The Universally Designed Museum Programming project was envisioned as a way to create public programs that are more inclusive of people with disabilities. We used the concepts of universal design and Universal Design for Learning as well as our prior experiences with these topics in exhibition design and nanotechnology programming as a foundation for our work. Through this project, we gained insight into building a community of interest, facilitating a charrette in an inclusive way, using universal design guidelines to develop programs, and measuring the effectiveness of our process.
This report summarizes the processes and findings of a two-year, multimethod evaluation of the Museum of Science & Industry's Mystery at the Museum program. The evaluation's purpose was to assess the program's impact on teachers and students and to guide program improvements.
This Science Learning+ Planning Project will develop a prototype assessment tool (based on a mobile technology platform) to map STEM learning experiences across different learning ecologies (e.g. science centers, mass media, home environment) and to develop research questions and designs for a Phase 2 Science Learning+ proposal. The tool will focus on the impact of the learning ecologies on knowledge, interest, identity and reasoning rather than emphasize learning in a specific content area. The proposing team will develop and conduct a small scale usability study during the planning period, which will inform what is proposed in the Phase 2 research. A key focus of the planning period will be to identify and develop the theoretical constructs (i.e., outcomes) to be measured by the prototype App. As a starting point, the project will start with four of the six strands identified in Learning Science in Informal Environments (National Research Council, Bell et al., 2009): (1) interest triggered by a STEM experience; (2) understanding scientific knowledge; (3) engaging in scientific reasoning; and (4) identifying with the scientific enterprise. Discussion among the project partners during the planning process will revolve around how these strands should be measured in the Phase 2 research across ecologies. The measurement tool will assess the goal(s) that people set as they engage in STEM learning within each ecology and will measure the individuals' duration and level of engagement. The project will strive to utilize measures that: (1) are nonobtrusive; (2) are embedded in STEM experiences; (3) can be used across ecologies; (4) can be scaled for other ecologies than the ones examined in Phase 2 research; and (5) will be easy to use by researchers and practitioners.
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Bradley MorrisJohn DunloskyGreat Lakes Science CenterUniversity of LimerickIdeaStream (UK)Irish Independent newspaper
This report presents the findings from a front-end evaluation for an exhibition about tuna, which is currently under development at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Visitors were intercepted on the second floor of the Aquarium and invited to view tuna in the big tank from the lower level of the Aquarium and to review, and ultimately select, one of six prototype interpretive panels, all of which were about different aspects of tuna. The evaluation goals for this study were to determine: • what visitors overall reactions are when they view the tuna in the big tank from the lower level of the aquarium
This evaluation of Mysteries of Çatalhöyük was commissioned by the Science Museum of Minnesota to provide objective feedback about the character of visitors’ experiences in this exhibition. The process of investigating visitors’ experiences included assessing and analyzing the extent of their use of the exhibition, awareness and perception of the interpretive messages presented, reactions to selected exhibit features, satisfaction with the experience, and characteristics of the audience who chose to see it; of these topics, the analysis of interpretive messages was considered to have primary
Fifty visitors to SMM were recruited on the exhibit floor of the museum and asked to view the first draft of a seven-minute movie being developed for the Science on a Sphere exhibit. Visitors were brought into a small room, sat down and viewed the movie on a computer laptop. After watching the movie, visitors were asked a series of questions to assess their interest, enjoyment, and particular aspects of the movie. Visitors aged eight and above were eligible to be interviewed.
The MyBEST (Mentoring Youth Building Employable Skills in Technology) project, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation's Informal Science Education program, concluded its three years of operation in 2006. This youth-based program was intended to provide participants with in-depth learning experiences involving information and design technologies. These experiences had a dual focus: enabling youth participants to gain fluency in using these technologies while showing them how adults apply them in work and academic endeavors. Appendix includes survey.
This working white paper begins the process of establishing a research agenda for how to use adult volunteers most effectively to engage K-12 students in STEM subjects. It does so by describing a comprehensive review of the literature, searching for articles and papers about programs designed to increase student interest, engagement, participation and academic achievement/attainment in STEM subjects.
In this report we detail the results of one phase of formative evaluation on the NOAA funded Ocean-Atmosphere Literacy Partnership – a cooperative partnership between the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). The American Museum of Natural History produced the first draft of a video program for the Science on a Sphere (SOS) exhibit called Forecast: Tropical Cyclones. The program was designed to inform visitors about tropical cyclones (a.k.a. typhoons, hurricanes) and to illustrate how technological advances in weather observation have allowed
The purposes of the STUDIO 3D evaluation were to collect information about the impact upon student learning as a result of participating in the STUDIO 3D Project, as well as to elicit information for program improvement. Areas of inquiry include recruiting and retention, impact on project participants, tracking student impacts, and the project as a whole.
This report presents the findings of the summative evaluation of the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Big Back Yard (BBY), with a specific focus on Earthscapes Miniature Golf. Mary McEathron, Amy Grack, and Stacey Grimes, graduate students in the Evaluation Studies program at the University of Minnesota, carried out the evaluation during the summer of 2004. The purposes of the evaluation were to understand visitors’ experiences in the Big Back Yard and the quality of awareness or understanding acquired as a result of that experience. The evaluation was conducted to answer the following evaluation
In order to assess the impact of the exhibition Cells: The Universe Inside Us at the Maryland Science Center an exit questionnaire was administered to museum visitors who had not seen the exhibition as well as those who had seen it. One hundred forty-nine visitors were interviewed between August 7, 2009 and August 19, 2009. Fifty-one visitors were interviewed before they had seen the Cells exhibit (pre-test); ninety-eight people were interviewed after viewing the exhibit (post-test). The following analysis compares what people know about cells before and after seeing the Cells exhibit.