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Structure

GSEE Structure GSEE is moving forward under a hub and spoke structure with Founding Partners who collaborate via a mix of working groups, workshops, and experiments—pilot programs that involve physical and life scientists from a broad range of institutions. In convening the Founding Summit, GSEE/Chicago, The University of Chicago acted as the de-facto GSEE hub and it is continuing to do so. The initial proposed US spokes are:

*GSEE/Illinois, a "mini-hub" initially centered at UChicago, whose spokes will include Northwestern, UIUC, NIU, UIC, Argonne, and Fermilab
*ICAM, another "mini-hub", whose 19 spokes are its branches that became GSEE Founding Partners through their active programs in science education
*American Association for the Advancement of Science.
*National Academy of Sciences
*American Association of Physics Teachers
*American Institute of Physics
*Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public and other engagement programs of the American Physical Society

The initial GSEE spokes outside the US are:

*GSEE/Japan, with hubs at the Tokyo University of Science and Kyoto University
*The Science Academy [Istanbul]

GSEE Founding Summits
GSEE/Chicago [May 9-11, 2013]. Twenty-five engaged participants
from Illinois, California, and Washington, DC met for two days to review progress on national and local experiments in engagement as part of an examination of the broader purpose of engagement with schools, to propose a GSEE structure and initial working groups, and to found GSEE/Illinois as a template for local and regional GSEE consortia—groupings in which leading innovators develop collaborative efforts in outreach/public engagement/informal science education.

GSEE/Kyoto [Oct.20-23, 2013] Forty-six engaged participants from Japan, China, Korea, the US, France, and Turkey met for 2 ½ days to establish GSEE/Japan as a regional GSEE consortium with offices in Kyoto and Tokyo. They exchanged information on their experiments in engagement and initiated work on developing pilot projects for regional consortia including new joint experiments and an engagement registry that will begin with entries by Summit participants.

GSEE/Taipei [Fall. 2014], GSEE/Beijing [Fall, 2015], and GSEE/Cambridge are in the planning stage.

Working Groups Four working groups were formed at GSEE/Chicago to develop pilot programs and propose funding mechanisms to carry these out.

Developing GSEE/Illinois is a working group/consortium involving UChicago, Northwestern, UIC, Argonne, Fermilab, NIU, and UIUC: Co Chairs, Michael Lach [Chicago] and Patricia Sievert [NIU]. The group expects to re-form the area-wide Joint Education Committee (JEC) that includes the above institutions in order to to develop a model for regional attempts to connect professional scientists with STEM educators and students. GSEE/Illinois is considering, as an initial pilot project, providing every school in selected local municipalities with at least one STEM engagement opportunity utilizing engaged practitioners from outside institutions. The interface with school systems (e.g., Chicago Public Schools) will require appreciation of teachers' needs and expectations, as well as curricular requirements. Following this scoping exercise, GSEE/Illinois could be in a position to develop a compelling funding proposal to create a national network of similar committees. Endeavors such as these require sustained financial and scientific resources as well as methodological rigor.

Communications. Two working groups—one on national and global initiatives, chaired by Philip [Bo] Hammer [AIP], and one on regional initiatives, chaired by Peter Littlewood [Argonne] — have begun work.

The Hammer group held its first meeting at the Washington office of the American Chemical Society on August 22, 2013. Present were representatives from the National Academies, AAAS, AAPT, AIP, APS, ACS, ICAM, UIUC, UC Davis, and CAISE. They discussed a unified communications hub/portal/magazine/journal that would have the following components:

*an online refereed journal that will contain reports on "Experiments in Engagement" that are intended to connect and inform the community of engaged scientists
*using arXiv to include preprints of such reports
*a curated portal that connects blogs by engaged scientists and expand their number significantly.
*a web site that might serve as a National Engagement Registry and Resource

The group held a second meeting on October 8, following which they issued a draft white paper that was discussed at GSEE/Kyoto and will be made public in the coming months.

