This paper describes an NSF-funded study which explored the relationship between female-responsive exhibit designs and girls’ engagement. Across three participating science centers, 906 museum visitors ages 8 to 13 were observed at 334 interactive physics, math, engineering, and perception exhibits. We measured girls’ engagement based on whether they chose to use or return to the exhibits, opted to spend more time at them, or demonstrated deeper engagement behavior. Findings suggest that the design strategies identified in our previously developed Female-Responsive Design Framework can inform
This paper describes the development of a Female-Responsive Design Framework for Informal Science Education (ISE). The FRD Framework translates ideas from Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to discover and recommend pedagogical strategies that apply to females and design. This paper describes our synthesis of prior research about females’ social, historical, and cultural practices in STEM learning from a variety of fields. The paper further details our process of developing the FRD Framework with the help of museum practitioners, female youth, researchers, and experts from the fields of design
In the From Project Mercury to Planet Mars project, the Museum of Science is partnering with national leaders to create two resources, each geared to a different style of learner, that strengthen engineering education and immersive experiences in the nation’s informal education environment. The Museum of Science is collaborating with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and Albert Einstein Planetarium in Washington D.C., the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Adventure Science Center and Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville, Tennessee, and the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. Through the development of a Planetarium show engaging audiences in the excitement of a human journey to Mars, and a large-scale engineering design challenge activity that allows participants to create design solutions to a Mars exploration challenge, the goal of From Project Mercury to Planet Mars is to increase student and public awareness of human space exploration and inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists. Planetarium show viewers are expected to demonstrate an increased appreciation and interest in future activities in engineering and science, and learn about the technical challenges of space exploration. Design challenge participants are expected to actively engage in the engineering design process and in engineering habits of mind.
The Corning Museum of Glass contracted RK&A to conduct a summative evaluation of the temporary exhibition Glass of the Architects: Vienna 1900-1937. The goal of the study is to explore visitors’ experiences in the exhibition, which is a 1900-square foot exhibition situated within an expansive museum campus.
RK&A collected 100 timing and tracking observations to provide an objective and quantitative account of how visitors experience the exhibition. The museum has historically collected timing and tracking observations for temporary exhibitions so the method allowed for comparisons to
"PLUM RX: Researching a new pathway for bringing active science exploration to urban families" is a project that makes use of public media resources to create innovative opportunities to bring environmental science learning to the hard-to-reach audience of urban families. As part of this project, media producers at WGBH and researchers at EDC worked together to: (1) develop a new pathway for bringing active environmental science exploration to urban families with children ages 6-9; (2) expand PLUM LANDING’s media assets to support urban families and informal educators when engaging in
This report looks across multiple phases of work to discuss the PLUM Rx project’s contribution to broader knowledge about supporting children’s active, outdoor science exploration in informal, urban settings. The PLUM LANDING Explore Outdoors Toolkit that resulted from this work is designed for use by outdoor prescription programs and a broad range of informal education programs serving urban children and families. This report describes (1) the rationale for the design principles that guided Toolkit development, (2) the Toolkit components developed in accordance with the design principles; and
The Museum of Science, Boston led the From Project Mercury to Planet Mars: Introducing Engineering and Inspiring Youth through Humanity’s Greatest Adventure project (FPMPM) as a way to produce and share high-quality informal engineering education opportunities about the topic of human space travel to Mars. The grant involved the creation of two products that address human space travel to Mars: an immersive full-dome planetarium show and a hands-on engineering design challenge. To evaluate the grant work, the Research & Evaluation Department at the Museum of Science, Boston conducted a
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Annette SawyerKatie ToddLeigh Ann MesitiAlex LussenhopKeith Allison
This is the summative evaluation for the My Sky Tonight: Early Childhood Pathways to Astronomy is a National Science Foundation funded Full-Scale Development project that was designed to support informal science education practitioner’s ability to provide astronomy learning for young children ages 3-5 years. Based on prior research and assessment of the field, the project team identified that many informal educators lack the astronomy content, interpretive strategies, and confidence they need to effectively engage audiences of families with preschool-aged children. Three mechanisms were
This study focused on narrative reflections families recorded shortly after they visited the Tinkering Lab exhibit at Chicago Children’s Museum. They recorded their narrative reflections in a multi-media station called Story Hub. Some families brought the projects they had made in Tinkering Lab with them into Story Hub. We asked if families who had their project with them engaged in more STEM-related talk and associations to prior and future experiences than those who did not.
This study was designed to examine narratives that families recorded shortly after visiting the Tinkering Lab at the Chicago Children’s Museum. We view this work as intersecting with the event memory literature concerning variations in parental reminiscing styles for talking about past events (Fivush, Haden, Reese, 2006). The study also connects with efforts to assess learning in museum settings (Haden, Cohen, Uttal, & Marcus, 2016).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lauren PaganoDanielle NesiDestinee JohnsonDiana AcostaCatherine HadenDavid UttalPerla Gamez
Cultivating Confidence: Young Women's Self-Efficacy in Science Museums is an NLG Diversity and Inclusion research project that studies the impact of a single science museum visit on "emerging adult" learners (young adults aged 18-29, not yet married, no children). Cultivating Confidence builds directly on prior IMLS-funded research that found that a science museum visit mitigated a pre-existing gender gap in science self-efficacy: Young women entered the museum with significantly lower science self-efficacy (confidence to do or learn science) than men, experienced a significant increase over the course of the visit, and remained at that same level, equal to men's, three months after the visit. Cultivating Confidence will replicate and investigate this effect further by observing male and female young adults during their visit and over the course of the following three months. The study will attempt to understand how museum visits help young women build crucially important science self-confidence. What happens during the visit and how does that affect young women's subsequent behavior and beliefs? The study will also attempt to untangle the confound between gender and initial science self-efficacy (SSE), since the women in the prior study tended to have lower pre-visit SSE than men.
Cultivating Confidence: Young Women's Self-efficacy in Science Museums is an NLG Diversity and Inclusion research project that studies the impact of a single science museum visit on "emerging adult" learners (young adults aged 18-29, not yet married, no children). This grant application can be used as a sample of a successful IMLS proposal.