This National Science Foundation Early Career Development project investigates how networked technologies can be leveraged to develop learners’ STEM identities and connect their STEM learning across informal and formal contexts. We have developed and implemented a digital badge system to recognize and reward the skills and achievements of a diverse group of high school students participating in a science-based afterschool program at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center and are in the process of evaluating the system.

This work aims to develop strong STEM identities among students who are currently underrepresented in STEM subject areas and encourage these students to pursue future STEM learning and career opportunities. The research findings will be used to develop educational outreach initiatives, distributed widely, to support other formal and informal learning institutions in their use of digital badges to support STEM learning.

Recent Updates

Read about our digital badging work in this Scientia article.

This project is generously supported by the National Science Foundation.