NASA@ My Library is made possible through the support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate as part of its Science Activation program. The project is led by the National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) at the Space Science Institute (SSI) in partnership with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office, Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), and Education Development Center (EDC). From 2016-2020, 78 public libraries (75 partner libraries and 3 pilot libraries), 18 State Library Agencies, 6 Portal to the Public Network sites, and 30 NASA-funded scientists participated in the project. More than 225,000 library patrons were reached through their efforts.
In 2021-2022, public libraries, universities, and state library agencies will participate in the project to increase and enhance STEAM learning opportunities in their communities, with an emphasis on reaching audiences underrepresented in STEM education and professions.
The Science Museum of Minnesota will create a 450-square-foot version of its award-winning "RACE: Are We So Different?" exhibition for distribution to rural areas and communities in Minnesota, and adjacent regions in Iowa, eastern North and South Dakota, and northern Wisconsin. The museum will produce four replicas of the exhibition for museums and partner organizations, and collaborate with community groups to develop supporting programming specific to identified community needs. Programs will include facilitated reflective dialogues for groups of adults and students; a leadership institute with representatives from each host community; an educator guide for secondary school teachers; and a variety of workshops and arts presentations to extend conversations about race and racism. Like the original RACE exhibition, these condensed exhibitions will encourage visitors to explore the science, history, and everyday effects of race and racism through a combination of artifacts, historic and contemporary photography, multimedia components, and interactive activities.
This annual report presents an overview of Saint Louis Science Center audience data gathered through a variety of evaluation studies conducted during 2015. This report includes information on the Science Center's general public audience demographics and visitation patterns, gives an overview of visitors' comments about their Science Center experience, summarizes major trends observed in the Science Center's tool for tracking educational programs, and presents highlights from a Membership study, a formative evaluation of a new Makerspace exhibition, and program evaluation of a workshop for the
Summative evaluation of the Marcellus Matters: EASE project. Marcellus Matters: Engaging Adults in Science and Energy (EASE) was a program of Penn State University’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research (MCOR), in collaboration with other experts across the university. The first year of program activities took place in 2012, and the project continued through September 2016. EASE was a multidisciplinary initiative that provided adults in rural Pennsylvania with opportunities to increase their knowledge of science and energy systems and engage in scientific inquiry and investigation
The Space and Earth Informal STEM Education (SEISE) project, led by the Arizona State University with partners Science Museum of Minnesota, Museum of Science, Boston, and the University of California Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and Space Sciences Laboratory, is raising the capacity of museums and informal science educators to engage the public in Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics, and their social dimensions through the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net). SEISE will also partner on a network-to-network basis with other existing coalitions and professional associations dedicated to informal and lifelong STEM learning, including the Afterschool Alliance, National Girls Collaborative Project, NASA Museum Alliance, STAR_Net, and members of the Association of Children’s Museums and Association of Science-Technology Centers. The goals for this project include engaging multiple and diverse public audiences in STEM, improving the knowledge and skills of informal educators, and encouraging local partnerships.
In collaboration with the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD), SEISE is leveraging NASA subject matter experts (SMEs), SMD assets and data, and existing educational products and online portals to create compelling learning experiences that will be widely use to share the story, science, and adventure of NASA’s scientific explorations of planet Earth, our solar system, and the universe beyond. Collaborative goals include enabling STEM education, improving U.S. scientific literacy, advancing national educational goals, and leveraging science activities through partnerships. Efforts will focus on providing opportunities for learners explore and build skills in the core science and engineering content, skills, and processes related to Earth and space sciences. SEISE is creating hands-on activity toolkits (250-350 toolkits per year over four years), small footprint exhibitions (50 identical copies), and professional development opportunities (including online workshops).
Evaluation for the project will include front-end and formative data to inform the development of products and help with project decision gates, as well as summative data that will allow stakeholders to understand the project’s reach and outcomes.
RMC Research designed evaluation activities to provide formative and summative feedback to the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (HBRF) on their NSF Pathways project, Forest Science Dialogues (FSD). FSD consists of a plan to engage with scientists at the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study and with the surrounding community using the Hubbard Brook Roundtable dialogue process in order to facilitate mutual learning. The purpose of this engagement was to increase public knowledge, understanding, and awareness of ecosystem science in the Northern Forest in order to enrich local dialogue surrounding
In March of 2016, the Exploratorium transmitted a live webcast of a total solar eclipse from Woleai, a remote island in the southwestern Pacific. The webcast reached over 1 million viewers. Evaluation reveals effective use of digital media to engage learners in solar science and related STEM content.