Peter Littlewood has started work with Argonne and UChicago colleagues to get a regional communication hub [STEMware?] started with information about practices of GSEE/Illinois partners that could then be expanded to include others in the region. The hub will be a web-based clearinghouse for engagement with a focus on connectivity. It could:

*link best practices and individuals from different organizations;
*provide peer review of content (verification and validation of activities) via a moderated blog or a stamp of excellence, etc.;
*support the development of platforms for delivery of engagement;
*present a suite of methodologies for measuring success of activities; and
*house a data archive of research results on engagement efforts, their administration, and assessment.

Defining "Grand Challenges in Engagement" and proposing Exploratory Workshops to discuss and devise ways to meet these: Co-Chairs, David Pines [Davis] and Martin Storksdieck [National Academies]. The working group met electronically to prepare an initial report in time for its discussion during the GSEE/Kyoto Summit; there was agreement there on the global nature of the following proposed initial grand challenges

Grand Challenge 1 Build, expand, and sustain a community of engaged scientists within and across the disciplines by providing better opportunities for natural and physical scientists to involve themselves in education, outreach and communication, with the long-term goal of creating a science of engagement, and in so doing, change the culture of science.

Grand Challenge 2 Establish major new programs to enhance significantly opportunities for engagement by scientists in schools, after-school and informal settings.

Grand Challenge 3 Involve research scientists in the current revolution of technology-enabled learning to render these opportunities meaningful for science teaching and learning.

Grand Challenge 4 Find effective ways to encourage students of STEM disciplines to include education, outreach and communication as a significant component of an engaged career path, or as a career path in itself.

GSEE Executive Committee The GSEE Executive Committee is made up of Founding Summit Chairs, Working Group Chairs, and the leaders of its major hubs and spokes. Its Co-Chairs are David Pines and Thomas Rosenbaum; its present membership is:

*Akito Arima, Chancellor, Musashi Gakuen, Past-President University of Tokyo Director, GSEE/Japan
*Beth Cunningham, Executive Director, American Association of Physics Teachers
*Hong Ding, Managing Director and Chief Scientist, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences Chair, GSEE/Beijing
*Laura Greene, Swanland Professor of Physics, UIUC, Chair, ICAM Board of Governors
*Philip [Bo] Hammer, Associate Vice-President, American Institute of Physics, Chair, Working Group on Global Communication
*Michael Lach, Director of STEM Policies and Strategic initiatives, Urban Education Institute, University of Chicago Co-Chair, Working Group on Developing GSEE/illinois
*Peter Littlewood, Associate Director, Argonne National Laboratory, Chair, Working Group on Regional Communication
*Tiffany Lohwater, Director of Meetings and Public Engagement, AAAS
*Kazuo Kitahara, Professor of Physic and Science Education, Tokyo University of Science, Director, GSEE/Tokyo
*Kazuo Nishimura, Professor of Economics, Kobe University and Kyoto University, Director, GSEE/Kyoto
*David Pines, Founding Director Emeritus, ICAM, Co-Founder Santa Fe Institute, Distinguished Research Professor of Physics, UC Davis, Co-Chair, Working Group on Grand Challenges in Engagement
*Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, Past President, Royal Society, and Chair, GSEE/Cambridge
*Thomas Rosenbaum, Provost, University of Chicago, Co-Chair GSEE/Chicago Founding Summit
*Patricia Sievert, Director of STEM Outreach, Northern Illinois University, Co-Chair, Working Group on Developing GSEE/Illinois
*Martin Storksdieck, Director, Board on Science Education, National Academies, Co-Chair Working Group on Grand Challenges in Engagement
*Maw-kuen Wu, President National Dong Hwa University, Chair, GSEE/Taipei

Concluding remarks There is no unique path to enhancing engagement and measuring its effectiveness. Rather one should try a number of different approaches while searching for synergies between them. GSEE is accordingly encouraged to consider the merits and staging of a proposal to carry out a number of experiments in engagement based on the concepts examined in these working groups and exploratory workshops.

Looking further ahead, once success is achieved locally, a regional model, or models across multiple localities, may be launched to demonstrate scalability and test the functional reach of the ideas proposed here. Ultimately, the goal is for GSEE to stand solidly as a recognized resource for readily available, current and high quality information and results on STEM engagement and other ways to enhance science literacy.