[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-590578-105":59,"doc-detail-590578-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","what-if-building-creative-cultures-for-stem-making-and-learning","What If? - Building Creative Cultures for STEM Making and Learning","","Active, learner-driven, collaborative activities are presented as a cornerstone of successful afterschool STEM programming and are linked to improved learning and well-being. The article argues that making—playful, creative, and iterative by nature—can help students understand STEM as inquiry, strengthen STEM learning identities, and support youth from underresourced schools. It explains STEM through an integrated lens, describes how making draws on design, measurement, and interdisciplinary practices, and discusses “fail fast, fail often” while addressing privilege and educational equity.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/what-if-building-creative-cultures-for-stem-making-and-learning/590578/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/what-if-building-creative-cultures-for-stem-making-and-learning/590578.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Stanley","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-31","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":19},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why are active, learner-driven and collaborative activities important in afterschool STEM programs?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"They are described as key to the success of afterschool programming in supporting young people’s learning and well-being. The text also frames them as a field-strength that can help expand STEM programs.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does making support STEM learning in afterschool settings?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Making is described as inherently playful, creative, and fun, leveraging dimensions of youth development. It helps students engage STEM through doing and iterative processes that deepen understanding through iterative design and testing.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does the article mean by “defining STEM,” and how is making related to it?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"STEM is defined as an integrated approach combining science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with attention to interdisciplinarity. Making is argued to inherently rely on interdisciplinary skills such as design, measurement, and often additional STEM-related phenomena like coding, electricity, or sound.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},590578,1792190227,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":19,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":39,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":46,"preview_page_count":4},2336477405376,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0","What If?  \nBuilding Creative Cultures for STEM Making and Learning  \nBronwyn Bevan, Jean Ryoo, and Molly Shea  \nActive, learner-driven, collaborative activities—a hallmark of youth development—are key to the success of afterschool programming in supporting young people’s learning and well-being. How can the field leverage this strength as it seeks to expand STEM programs for young people? (See box“Defining STEM” on the next page.)  \nThis question is especially important for programs serving youth who attend underresourced schools, where opportunities to engage in STEM are less frequent and less likely to be hands-on or inquiry-based (National Research Council, 2012b) . Afterschool programs can play a vital role in leveling the playing field by giving young people opportunities, like those common in high-performing schools, to learn STEM by doing STEM (Bevan & Michalchik, 2013) . Through doing (rather than memorizing) STEM, students can come to understand it as a creative process of inquiry. They can develop positive STEM learning identities that can guide them in future academic and career choices.  \nMaking (see box “Kinds of Making” on page 3) is an approach to STEM education that may be especially well suited to afterschool. Inherently playful, learner-driven, creative, and fun, Making leverages key dimensions of youth development. Research (Peppler, Halverson, & Kafai, 2016; Vossoughi & Bevan, 2014) has found that Making:  \n% Exercises students’ creative and improvisational problemsolving abilities  \nBRONWYN BEVAN, PhD, is senior research scientist at the University of Washington, principal investigator of the Research+Practice Collaboratory, and co-PI of the Center for the Advancement of Informal STEM Education. She researches how formal and informal learning opportunities can be organized to advance equity in education.  \nJEAN RYOO, PhD, is an educational researcher at the Exploratorium. She directed the California Tinkering Afterschool Network project. She currently collaborates with Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland and with Exploring Computer Science, a K–12-university partnership, to improve STEM and computer science education for all. MOLLY SHEA holds a PhD in learning sciences from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her work is focused at the nexus of research and practice in the study of human-centered design interventions to organize for more equitable teaching and learning.  \n\n| DEFINING STEM |\n| --- |\n| STEM is an acronym whose life began as a set of five words with three commas: “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”Coined by the National Science Foundation, the term is still often used it in this way.\u003Cbr>Over the past decade or more, many have come to think of STEM not as four things but as one: an integrated approach to answering questions or developing ideas that incorporates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Some have integrated the arts to produce STEAM. Although school has traditionally separated the disciplines, in the real world, questions are inherently interdisciplinary. Research is often led by teams with different training—in computer sciences, physics, and mathematics, for example—who work together to address a common question.\u003Cbr>Making is inherently interdisciplinary. To make something—whether it is a cake or a table-top robot—Makers must use design (engineering), measurement (mathematics), and proportion (mathematics and engineering) . Often they are also guided by aesthetic considerations (arts and engineering) . STEM-rich Making activities also can involve scientific phenomena, such as electricity or sound, or computer sciences, such as coding. For example, designing and sewing a purse is a Making activity. Designing and sewing a purse using conductive thread and Lilypad mini-processors, a task that can involve wiring, circuitry, and coding, is STEM-rich Making.\u003Cbr>This article uses the term “STEM” because the Making activities in our study, which alway","cbCaif92jVuxOmBX","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaif92jVuxOmBX","pdf",693867,"English","# Youth Development and Afterschool STEM\n## Leveraging collaborative, learner-driven activities\n## Underresourced schools and access to STEM\n# Making as an Approach to STEM Education\n## Why making fits afterschool contexts\n## Iterative design, testing, redesign, and learning from failure\n# Defining STEM\n## STEM as an integrated approach (STEM/STEAM)\n## Interdisciplinarity in real-world questions\n# STEM-Rich Making Activities","[{\"question\":\"Why are active, learner-driven and collaborative activities important in afterschool STEM programs?\",\"answer\":\"They are described as key to the success of afterschool programming in supporting young people’s learning and well-being. The text also frames them as a field-strength that can help expand STEM programs.\"},{\"question\":\"How does making support STEM learning in afterschool settings?\",\"answer\":\"Making is described as inherently playful, creative, and fun, leveraging dimensions of youth development. It helps students engage STEM through doing and iterative processes that deepen understanding through iterative design and testing.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the article mean by “defining STEM,” and how is making related to it?\",\"answer\":\"STEM is defined as an integrated approach combining science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with attention to interdisciplinarity. Making is argued to inherently rely on interdisciplinary skills such as design, measurement, and often additional STEM-related phenomena like coding, electricity, or sound.\"}]","What If? - Building Creative Cultures for STEM Making and Learning | PDF",1792069931]