Life on the Edge is a traveling exhibition focused on educating children ages 8-14 and their families about how understanding Earth’s extreme environments helps us search for life in space. Created by Sciencenter in Ithaca, NY, the big idea of the exhibition is: “our exploration of extreme environments expands our understanding of life on Earth and the possibilities for life in our solar system and beyond.” Through five unique exhibit sections, the exhibition offers visitors information, activities, and questions focused on scientific exploration and discovery, life in space, and the origins
The Institute for Native Pacific Education and Culture will address low science and math proficiency achievement rates for Native Hawaiian students by designing more relevant STEM learning activities. The INPEACE Indigenous Science Center’s Mahina Exhibit Project will create three exhibit designs with learning objectives targeted for students ages 4-14. Focused on the Mahina (moon), the exhibits and related activities will be designed to be enjoyable and thought-provoking for Native Hawaiian communities to engage in STEM learning through a framework that is familiar. Through consultation with experienced exhibit designers, the science center’s staff will gain a stronger understanding of best practices in exhibit design, and indigenous communities will benefit from approaches that translate their own histories into relevant and fun STEM learning experiences.
The Northwest Passage Project explored the changing Arctic through an innovative expedition aboard the Swedish Icebreaker Oden to conduct groundbreaking ocean science research, while it actively engaged 22 undergraduate and graduate students from the project’s five Minority Serving Institution (MSI) partners and 2 early career Inuit researchers in the research at sea. Over 35 hours of training in Arctic research techniques, polar science, and science communication was provided to these participants, who were engaged in the Northwest Passage expedition and worked with the onboard science team
Artificial intelligence (AI) is in many of our everyday activities—from unlocking phones to running Internet searches to parking cars. Yet, most instruction on how AI works is only in computer science courses. The unique role that AI plays in making decisions that affect human lives heightens the need for education approaches that promote public AI literacy. Little research has been done to understand how we can best teach AI in informal learning spaces. This project will engage middle school age youth in learning abouts AI through interaction with museum exhibits in science and technology centers. The exhibits employ embodied interactions and creative making activities that involve textiles, music making, and interactive media. The research will build on three exhibit prototypes that teach about concepts including bias in data in machine learning, AI decision-making processes, and how AI represents knowledge. Female-identifying and Title 1 youth will be recruited as participants during the exhibit design iterations and testing. The project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments
Researchers will explore two key research questions: 1) How can the design of interactive museum exhibits encourage interest development in and learning about AI among learners without a Computer Science background by using embodiment and creative making? and 2) How do embodied interaction and creative making mediate learning about AI in informal learning environments? The project will take a design-based research approach, iteratively building on existing exhibit prototypes and testing them in-situ with learners. Data sources and modes of analysis will include retrospective surveys to assess interest, content knowledge gain, creativity, learning talk analysis of audio recordings, and coding of embodied movements in video recordings. Learning talk analysis will identify instances of joint sensemaking during naturalistic interactions with our exhibit to reveal connections between sensemaking talk; learners' behaviors and embodied actions during real-time collaborative knowledge building; and outcomes in knowledge, interest, and creativity measures as elicited in retrospective surveys. The final set of exhibits will be rigorously evaluated with over 500 museum visitors. The key contributions of this work will include a set of rigorously tested exhibits, publicly available exhibit designs, a set of design guidelines for developing AI literacy museum exhibits, and an improved understanding of the relationship between AI-related learning and interest development, embodiment, and creativity.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brian MagerkoDuri LongJessica Roberts
The Field Museum of Natural History will present “Changing Face of Science,” an exhibition series targeting pre-teens and teenagers and featuring Field Museum scientists and science educators who are women or people of color. Over three years, the museum will mount six exhibitions that highlight the experiences and work of museum scientists from diverse backgrounds in a range of disciplines. Programming will include on-site field trips and virtual events during which students and educators will interact with featured researchers. By presenting the stories of individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in scientific fields, the museum will provide role models who will show that science is accessible and inspire a diverse group of future scientists.
