Northern Illinois University
STEM Interest and Engagement (STEM IE)

We filmed six exemplary summer STEM programs for middle school students to create educational videos to support program and professional development and quality improvement in the ISL field. All the educational video clips are organized by program for those who might be interested in learning more about each program. Individual clips appear throughout the toolkit to exemplify findings from the STEM IE study that are important to communicate to the field. Similar to our research study, many of the youth featured in the videos are from groups historically underrepresented in STEM fields.  Although the programs we filmed for educational purposes have similarities to those that we studied, they did not participate in the study.  For reasons of confidentiality related to research participants, none of the research video was used in making these video clips. 

Chicago Botanic Garden Camp

Botanic Science First

This clip provides an overview of and information about the Science First program.

Botanic Individual Student Projects

This clip shows a central activity of the Science First Program. It captures important features of the program's quality. As the activity leaders and participants describe the individual project, several key research findings are exemplified: Creating a product is interesting to young people; connecting initial interests to science content increases interest in science and learning; when young adolescents are allowed to make choices they are more engaged; and when science is relevant to their lives they engage and learn more.

Botanic Fun

This clip shows a central activity of the Science First Program. It captures important features of the program's quality. As the activity leaders and participants describe the individual project, several key research findings are exemplified: Creating a product is interesting to young people; connecting initial interests to science content increases interest in science and learning; when young adolescents are allowed to make choices they are more engaged; and when science is relevant to their lives they engage and learn more.