Expanding Equity-Oriented Tinkering in Afterschool

Fresno, Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Ana, & Watsonville, California

In 2016, the Exploratorium launched a new research-practice partnership project with the Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland California. This project involves co-designing weekly afterschool STEM-Rich Tinkering programs, co-taught by Lighthouse and Exploratorium educators, weekly observations and data collection, and monthly research-practice partnership meetings (involving a dozen educators from both organizations) to review and reflect on data. The aim of the partnership is to produce a cross-setting learning framework that can guide future afterschool Tinkering programs.

The project builds on lessons learned in the California Tinkering Afterschool Network (CTAN), a research-practice partnership focused on expanding equity-oriented STEM learning in afterschool programs. Partners included educational leaders, practitioners, and researchers from the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Oakland’s Techbridge, Community Science Workshops in Fresno and Watsonville, and Santa Ana’s Discovery Cube. Across these organizations, the network implemented STEM-Rich Tinkering or Making programs for youth attending afterschool programs serving low-income communities.  

Tinkering provides a low-barrier and inspirational approach to engaging children in STEM learning activities. It is creative, playful, and learner-directed. Through CTAN, we explored how Tinkering can be implemented in ways that recognize and honor children’s questions, interests, skills, and community histories in order to engage them more deeply in STEM learning. For example, the study’s findings suggest that the iterative, creative and improvisational features of tinkering, when facilitated to optimize these features, can provide a powerful context for all students to experience success and develop understanding.

Read the case study here.