Through the T523: Formative Evaluation for Educational Product Development course, our team conducted a semester-long formative evaluation for the Museum of Science, Boston (MoS) Gaia Exhibit. The Gaia Exhibit (Gaia) is a new, temporary art installation located in the MoS’s Blue Wing exhibition hall. Gaia that strives to inspire appreciation for the earth and climate change awareness. The exhibit displays imagery of the Earth’s surface on a twenty feet diameter, three-dimensional globe. Additional exhibit elements include projected questions on the floor to prompt reflection and exhibit-
The Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts is one of the world’s largest science centers and the most visited cultural institution in New England. Located in Science Park, a piece of land that spans the Charles River, the museum is conveniently situated close to Boston and Cambridge. The museum has more than 700 interactive exhibits and a number of live presentations offered daily. One of these daily shows include live animal presentations, where museum visitors can learn more about some of the many animals that the museum cares for in its live animal center. An evaluation of these live
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sarah RosenthalKristina OhlSadia Sehrish IslamMaría José Brito Páez
This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
The Accessible Oceans study will design auditory displays that support learning and understanding of ocean data in informal learning environments like museums, science centers, and aquariums. Most data presentations in these spaces use visual display techniques such as graphs, charts, and computer-generated visualizations, resulting in inequitable access for learners with vision impairment or other print-related disabilities. While music, sound effects, and environmental sounds are sometimes used, these audio methods are inadequate for conveying quantitative information. The project will use sonification (turning data into sound) to convey meaningful aspects of ocean science data to increase access to ocean data and ocean literacy. The project will advance knowledge on the design of auditory displays for all learners, with and without disabilities, as well as advance the use of technology for STEM formal and informal education. The study will include 425 participants but will reach tens of thousands through the development of education materials, public reporting, and social media. The study will partner with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Discovery Center, the Georgia Aquarium, the Eugene Science Center, the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired, and Perkins School for the Blind.
The project will leverage existing educational ocean datasets from the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative to produce and evaluate the feasibility of using integrated auditory displays to communicate tiered learning objectives of oceanographic principles. Integrated auditory displays will each be comprised of a data sonification and a context-setting audio introduction that will help to make sure all users start with the same basic information about the phenomenon. The displays will be developed through a user-centered design process that will engage ocean science experts, visually impaired students and adults (and their teachers), and design-oriented undergraduate and graduate students. The project will support advocacy skills for inclusive design and will provide valuable training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students in human-centered design and accessibility. The project will have foundational utility in auditory display, STEM education, human-computer interaction, and other disciplines, contributing new strategies for representing quantitative information that can be applied across STEM disciplines that use similar visual data displays. The project will generate publicly accessible resources to advance studies of inclusive approaches on motivating learners with and without disabilities to learn more about and consider careers in STEM.
This Pilots and Feasibility Studies project is supported by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
Informal STEM education spaces like museums can intentionally serve surrounding communities and support sustainable and accessible engagement. Building from this base, the project takes a stance that the intersection of the museum, home/family life and the youth’s internal practices and disciplinary sense of self are rooted in history and culture. Thus, this CAREER work builds on the following principles: Black families and youth have rightful presence in STEM and in STEM learning environments; Black families are valuable learning partners; and Black youths need counterspaces to explore STEM as one mechanism for creating future disciplinary agency. In partnership with the Henry Ford Museum and the Detroit-Area Pre-College Engineering Program, the project seeks to (a) expand the field's understanding of how Black youth engineer and innovate; (b) investigate the influence of a culturally relevant curriculum on their engineering practices and identity, knowledge, and confidence; and (c) describe the ways Black families and museums support youth in engineering learning experiences. The work will center on the 20-hour “Innovate” curriculum which was designed by the museum to bridge design, innovation, and creation practices with the artifacts of innovators throughout time. The project comprises six weekend “Innovate” sessions and an at-home innovation experience plus participation in an annual Invention Convention. By focusing on these aims, this research responds to the goals of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening engagement in STEM learning experiences and advancing innovative research on STEM learning in informal environments.
