NExUS-Mississippi

NExUS-MS is a multi-dimensional community-based research and education project led by Dr. Maria Wallace dedicated to taking seriously the capacity of ‘in-between places’. Bringing together informal science educators, aspiring and current K12 teachers, youth, graduate students from diverse fields, alongside a community-engaged approach to evaluation and research---this group is collectively working to build a regional model for exploring the compounding power of intergenerational exchange to accomplish two cross-cutting objectives:

• Objective 1: Advance Mississippi postsecondary science education while strengthening Mississippi K12 teacher recruitment and education
• Objective 2: Study the diverse impacts of research-practice partnerships with informal science institutions (ISI) to develop a model University-ISI partnership.

These objectives are further contextualized within the groups' efforts to strategically respond to pervasive, often deeply interconnected, issues of inequity in science education. By fusing research and practice together, NExUS-MS activities construct new theories and tools to examine how shifting away from schools to alternative cultural centers (e.g., Informal Science Institutions, ISIs), hold unique potential to render diverse interpretations of reform work visible within science education.