance the leading edge of the field and address its most critical challenges.
If you are interested in participating in the work, please contact michael.nitsche@gatech.edu