The main research questions of this multiphase CAREER award are: (1) What practices do Black youths and families engage in as they address engineering, design, and innovation challenges? (2) In what ways does a culturally relevant museum-based innovation program influence the design and innovation practices and assessment performance of Black youths and families as they engage in engineering, design, and innovation across learning settings? (3) How does teaching innovation, design, and engineering through historical re-telling and reconstruction influence a youth’s perception of their own identities, abilities, and practices? and (4) How do Black families engage with informal STEM learning settings and what resources best support their engineering, design, and innovation exploration? Youth in sixth grade are the focus of the research. The work is guided by ecological systems, sociocultural learning, culturally relevant pedagogy, and community cultural wealth theories. During phase one, the focus will be to refine the curriculum and logistics of the study implementation. The investigator will enhance the curriculum to include narratives of Black innovators and engineers. Fifteen families will be recruited to participate in the program enhancement pilot and initial research cycle for phase two. In phase three another cohort of families will be recruited to participate. Survey research, narrative inquiry and digital ethnography will comprise the approaches to explore the research questions. The evaluation has a two-pronged focus: to assess (1) how well the enhanced Innovate curriculum and museum/home learning experience supports Black families’ participation and (2) how well the separate phases of the study connect and operate together to meet the research aims. The study’s findings can help families and informal practitioners leverage evidence-based approaches to support Black youth in making connections between history and out-of-school contexts to model and develop their innovative engineering practices. Additionally, this work has implications for Black undergraduate students who will develop skills through their mentorship and researcher roles, studying cultural practices and learning experiences. The research study and findings can inform the design of future museum/home learning programs and research opportunities for Black learners in informal learning spaces.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Recent studies have advocated for a shift toward educational practices that involve learners in actively contributing to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as a shared and public endeavor, rather than limiting their involvement to the construction of previously established knowledge. Prioritizing learners’ agency in deciding what is worth knowing and how learning takes place may create more equitable and inclusive learning experiences by centering the knowledge, cultural practices, and social interactions that motivate learning for people across ages, genders, and backgrounds. In informal learning environments, families’ social interactions are critical avenues for STEM learning, and science centers and museums have developed strategies for prompting families’ sustained engagement and conversation at STEM exhibits. However, exhibits often guide visitors’ exploration toward predetermined insights, constraining the ways that families can interact with STEM content, and neglecting opportunities to tap into their prior knowledge. Practices in the maker movement that emphasize skill-building and creative expression, and participatory practices in museums that invite visitors to contribute to exhibits in consequential ways both have the potential to reframe STEM learning as an ongoing, social process that welcomes diverse perspectives. Yet little is known about how these practices can be scaled, and how families themselves respond to these efforts, particularly for the diverse family audiences that science centers and museums aim to serve. Further, although gender and ethnicity both affect learning in informal settings, studies often separate participants along a single dimension, obscuring important nuances in families’ experiences. By addressing these outstanding questions, this research responds to the goals of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening engagement in STEM learning experiences and advancing innovative research on STEM learning in informal environments.
Research will address (1) how families perceive and act on their collective epistemic agency while exploring STEM exhibits (i.e., how they work together to negotiate and pursue their own learning goals); (2) whether and how families’ expressions of agency are influenced by gender and ethnicity; and (3) what exhibit design features support expressions of agency for the broadest possible audience. Research studies will use interviews and observational case studies at a range of exhibits with distinct affordances to examine families’ epistemic agency as a shared, social practice. Cultural historical activity theory and intersectional approaches will guide qualitative analyses of families’ activities as systems that are mediated by the physical environment and social setting. Education activities will involve an ongoing collaboration between researchers, exhibit designers, educators, and facilitators (high-school and college-level floor staff), using a Change Laboratory model. The group will use emerging findings from the research to create a reflection tool to guide the development of more inclusive learning experiences at STEM exhibits, and a set of design principles for supporting families’ expressions of agency. A longitudinal ethnographic study will document the development of inclusive exhibit design practices throughout the project as well as how the Change Lab participants develop their sociocultural perspectives on learning and exhibit design over time. Analyzing these shifts in practice within the Change Lab will provide a deeper understanding of what works and what is difficult or does not occur when working toward infrastructure change in museums. By considering how multiple aspects of families’ identities shape their learning experiences, this work will generate evidence-based recommendations to help science centers and museums develop more inclusive practices that foster a sense of ownership over the learning process for the broadest possible audience of families.
Very little is known about the experiences of people with learning disabilities in informal learning environments such as science centers and museums. This project will describe the ways in which engagement and intrinsic motivation for learning are and are not supported for visitors with learning disabilities, and build capacity for informal STEM education practitioners to apply this learning for the benefit of those with learning disabilities as well as any visitor who needs more support in the context of self-directed learning. Broadening participation science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) is a core goal of the National Science Foundation and its Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program. This project pursues this goal with a focus on young people with learning disabilities. As the largest group of individuals with disabilities in the United States, people with learning disabilities make up an estimated 20% of the U.S. population. Science professions offer many life- and work-related opportunities for individuals with learning disabilities, and the flexible experiences of informal learning spaces offer important opportunities to promote participation, engagement in and motivation for science. This work represents the next generation of accessible design to broaden participation in, and impacts of, informal STEM learning opportunities. This project will generate guidelines and resources to support inclusive design for this group of visitors. Resources will include a Toolkit of Visual Assets that can be shared digitally and in print with youth with learning disabilities, informal STEM practitioners, and the learning disability research and practice community.
