Rising Stargirls: Benefits of a Creative Arts-Based Approach to Astronomy Education for Middle-School Girls from Underrepresented Groups

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Silverman, Maya, Shields, Aomawa L., Howard, Jessica N., Venkatesan, Vidya, Whitfield, Kiana
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Silverman, Maya
Shields, Aomawa L.
Howard, Jessica N.
Venkatesan, Vidya
Whitfield, Kiana
author_facet Silverman, Maya
Shields, Aomawa L.
Howard, Jessica N.
Venkatesan, Vidya
Whitfield, Kiana
contents Women from historically marginalized groups in the sciences continue to be severely underrepresented in the fields of physics and astronomy. Young girls identifying with these groups often lose interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields well before college. Middle school (grades 6-8) emerges as a pivotal phase for nurturing science identities among girls. The educational program Rising Stargirls offers creative arts-based astronomy workshops for middle-school girls, with the aim of cultivating their science identities. We retrospectively analyze participants' responses to four key assessment items through which their engagement in science and their science identities before and after the workshops are assessed. Our findings overwhelmingly indicate that girls exhibit heightened engagement in science and enhanced science identities after engaging in the Rising Stargirls program. These outcomes underscore the merits of fostering creativity and integrating the arts into science education.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_11682
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Rising Stargirls: Benefits of a Creative Arts-Based Approach to Astronomy Education for Middle-School Girls from Underrepresented Groups
Silverman, Maya
Shields, Aomawa L.
Howard, Jessica N.
Venkatesan, Vidya
Whitfield, Kiana
Physics Education
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Women from historically marginalized groups in the sciences continue to be severely underrepresented in the fields of physics and astronomy. Young girls identifying with these groups often lose interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields well before college. Middle school (grades 6-8) emerges as a pivotal phase for nurturing science identities among girls. The educational program Rising Stargirls offers creative arts-based astronomy workshops for middle-school girls, with the aim of cultivating their science identities. We retrospectively analyze participants' responses to four key assessment items through which their engagement in science and their science identities before and after the workshops are assessed. Our findings overwhelmingly indicate that girls exhibit heightened engagement in science and enhanced science identities after engaging in the Rising Stargirls program. These outcomes underscore the merits of fostering creativity and integrating the arts into science education.
title Rising Stargirls: Benefits of a Creative Arts-Based Approach to Astronomy Education for Middle-School Girls from Underrepresented Groups
topic Physics Education
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11682