Free Choice Learning: Accessing the Informal Science Education Infrastructure

Science Learning, Inc. will plan and carryout a two day conference that will bring together researchers, practitioners and policy makers in an effort to seek to better understand the workings of the informal science education infrastructure. Being promoted as a seminal event for defining and understanding the role of informal science education infrastructure in facilitating public understanding of science, conference participants will better define and delineate the informal science education infrastructure, hear about studies examining the nature and function of the informal science education infrastructure, learn about research models in other fields that are related to this question, and look toward the future by proposing studies and approaches to understanding this infrastructure even better. This is an outgrowth of a projected ten-year research study conducted for LA's California Science Center looking at the impact of a major urban science center on its community. This conference will be held in association with the May, 1998 annual meting of the American Association of Museums. Participants will apply to attend; it is anticipated that approximately 100 individuals will be selected. The conference proceedings will be published and broadly dissemination after the conference. It will include the nine formal papers presented at the conference along with summaries of the small groups' sessions and conclusion. The James Irvine Foundation and the California Science Center will provide additional support for this conference.

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