The project will develop empirical knowledge to support informal STEM practitioners to better facilitate the inclusion of youth with learning disabilities. Using the lens of Self-Determination Theory as an explanatory framework, this research will be pursued in three phases. Self-Determination Theory describes the psychological needs that must be met, such as autonomy and feelings of efficacy, to create an environment that supports individuals' engagement in self-motivated behaviors. Phase 1 will be an exploratory study describing the engagement and motivation of adolescents (ages 10-17) with learning disabilities when experiencing varied STEM exhibits. This first phase will adapt validated scales, employ an existing observation protocol, and conduct stimulated recall interviews with youth. Phase 2 will explore, develop and investigate design strategies to improve the intrinsic motivation of youth with learning disabilities at educational STEM exhibits. This second phase will involve a set of experimental studies in which design strategies related to intrinsic motivation are manipulated to inform principles of inclusive design for visitors with learning disabilities. As in the previous phase, Phase 2 will adapt validated scales and employ an existing observation protocol. Phase 3 will focus on design charrettes in which researchers and practitioners work with high school students with learning disabilities in a co-design process. The charrettes will generate guidelines and case examples of exhibit components using Universal Design for Learning to balance varying design priorities and effectively, inclusively design exhibits for this population. This third phase will rely on qualitative coding of co-design charette artifacts, field notes and researcher reflections; member checking will play an important role in the coding process. Dissemination efforts for this project will target youth with learning disabilities, informal STEM education practitioners, and the broader field of learning disability researchers and practitioners. In addition to the exhibit design guidelines and Toolkit described above, the project will publish peer reviewed articles and develop manuscripts aimed at educational research and practice.
This Research in Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
National priorities recommend the U.S. fortify a culture of innovation by encouraging broader participation in invention and STEM. The Game Changers is an Innovations in Development exhibition project with embedded research that advances knowledge about how museum exhibits can activate STEM-related inventive identities among the public. The project is a collaboration between the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History (NMAH-LC), educational researchers, an exhibition design firm, and community based organizations. While the Game Changers exhibition theme of inventiveness in sports provides an initial spark for broad audience interest and engagement, its ultimate intent is to foster and enhance inventive identity among diverse audiences, particularly girls and young women ages 10-17, African American youth ages 10-17, and people of all ages with disabilities. Visitors will be met by a brief introductory display to launch their journey from passive learner to active inventor. A diverse array of athletes and inventors provide relevant motivational exemplars and ask visitors "How will YOU Change the Game?" Examples of invention challenges include, applying the principles of physics and materials science to aid in designing a safer helmet and exploring computational fluid dynamics to design a faster swimsuit. Throughout the exhibition experience, visitors will draw on an array of STEM skills and knowledge essential to sports, including physiology, kinesiology, and biomechanical engineering, physics, biomimicry, robotics, computer science, data analysis, and virtual and augmented reality. Throughout the project, the team will work with priority audiences, starting with front-end research and evaluation; progressing iteratively through stages of formative research, design, and evaluation; and conducting summative evaluation to ensure that the STEM-based content and design strategies are impacting inventive identity and meeting audiences' interests and needs. In coordination with the exhibition development and evaluation teams, educational researchers will iteratively explore and develop a model for innovative identity development in informal learning environments.
Educational psychologists from Old Dominion University and Temple University will collaborate closely with the NMAH-LC team, exhibition design-fabrication firm Roto, and evaluators from Randi Korn & Associates to adapt a theoretical model of identity from a formal education setting to an informal learning context. In the model, identity is conceptualized as a complex dynamic system, with interdependent internal and external elements (ontological/epistemological beliefs; self-perceptions; purpose and goals; perceived action possibilities) and reciprocal influences in a process of continuous emergence. Using design based research and a previously developed coding manual, the team will iteratively apply, test, and further advance the inventive identity development model, a set of inventive identity indicators for future research and development, and a list of exhibition design techniques for activating inventive, STEM-based identity development in informal learning environments. The research team will prioritize diverse audiences for iterative cycles and focus groups, including participants from the Girl Scouts of the Nation's Capital, Smithsonian Accessibility Program, Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum, and YMCA of Washington, DC. The exhibition's research, evaluation, and design outcomes will be disseminated widely across the AISL field and through project collaborators.
This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.