About

The STEM Effect project is a collaborative effort led by the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, the Education Development Center (EDC), and the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP), to engage cultural organizations around the U.S. in developing a Collaborative Action Agenda for better understanding the mid- and long-term impacts of informal STEM programs for girls.

The project team has engaged with these institutions to synthesize their experiences and approaches with the existing research literature on girls in STEM, identify and refine a set of research and programming guidelines and best practices, examine the roadblocks to research, and find opportunities and capacities for gathering and analyzing data needed to understand mid- and long-term impact. A national webinar, hosted by the National Girls Collaborative Project, presented a draft Action Agenda to 245 registrants. The project team was gratified at the responses from the webinar attendees. 83% found the generalized logic model very or extremely relevant to their work. The five priority areas for research identified by the team were interesting to the respondents, especially the priority area which proposed an approach for building knowledge around how to design programs that support girls from non-dominant racial or ethnic groups in their STEM participation (more than 75% were very or extremely interested in further research in this area). 68% of respondents felt the critical junctures model was very or extremely helpful to understanding points where girls’ interest and engagement in STEM may need more support. Respondents were asked if they would consider using the action agenda in their future work. 57% responded that they probably or definitely would with another 39% responding that they possibly would be using it. We invite you to explore the action agenda below. We hope it will spark thought and provide a frame for future research!