Edu, Inc. conducted an external evaluation study that shows clear and consistent evidence of broad distribution of STEM content through multiple online channels, social media, pre-produced videos, and an app for mobile devices. IBM Watson did a deep analysis of tweets on eclipse topics that
In March of 2016, a total solar eclipse occurred in the southwestern pacific; and in August of 2017, a total solar eclipse occurred across a broad swath of the United States. The Exploratorium launched a 2.5 year public education program—Navigating the Path of Totality—that used these two total solar eclipses as platforms for sparking public engagement and learning about the Sun, heliophysics, and the STEM content related to both. These sequential eclipses provided an unprecedented opportunity to build and scaffold public engagement and education. Our strategy was to start the public engagement process with the 2016 eclipse, nurture that engagement with resources, activities and outreach during the 17 months between the eclipses, so that audiences (especially in the U.S., where totality was visible in multiple areas across the country) would be excited, actively interested, and prepared for deeper engagement during the 2017 eclipse. For the August 2017 eclipse, the Exploratorium produced live telescope and program feeds from Madras, OR and Casper, WY. The Exploratorium worked with NASA to leverage what was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for millions to bring heliophysics information and research to students, educators, and the public at large through a variety of learning experiences and platforms.
The core of this project was live broadcasts/webcasts of each eclipse. To accomplish these objectives, the Exploratorium produced and disseminate live feeds of telescope-only images (no commentary) of each eclipse originating them from remote locations; produce and disseminate from the field live hosted broadcasts/webcasts of each eclipse using these telescope images; design and launch websites, apps, videos, educator resources, and shareable online materials for each eclipse; design and deliver eclipse themed video installations for our Webcast studio and Observatory gallery in the months that lead up to each eclipse and a public program during each eclipse; and conduct a formative and summative evaluation of the project.
These broadcasts/webcasts and pre-produced videos provide the backbone upon which complementary educational resources and activities can be built and delivered. Programs and videos were produced in English and Spanish languages. As a freely available resource, the broadcasts/webcasts also provide the baseline content for hundreds if not thousands of educational efforts provided by other science-rich institutions, schools, community-based organizations, and venues. Platforms such as NASA TV and NASA website, broadcast and online media outlets such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and PBS, as well as hundreds of science institutions and thousands of classrooms streamed the Exploratorium eclipse broadcasts as part of their own educational programming, reaching 63M people. These live broadcasts were relied upon educational infrastructure during total solar eclipses for institutions and individuals on the path and off the path alike.
Many environmental communication interventions are built on the assumption that increased knowledge will lead to changes in proenvironment behaviors. Our study probes the link between biodiversity-related knowledge and self-reported proconservation behavior, based on the largest and most international study of zoo visitors ever conducted. In total, 6,357 visitors to 30 zoos from 19 countries around the globe participated in the study. Biodiversity understanding and knowledge of actions to help protect biodiversity were significantly related, but only 0.6% of the variation in knowledge of
Increasingly, the prosperity, innovation and security of individuals and communities depend on a big data literate society. Yet conspicuously absent from the big data revolution is the field of teaching and learning. The revolution in big data must match a complementary revolution in a new kind of literacy, through a significant infusion of STEM education with the kinds of skills that the revolution in 21st century data-driven science demands. This project represents a concerted effort to determine what it means to be a big data literate citizen, information worker, researcher, or policymaker; to identify the quality of learning resources and programs to improve big data literacy; and to chart a path forward that will bridge big data practice with big data learning, education and career readiness.
Through a process of inquiry research and capacity-building, New York Hall of Science will bring together experts from member institutions of the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub to galvanize big data communities of practice around education, identify and articulate the nature and quality of extant big data education resources and draft a set of big data literacy principles. The results of this planning process will be a planning document for a Big Data Literacy Spoke that will form an initiative to develop frameworks, strategies and scope and sequence to advance lifelong big data literacy for grades P-20 and across learning settings; and devise, implement, and evaluate programs, curricula and interventions to improve big data literacy for all. The planning document will articulate the findings of the inquiry research and evaluation to provide a practical tool to inform and cultivate other initiatives in data literacy both within the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub and beyond.