Recently, we’ve seen an increased public awareness about the importance of STEM education and the need to strengthen STEM capabilities more broadly, and public and private investments are integral to these efforts. In the United States alone, 13 federal agencies have committed over $3.4 billion to more than 250 different programs in support of STEM education. ASTC 2012 features a number of sessions led by U.S. federal agency representatives where attendees can learn more about current funding opportunities and how to submit successful applications.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services: Advancing Science-Technology Centers
Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) program staff will share insights on IMLS’ new strategic plan and associated changes in its competitive funding programs targeted to science and technology centers for 2013, highlighting elements of successful applications. The panel will include museum professionals who will share practical examples from their own experiences with IMLS programs.
Session Leader: Christopher J. Reich, Associate Deputy Director for Museums, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Washington, DC
Sunday, October 14, 12:30 p.m.–1:45 p.m. Add To Calendar

Strategic Opportunities at NASA and NOAA: Grants, Partnerships, Content Resources
Education Managers from NOAA and NASA (including from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) discuss competitive grants, strategic alliances, and other opportunities supporting the practice of informal science education. This roundtable also examines how Congress, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Government Accountability Office may change education and outreach at NASA and NOAA.
Session Leader: Mary Frances Sladek, Manager of Informal Education, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
Monday, October 15, 10:45 a.m.–12:45 p.m. Add To Calendar

Roundtable Talks: Submitting Competitive NSF Informal Science Education Proposals
Come learn valuable tips for writing and submitting competitive proposals from ISE Program Officers and Principal Investigators who’ve had success writing competitive proposals and receiving funding. Brief general remarks will also be provided regarding the current solicitation, merit review criteria, and the proposal submission process.
Session Leader: Dennis Schatz, Program Director, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA
Tuesday, October 16, 10:45 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Add To Calendar

STEM After School: Partnership with the U.S. Department of Education (Featured Session)
Several science centers run after school programs with U.S. Department of Education (ED) 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) funds. The audience will learn about importance of the 21st CCLC Initiative, and program models and opportunities from a panel including an ED spokesperson, representatives of two museums, and a researcher.
Session Leader: Laura Martin, Senior Director, Strategic Initiatives, Arizona Science Center, Phoenix
Tuesday, October 16, 10:45 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Add To Calendar

To learn more about STEM Public Programs around the world, visit ASTC’s STEM Public Programs page.

This morning’s Prototyping with Arduinos Workshop, sponsored by Radio Shack, gave ASTC 2012 attendees a chance to try their hands at digital programming using Arduino, an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board. Because the hardware and software are open source, Arduino can be used to create inexpensive interactive exhibits, and an abundance of free resources for the platform are available online.

Session leaders Brian Kelly, Eric Welch, and Kyle Stetz from The Franklin Institute shared examples of how they have used Arduino in their own exhibit prototypes. Participants were then led through progressively more complex programming activities beginning with blinking a single LED (the Arduino version of “Hello, World”).

To learn more about Arduino, visit arduino.cc.

About the images: Prototype developers at The Franklin Institute have used Arduino boards to create stand-alone projects, such as a safe that visitors can open by entering a code (top). Other projects use Arduino boards to communicate with software including an exhibit where a video changes as visitors “turn off” different areas of a brain (bottom). Images courtesy The Franklin Institute

Attendees are arriving in Columbus, Ohio, and the 2012 ASTC Annual Conference, hosted by COSI, will soon be underway. With over 100 sessions and workshops, opening and closing keynote sessions, and numerous networking opportunities for our nearly 2,000 attendees from 33 countries, ASTC 2012 promises to be a wonderful professional development opportunity for the global science center community.

Whether on-site or from afar, ASTC invites you to follow the 2012 Annual Conference online. Follow us on Twitter (@sciencecenters) and join in the conversation using hashtag #astc2012. Photos and videos will also be posted in our Flickr pool, on Instagram (follow @sciencecenters and post your own using #astc2012), and on our ASTCvideos YouTube channel. The ASTC conference blog also will be updated regularly through Tuesday.

Thank you for joining us!

Nicole Lazzaro, world-renowned game designer and researcher, founder of XEODesign, and one of Fast Company’s 100 most influential women in high-tech, and Dr. Michael Evans, associate professor and program area leader in instructional design and technology at Virginia Tech, will anchor the closing keynote panel at ASTC’s 2012 Annual Conference in Columbus, Ohio, October 13-16, hosted by COSI. The closing panel on cyberlearning and gaming will be held Tuesday, October 16, and additional panel participants will be announced shortly.

Nicole Lazzaro discovered the Four Keys to Fun in 2004, a model used by hundreds of thousands of game developers worldwide. She used this model to design the iPhone’s first accelerometer game in 2007, now called Tilt World. One of the top 20 women working in video games, and top 10 women in gamification, Nicole’s work has been widely cited by global news media such as Wired, Fast Company, CNN, CNET, The Hollywood Reporter, and Red Herring. She has advised the White House and the U.S. State Department on the use of games to unlock human potential to improve our world. For the past two decades as the CEO of XEODesign she has improved hundreds of millions of player experiences for companies such as Ubisoft, EA, Disney, and Cartoon Network, as well as worked on best selling franchises such as Myst, Diner Dash, Pogo, and The Sims. One of the pioneers in applying game design outside of games, she designed game-inspired UI for Oracle, Cisco, Kaiser, Sun, Roxio, and others as early as 1992.

Dr. Michael Evans received a B.A. and M.A. in psychology from the University of West Florida and a PhD in instructional systems technology from Indiana University. His work focuses on the effects of multimedia methods and technologies on instruction and learning. Current research focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of instructional multimedia for interactive surfaces (personal media devices, smart phones, tablets, tables, and whiteboards) to support collaborative learning as well as the adoption of video game elements for instructional design, particularly for informal settings. Currently, he is Principal Investigator on two current NSF-sponsored projects. The GAMES Project (DRL 1118571) proposes to develop serious mathematical games for tablets and other mobile devices, focusing on pre-algebra readiness and states of engagement. The Studio STEM Project (DRL 1029756) proposes to engage middle school students in science and engineering in an after school setting. Guided by engineering teaching kits, participants work with undergraduate mentors to explore the science of energy as they build-test-rebuild dwellings to protect penguins from climate change. Evans teaches graduate courses in the learning sciences and interactive media design and development. He has published in Educational Technology Research and Development, the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, and the Journal of Educational Computing Research. More information on projects can be found at the GAMES and Studio STEM websites.

For more information on ASTC’s 2012 Annual Conference, visit conference.astc.org.

ASTC’s 2012 Annual Conference, which will be held October 13-16 in Columbus, Ohio, and hosted by COSI, will take a step into the future, when Intel futurist Brian David Johnson delivers the opening keynote presentation on Saturday, October 13. Johnson is Intel’s Director, Future Casting and a Principal Engineer.

The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2020. His work is called “future casting”—using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to provide Intel with a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Along with reinventing TV, Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and using science fiction as a design tool. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment Computing and the Devices we Love, Fake Plastic Love, and Nebulous Mechanisms: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter.
Johnson recently did an interview for ASTC’s award-winning Dimensions magazine.
For more information on ASTC’s Annual Conference, visit conference.astc.org.