Tinkering experiences in informal learning spaces can engage families in engineering practices and support learning (Pagano et al., 2020). Further, reflections after informal learning experiences can reveal and extend children’s memory and learning (Pagano et al., 2019), but reflections vary by age, culture, setting, program, and other factors (Fivush et al., 2006). We examined how the conversational structure and engineering content of families’ reflections vary across multiple museum visits and across different types of tinkering programs (e.g., open-ended vs. function-focused).
Tinkering activities designed for parents and children can foster spatial thinking, which benefits spatial skill development (Ramey et al., 2020). During tinkering activities, families may be challenged to use tools and materials to solve open-ended problems (Bevan, 2017). The problems specified by different tinkering challenges can highlight intrinsic or extrinsic spatial information (Chatterjee, 2008; Mix et al., 2018). In this project we asked, how does the spatial information highlighted by a tinkering challenge affect the quality of families’ spatial thinking?
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Naomi PolinskyElena FiegenKaitlyn HurkaCatherine HadenDavid Uttal
The tinkering process of making, testing, and iteratively redesigning projects can teach children about engineering concepts (Marcus et al., 2021; NGSS, 2013), but there is variability in how tinkering programs are designed. Storytelling may make children’s learning experiences personally meaningful and narratively organized, thereby supporting memory (Bruner, 1996). We designed multiple story-based tinkering programs and examined how the types of story characters and goals introduced in the tinkering programs would relate to the content of families’ talk in post-tinkering reflections.
In this project, we asked whether storytelling during tinkering might support children’s engagement in STEM and how that may differ across boys and girls. According to Bruner (1996), stories can help children to organize experiences by adding coherence, increasing understanding, and facilitating learning. We observed associations between story and STEM in two contexts: home and museum exhibit.
Given the important role of autonomy support in children’s motivation and learning, this study asked whether parents’ use of autonomy supportive language (vs. controlling language) was associated with children’s engagement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in a bi-directional manner during an at-home tinkering activity.
In fall 2019, the Bell Museum received funding via a NASA TEAM II grant to create Mars: The Ultimate Voyage, a full-dome planetarium show and accompanying hands-on activities that focus on the interdisciplinary roles that will be needed to send humans to Mars. This report from Catalyst Consulting Group presents the findings from the summative evaluation completed in March–May 2023.
This report is the summative evaluation of Moon Adventure Game. The Moon Adventure Game is a challenge-based immersive game, inspired by “escape room” experiences, which asks visitors to take on activities to help them think about what people might need to live and work on the Moon.
We present the assets that collaboration across a land grant university brought to the table, and the Winterberry Citizen Science program design elements we have developed to engage our 1080+ volunteer berry citizen scientists ages three through elder across urban and rural, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and formal and informal learning settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katie SpellmanJasmine ShawChristine VillanoChrista MulderElena SparrowDouglas Cost
The Massachusetts Audubon Society will develop, pilot, and implement an evaluation framework for nature-based STEM programming that serves K-12 students visiting its network of nature centers and museums. Working with an external consultant, the society will develop the framework comprised of a logic model and theory of change for fieldtrips, and develop a toolkit of evaluation data collection methodology suitable to various child development stages. The project team will design and conduct three professional development training seminars to help Massachusetts Audubon school educators develop a working understanding of the new evaluation framework for school programs and gain the skills necessary to support protocol implementation. This project will result in the development and adoption of a universal protocol to guide the collection, management, and reporting of education program evaluation data across the 19 nature centers and museums in the Massachusetts Audubon system.
Hands-on tinkering experiences can help promote more equitable STEM learning opportunities for children from diverse backgrounds (Bevan, 2017; Vossoughi & Bevan, 2014). Latine heritage families naturally engage in and talk about engineering practices during and after tinkering in a children’s museum (Acosta & Haden, in press). We asked how the everyday practice of oral stories and storytelling could be leveraged during an athome tinkering activity to support children’s informal engineering and spatial learning.
Informal educational activities, such as tinkering, can be beneficial for children’s engineering learning (Bevan, 2017; Sobel & Jipson, 2016). Storytelling can help children organize and make meaning of their experiences (Brown et al., 2014; Bruner, 1996), thereby supporting learning. Digital storytelling, in which narratives and reflections are combined with photos and videos in order to be shared with an audience, has become a familiar, enjoyable activity for many children (Robin, 2008). We examine whether digital storytelling activities during tinkering and reflection will be related to
Informal educational activities, such as tinkering, can be beneficial for children’s engineering learning (Bevan, 2017; Sobel & Jipson, 2016). Storytelling can help children organize and make meaning of their experiences (Brown et al., 2014; Bruner, 1996), thereby supporting learning. We examine whether digital storytelling activities during tinkering and reflection will be related to more engineering talk.We also explore whether children with previous digital storytelling experience will produce higher quality narratives than children without.