Leveraging STEM Learning in Rural Libraries to Address Misinformation

To accomplish this goal the project will partner with rural public library systems across Washington State to co-design, implement, and evaluate an informal STEM education approach to addressing misinformation. Working alongside library practitioners, the researchers will employ a combination of participatory co-development methodologies, qualitative interviews, and evaluation methods to produce effective misinformation programming. Through this process they will address the following research questions:
1. What are successful components of a STEM education approach to addressing misinformation? 2. How can these components be integrated and adapted to cater to the unique characteristics and educational needs of rural communities? 3. How can this approach to misinformation be adapted for use within rural public libraries?
Answers to these questions will increase scholarly understandings of misinformation, and ways to address it, within important yet understudied rural communities. We are designing and testing a co-design approach to informal curriculum design that would allow any of the nation’s 6000+ rural libraries implement a misinformation program tailored to the issues that most concern their communities. This offers informal educators a tool for producing engaging and desirable programming on an issue that can otherwise be quite divisive.