I-Corps L: STEM-Packs - Supporting STEM Learning Through Literature

Allegheny Intermediate Unit, Homestead PA

Investigators

Abstract

Through the NSF Innovation Corps for Learning Program (I-Corps L), this project will develop ways to increase the scale and impact of Summer Reading Club resources called STEM Packs that integrate STEM content into reading club themes. STEM Packs are resources containing materials and professional development modules for incorporating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics into annually conducted Summer Reading Clubs in libraries. The project takes advantage of already nationally established and themed Summer Reading Club programming, and its popularity, as an ideal resource introduction target. The STEM Packs are stackable for multi-session use by a library staff that, in general, does not have the requisite knowledge in STEM content or pedagogy to develop its own tools for effective engagement with young patrons. Children's librarians and their volunteers who conduct Summer Reading Club are often proficient and entertaining storytellers, or have access to storytellers, but they require capacity-building and resources to embed STEM content into reading development. This project will increase the impact of STEM Packs by developing ways of sustaining wider use of these materials on a national basis. A STEM Pack is comprised of one piece of children's literature and accompanying STEM inquiry-based learning activities that directly connect to the theme and main ideas featured in the children's literature and to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)/Common Core State Standards (CCSS). STEM Packs are designed: (1) to incorporate STEM learning with reading and storytelling practices already in place for Summer Reading Club, primarily for pre-Kindergarten to 8th grade level; (2) to lead to stackable STEM Packs, which provide just-in time resources for librarians, volunteers, and parents to support students in connecting fiction and non-fiction literature to learning STEM concepts; (3) to continue a pilot foundation integrating Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and English Language Arts into summer reading; (4) to serve to scale to statewide and national scope; (5) to help bridge the three-month gap between scholastic or formal-learning semesters, and to accomplish this in a way that is consistent with uniform standards for learning for all children. A further objective is to widely elevate the role of library in community to the role of partnership with schools: to show how the informal educational function of the library can be elevated to become part of a whole-year scholastic learning experience.