Using Positive Youth Development Principles and Sports to Enhance STEM Knowledge, Practices, and Identity Among Historically Underserved Youth Aged 8–11

Fostering positive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identity and providing access to quality STEM learning opportunities that connect with youths’ local contexts and interests is essential for learning and growth. However, access to quality STEM education experiences can be limited among historically underserved youth. Furthermore, women and individuals identifying as Latinx or Black remain underrepresented in STEM fields. Responding to community needs, this project will develop and study a curriculum that leverages sports to teach STEM content and practices to youth in informal learning settings. While the idea of contextualizing STEM learning through sports is not new, the proposed work is particularly important in that it focuses on youth aged 8 through 11, while most of the existing research on STEM and sports centers on students in middle school and beyond. In close partnership with a historically underserved community, the project team will advance youths’ STEM content knowledge, practices, and identity based on community goals, values, and assets. Guided by sociocultural learning theories, the positive youth development model, and theories of STEM identity development, the project team and participating community members will co-develop a STEM and sports program that is rooted in the local context, community-identified goals, and youths’ own interests. Using participatory design research techniques and building on a pilot program, the project will develop a six-week STEM program, Teaming STEM + Sports, that is aligned with national STEM and physical education standards for youth aged 8 through 11 years. The project team will collaborate closely with youth, parents, community members, educators, and nonprofit organizations throughout the project. Community and nonprofit partners will implement the curriculum each summer in community settings over four years, reaching over 250 youth participants. Using iterative descriptive studies as part of the development process and a quasi-experiment to test the program’s impact, the project will address the following research questions: (1) To what extent do youth perceive the program as culturally relevant, connected with their lived experiences, and engaging? (2) How does participation in Teaming STEM +Sports associate with youths’ STEM content knowledge and STEM identity? (3) What is the effect of the program on youths’ mathematics and science content knowledge? (4) To what extent are youth provided with opportunities to use STEM practices? (5) To what extent do facilitators perceive the program as feasible to implement? Insights related to collaboration and codesign will be transferable to other contexts, and digital versions of the curriculum will be available on a project website, enabling others to adopt the Teaming STEM + Sports program and adapt it to their local contexts. This Integrating Research and Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences. This project will fill a gap in informal STEM education resource availability, resulting in open-source STEM and sports learning materials. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.