The ASCEND research and development project is a collaboration of UC Santa Cruz (several departments) with area museums, municipal government programs in vocational training and local businesses that explores the impact of integrating and comparing two sustainable engineering apprenticeship approaches for at-risk youth -- design-build and digital-storytelling about the design-build experiences. It applies and expands into informal STEM education a model that UCSC has implemented for undergraduates.
Project objectives are: (1) understand how to motivate and prepare at-risk youth for careers in green technology; (2) learn via a research study whether/how digital-storytelling can increase youths' proficiency in STEM, content knowledge and practices; (3) explore how the science museums can be part of a community network addressing project-based learning and local sustainability efforts.
The project seeks to better coordinate and leverage existing Santa Cruz green technology and sustainability projects as a basis for preparing at-risk youth for STEM-based careers in the sustainability/green technology field. The project intends to provide a model for how museums can work with other organizations (in this case, municipal wharfs businesses that employ green design) to create lasting community relationships around sustainable practices and careers. The feasibility, proof-of-concept study involves approximately 60 at-risk youth, as well as several local professionals and entrepreneurs, staff and visitors at the museums, municipal officials, undergraduate students as mentors and university instructors and researchers in the content domain and in digital storytelling approaches. Drawing on its findings over the course of the project, the team's intention is to expand the model conceptually and geographically around California and the USA.
