Ph.D. student Nettrice Gaskins is a visual artist as well as an educator/practitioner/theorist who bridges the actual and virtual worlds and explores how these realities can have a transformative impact on people's lives and experiences in both worlds when it can be fully implemented and realized.

The project for which she and her advisor, Celia Pearce, received this grant consists of an innovative workshop and website for researchers in the Learning Sciences community who study informal learning, practitioners in STEM-related Informal Learning Environments (ILEs), and professional artists whose work incorporates STEM concepts.

This workshop will explore how the intersection of culturally situated, arts-based learning, informal STEM learning, and digital media can be leveraged to create higher interest, motivation and learning in STEM among underrepresented minorities. The workshop will investigate the potential for combining culturally situated design tools, contemporary art and crafts, and STEM concepts as a means to engage URM learners in STEM.

The primary goal of the workshop is to engage a dialog among STEM and ABL experts, professional artists and cultural practitioners whose work integrates STEM concepts through its content, methodology, and technological implementation. Another goal of the workshop is to advance understanding of the potential impacts of culturally situated design strategies and present arts-based learning and research  that can extend participation and understanding of STEM to more diverse audiences. The workshop will build the capacity for sustained collaboration across Learning Sciences, STEM, and arts-based education for the benefit of research and practice.

Attendees will hear talks by leaders in these fields and work together in small groups to help produce a white paper and website that addresses conceptual and methodological tools for members of these communities.