ASU, Arizona Science Center awarded $30K for science and literacy partnership

The Central Arizona Writing Project at Arizona State University and the Arizona Science Center have been awarded a joint grant of $30,000 to advance professional development at the center via a public writing and science literacy partnership. The initiative is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation to design a program that will integrate science and literacy.

The Central Arizona Writing Project is a local site for the National Writing Project (NWP) housed within the Department of English, and grew out of a collaboration between ASU, the NWP and local area schools, to enhance professional development of Arizona's K-16 students and teachers.

The grant will further strengthen the existing partnerships between the university and the Arizona Science Center. With great support from the Office Knowledge of Enterprise and Development, English professors Jessica Early and Christina Saidy-Hannah will work with a team of K-12 teachers from the Central Arizona Writing Project to develop a series of training workshops for the center’s staff.

The idea for the program came directly from conversations with Arizona Science Center leadership who saw that while employees came from a background of scientific study, they were interested in more support in communicating scientific knowledge to a diverse audience through reading and writing.

“The Arizona Science Center employees have vast scientific knowledge but are not necessarily formally trained in how to communicate this information to the public through writing,” said Saidy-Hannah. “With our support, we can help them in their goals of communicating that science is a daily part of life.”

The Central Arizona Writing Project is one of five sites selected to take part in the grant opportunity. Other winners are the Montana Writing Project and spectrUM Discovery; the San Diego Area Writing Project, San Diego Natural History Museum, and the Fleet Inquiry Institute; the UNC Charlotte Writing Project and Discovery Place; and the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project and Carnegie Science Museum.

For Early, director of the Central Arizona Writing Project, the grant offers a unique opportunity to pair K-12 teachers with scientists in the local community.

“This project directly falls under Michael Crow’s vision to improve social embeddedness in research and teaching," Early said. "Because of this, our research program is now brought to a community space for the benefit of all involved. I believe it will open a lot more doors for future community engagement and collaborative research."

In the spring of 2012, leadership within the university began engaging the Arizona Science Center in discussions on how to further expand their partnership in a more strategic manner. With the center receiving more than half a million visitors annually, ASU saw a perfect opportunity to highlight the groundbreaking research taking place across all four campuses. In turn, the center benefits from having the university as a direct touchpoint to bring new and different types of science content to their facility.

Already the center is working with ASU on a variety of projects, including the promotion of STEM education – advancing technology and engineering interest in the community – and co-hosting events such as planetarium shows at the center.

For more information about the partnership, visit http://www.inspireazscience.org.