In response to a growing demand for early learner, in-school services for New York City's Universal Pre-kindergarten program, the Brooklyn Children's Museum will expand its outreach to schools in surrounding districts. The museum will create 24 new collections cases containing cultural and natural science objects. It will also develop related curricula and activity guides. A pre-K educator advisory council will work with the museum to ensure that the themes of the cases align with New York State Learning Standards for Pre-kindergarten and Pre-school students. The museum will also provide professional development workshops for up to 100 pre-K educators to support inquiry and object-based learning.
DuPage Children's Museum will enhance visitor engagement by incorporating current research on infant and toddler development to redesign two exhibits and develop an educational program for low-income caregivers. The museum will partner with two community-based organizations, Teen Parent Connection and Family Focus DuPage, to collaborate in the project and refer clients to participate in the educational programs. The museum will present twelve onsite sessions that will enable parents and caregivers to nurture an understanding of STEM fundamentals at the museum and at home for their young children. Participants will be given educational videos and take-home kits that correspond with the educational sessions. Project activities will also include training to help museum staff use the exhibits to further a visitor's learning experience. The museum will disseminate project results to other children's museums and early childhood educators and professionals.
Miami Children's Museum will redesign its Construction Zone Gallery into a STEM-learning space providing children, primarily ages eight and under, with a stimulating and interactive experience. The exhibition will incorporate 13 distinctive exhibition components, allowing full engagement in a variety of STEM-based learning activities. The museum will conduct focus group activities with field interpreters, specialists and educators working in STEM fields to guide and refine content development of the script and exhibition layout, followed by testing of the themes, programming activities, exhibition props and tools, software concepts, and learning outcomes. The project team will develop accompanying programming for children to be presented at the museum and at area public libraries. All components of the exhibition will support Florida's Early Learning Standards, and will meet the evolving educational needs of its youngest learners.
Marbles Kids Museum will develop tools and strategies to train its staff, volunteers, and interns to engage infants, toddlers, and preschool children in activities and conversations that lay the foundation for critical early math skills. The staff capacity-building project will deepen the museum staff's understanding of early math skills, how to foster those skills, and why investment in early math is critical to long term success in school. With a content coach, the museum will research and develop early math resources, activities, and exhibit enhancements that engage children and their families. Additionally, the museum will seek to understand community needs related to early math learning, and create content for professional development video modules. The museum will modify the professional development modules to create caregiver workshops focused on fostering early math learning through everyday activities and play at home. Museum staff will share tools and lessons learned through a regional museum convening and at national conferences.
The Children's Museum of the Upstate will expand its STEAM outreach programming to benefit both teachers and students in the Greenville County Schools. The museum will serve 2,000 students through STEAM programs held on-site at their elementary schools, with a focus on curriculum areas where standardized test scores indicate that students are struggling. A new program for preschoolers will be piloted in the school district's six child development centers. The pre-school classes will visit the museum for a field trip that includes free exploration time and a tailored storytime lesson. The museum will also present four teacher workshops reaching 400 educators to assist them in teaching STEAM topics. An independent evaluator will conduct an evaluation of the outreach programming and develop assessment tools to help determine how the curriculum can support student achievement and result in improved standardized test scores.
In partnership with early childhood service providers and elementary school systems, the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry will expand the reach of its programming to share its hands-on, play-based approach to STEM education with targeted children and educators. The museum will create a Power of Play curriculum with lesson plans that reflect best practices and focus on play-based activities to teach STEM concepts tied to grade level and state standards. The museum will train and support 40 teachers and educators from ten Head Start/First Steps early childhood centers and ten Title I elementary schools, and provide them with free Pop Up Tinker Shop (a museum on wheels) outreach visits. The trainings will build teacher confidence, promote best practices for play-based learning, support a community of practice, and enhance young learners' engagement, fascination, and attitude towards STEM. The Power of Play Curriculum will be published as a bound resource and shared with other children's museums and service providers.
The Discovery Center at Murfree Spring will partner with Mid-Cumberland Head Start to launch the SPARK! Head Start program to reach under-resourced early learners, families, and teachers in Rutherford County, Tennessee. Building on its successful STEM programming that integrates science with children's books, the museum will increase connections between science and literacy skills for 132 pre-K children ages three to five, and enhance the capacity of 16 teachers and two administrators within Rutherford County. Head Start will integrate and embed literacy and science process skills through hands-on STEM activities linked to children's literature and best practices. The project will also include programming designed to increase family engagement in STEM at the museum and at partnering Head Start centers.
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University will integrate unaccredited, home-based preschool care providers and the low-income families they serve into Philadelphia's initiative to increase the number of preschool education facilities and make high-quality pre-K instruction available to all children (Universal Pre-K). The project outputs include: an interdisciplinary pre-K curriculum that fosters knowledge and skill building in science, math, and literacy as well as positive social-emotional development; professional development workshops and one-on-one training with museum educators for childcare staff, followed by networking and alliance-building; and seven free Celebrate Pre-K Learning Days at the museum for families to learn about the importance of school readiness in science, math, and literacy and practice using free family learning kits that support these skills. The new citywide partnership, managed by the museum, is called Science and Literacy for Success and is supported by a robust number of partnerships with local social service and education agencies.
The Children's Museum at La Habra's Lil' Innovators Early Childhood STEM project will increase STEM skill and engagement among early childhood preschool teachers, disadvantaged preschoolers, and their parents. Delivered in partnership with three of La Habra's Head Start and California State Preschool program schools, the project will provide 224 preschoolers and 20 teachers with a year-long program offering increased developmental skills in STEM for underserved, low-income Hispanic students who are primarily English Language Learners. Teacher outcomes will include improved strategies for teaching STEM and increased teaching quality of STEM subjects. Parent outcomes include increased belief in the importance of STEM and increased ability to support their child's STEM learning. The standards-based education project will improve the museum's ability to serve its public by creating a community of practice consisting of a network of administrators, educators, and evaluators who will work together to improve the quality of STEM education for the youngest learners in this academically-challenged community.
Conversations with parents during engagement in informal learning settings, such as museums, can play a critical role in facilitating young children’s early experiences and interest in STEM (Jant et al., 2014; NRC, 2012). There is an acute need to support early STEM engagement for underrepresented families. Successful community partnerships between informal learning settings and Head Start are one way to broaden participation, interest, and success in the STEM fields for underrepresented children and families.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Using a design-based research approach, we studied ways to advance opportunities for children and families to engage in engineering design practices in an informal educational setting. 213 families with 5–11-year-old children were observed as they visited a tinkering exhibit at a children’s museum during one of three iterations of a program posing an engineering design challenge. Children’s narrative reflections about their experience were recorded immediately after tinkering. Across iterations of the program, changes to the exhibit design and facilitation provided by museum staff corresponded
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Maria MarcusDiana AcostaPirko TouguDavid UttalCatherine Haden
Chicago Children’s Museum (CCM) closed its doors to the public in March 2020 to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Like many learning spaces, CCM needed to switch from in-person to online interactions to continue connecting with our community during the pandemic. Museum educators soon began making videos at home, building upon our best practices for interacting with guests at the museum. Here are some tips gained by staff that we hope other museum professionals can use and adapt for your online programming!