Newhouse faculty Nick Bowman and Dan Pacheco are part of the interdisciplinary team assisting with the project, led by School of Education Professor Xiaoxia “Silvie” Huang.
School of Education Professor Xiaoxia “Silvie” Huang has been awarded a nearly $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for an Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project.
With “Engaging Refugee and Immigrant Youth in STEM Through Culturally Relevant and Place-Based Digital Storytelling,” Huang— an associate professor in the Instructional Design, Development, and Evaluation program—aims to engage culturally and linguistically diverse refugee and immigrant middle school students in co-designing culturally relevant and place-based STEM learning experiences through immersive, virtual reality (VR) storytelling. The goal? To support their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and career aspirations.
During this two-year project, Huang, a project investigator, will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team, including co-PIs Professor Sharon Dotger (School of Education) and Professor Brice Nordquist (College of Arts and Sciences). Also joining the research team are professors Nicholas Bowman and Daniel Pacheco (S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications) and professors Matthew Potteiger and Stewart Diemont (SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry).
“During the VR storytelling co-design process, local middle schoolers will expand their STEM disciplinary knowledge and skills in agriculture, environmental science, and entry-level computer coding,” says Huang. “This learning will be deeply rooted in their lived experience, with immersive stories that interweave their identities, cultures, and interaction with local environments. The goal of this project is to increase participants’ STEM learning, identity and self-efficacy, and to broaden their interests in STEM career pathways.”