The 2010 ISE Summit opened with remarks from Director Wendy Pollock and NSF Program Officer Al DeSena and included presentations from David Ucko (NSF Influence on Informal Science Education), Tom Kalil (word from the White House), and Bruce Lewenstein (ISE: Who Are We, and How Did We Get Here?). All meeting documentation has been provided by Catherine McEver.
At the request of the National Science Foundation (NSF), CAISE organized a meeting for NSF Informal Science Education (ISE) Program principal investigators (PIs),March 3-5, 2010 in Washington, D.C. The ISE Summit 2010 provided PIs of recent and active NSF ISE grants the opportunity to discuss the state of ISE with other leaders in the field and to get updates on the latest directions in NSF funding. ISE PI Summit 2008 was held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel and the nearby National Zoo.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Center for Advancement of Informal Science EducationAl DeSenaTom KalilBruce LewensteinCatherine McEverSheila GrinellBonnie Sachatello-SawyerRob SemperJulie JohnsonErik PetersonRick BorcheltWendy WheelerCatherine McEver
Based on the National Research Council study, Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits, this book is a tool that provides case studies, illustrative examples, and probing questions for practitioners. In short, this book makes valuable research accessible to those working in informal science: educators, museum professionals, university faculty, youth leaders, media specialists, publishers, broadcast journalists, and many others. Practitioners in informal science settings--museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, libraries
Visitor Baseline study for Science on a Sphere at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. The Sphere was installed in DMNS’ permanent space science gallery, Space Odyssey, in February 2010. Space Odyssey “Museum Galaxy Guides” (volunteer facilitators) were trained on Sphere operation and content in April 2010. The purpose of the Baseline Visitor Study was to establish a baseline of visitors’ length of stay, behavior, interactions, perceptions, and interest in the Sphere near the beginning of the grant period. These data and findings will serve a basis of comparison for future evaluations and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Andrea GironDenver Museum of Nature & Science
PERG conducted the formative and summative evaluations of Windows on Earth, a project led by the Center for Earth and Space Science Education (CESSE) at TERC. The project included numerous partners and contributors who focused on the development of the Windows on Earth software, exhibit and website, as well as four museums who participated in the development and evaluation process: Boston's Museum of Science, (MOS), the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, (A&S), the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), and the Montshire Museum of Science (MM) in Vermont. The project also coordinated some programming
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Judah LeblangJoan KarpTERC IncJodi Sandler
In 2009, the Monterey Bay Aquarium began looking at new ways to interpret its Seafood Watch program. This nationwide conservation program strives to educate the public about the importance of buying sustainable seafood. As part of the program, the Aquarium publishes a printed pocket guide that lists the types of seafood consumers should buy and the types they should avoid. (For more information, visit www.seafoodwatch.org.) Over the years, several zoos, aquariums and museums that partner with the Aquarium have expressed interest in displaying an exhibit to encourage more of their visitors to
The InformalScience.org web site is a resource for researchers working in the field of informal science and provides access to information linking researchers with one another and to member-contributed resources. Through use of the web site resources such as member projects, publications, and evaluation reports, users have opportunities to develop social and human capital. This report analyzes the value of InformalScience.org in supporting participants in the community as they navigate and advance the changing field of informal science education (ISE) research. In addition, we identify
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) is serving as the external evaluator of the three-year, NSF-funded Science Festival Alliance (SFA) project with this report summarizing results from the first year of the project. First year data collection was completed in June 2010. It included: Surveys of 1,411 San Diego Science Festival (SDSF) and 1,054 Cambridge Science Festival (CSF) attendees; End-of-year focus groups with each of the festival (SDSF and CSF) team leaders; and An online survey of 11 principal Alliance team members. The report is organized around four key questions: 1. Who participated
In spring 2009, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (Museum) contracted with JVA Consulting, LLC (JVA) to conduct a comprehensive process and outcome evaluation of the Passport to Health (P2H) program. The Museum designed P2H, originally a three-year program funded by the Colorado Health Foundation (the Foundation), to improve health outcomes for fifth-grade students as well as their families and teachers throughout the Denver metro area. Passport to Health has seven components, designed to complement each other and help the Museum achieve its stated program goals. The seven components
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TEAM MEMBERS:
JVA Consulting, LLCDenver Museum of Nature & Science
In an effort to prepare female high school students for a college curriculum and achieve gender parity in the engineering industry, WGBH has developed an initiative entitled, Engineer Your Life (EYL). The initiative is targeted toward female high school students, career counselors/educators, and professional engineers. It is designed to: 1) increase these target audiences' understanding of engineering, 2) inspire young women to explore engineering as a career option and 3) help adults encourage young women to investigate engineering opportunities. One component of this initiative involves
In 2010, WGBH Boston (www.wgbh.org) was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to explore the development of a new animated television series for children about environmental sustainability. In preparation for the series development, NSF requested that WGBH perform a needs assessment to determine how much kids know and understand about topics related to environmental sustainability. In September 2010, the focus groups took place at WGBH in Boston, MA. Each focus group was comprised of a mix of girls and boys aged 6 - 9 years old. We recruited 60 children from the greater
In the spring of 2010, WGBH Boston (wgbh.org) delivered twenty new episodes for the television series FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman (pbskids.org/FETCH!/). These episodes, developed for FETCH!'s fifth season, reflected a broadening of FETCH!'s stem content to include more mathematics. Rather than focusing exclusively on science and engineering, as FETCH! had done in the first four seasons, Season 5 episodes also highlighted age-appropriate math skills and concepts. WGBH was interested in assessing the extent to which kids learned math concepts and skills from these episodes. WGBH hired Concord