The John G. Shedd Aquarium opened an exhibition entitled Wild Reef: Sharks at Shedd in April 2003. Wild Reef immerses visitors in an Indo-Pacific ecosystem where they experience firsthand the connections among animals, habitats and people. This 2,800 square-foot exhibition spans nine rooms and contains one of the largest and most diverse collections of sharks in North America, along with the Midwest's largest public display of live corals. The primary message of Wild Reef is: Philippine coral reefs support an amazing abundance of life and anchor a delicate network of dependencies between
A three-pronged summative evaluation of the San Francisco Zoo's new African Savanna exhibit shows it to be very well received by visitors and successful at meeting key affective and cognitive goals. Visitors to this exhibit, especially those who attend a giraffe feeding, enthusiastically demonstrate admiration and wonder towards wildlife, emotional connections to the animals, and excitement at close and unusual viewing opportunities. Visitors care deeply about the quality of life for these animals and readily state that they feel the animals have a good home in this exhibit. Respondents are
This study is the first phase of a two-part summative evaluation of a National Science Foundation-funded research/development project to investigate the development of exhibits that elicit active prolonged engagement (APE) among casual museum visitors. Naturalistic methodology was used to frame the research. Methods included unobtrusive observations, depth interviews, and tracking-and-timing. Forty-six unobtrusive observations and 35 related depth interviews were conducted on site at the Exploratorium from August 5 through 10, 2003. After all observations/interviews had been completed
Going APE! is a National Science Foundation-funded research/development project to investigate how to develop Exploratorium exhibits that elicit active prolonged engagement (APE) among casual museum visitors. As part of this research/development process, Selinda Research Associates, Inc. (SRA) conducted a summative evaluation to assess how and to what extent the exhibit units developed by the Exploratorium team were in fact APE exhibits. This report is the second of two distinct phases of the summative evaluation study. The first phase of the summative evaluation compared visitor engagement at
This white paper is the product of the CAISE Public Engagement with Science Inquiry Group. It describes how public engagement with science (PES) in the context of informal science education can provide opportunities for public awareness of and participation in science and technology. The term engagement is characterized by mutual learning by publics and scientists rather than a one-way transmission of knowledge from experts to publics.
This is the summative evaluation of Sharks: Myth and Mystery, a temporary exhibition at the aquarium from 2004 to 2006, which explored how cultures from around the world incorporate sharks into their customs, stories and rituals. The evaluation included timing and tracking, structured interviews and post-visit web surveys, which can be found in the appendix of this report.
Yale Peabody Museum is developing an exhibition for the general public to introduce and interpret the Tree of Life online project that involves many universities and museums and is being supported by the National Science Foundation. This front-end visitor study was conducted to inform exhibition development about the potential audience's understanding of Trees. Interview forms and images are included in the appendix of this report.
This report is the formative evaluation for the “Computing the Future” presentation, a presentation concerned with both the history of computers and the ways in which nanotechnology is changing how computers are built and operated. The survey used in this study is included in the appendix of this report.
This report evaluates the program entitled “Treating Tumors with Gold” by looking at visitor feedback in an attempt to assess the success with which the presentation was able to educate the public on a particular study using nanotechnology. The exit survey instrument is included in the appendix of this report.
The Nanomedicine Explorer kiosk at the Museum of Science, Boston provides opportunities to learn about nanomedicine, nanotechnology, cancer biology, new research in cancer diagnosis and therapy, and the process of medical research from bench to bedside. This report is the formative evaluation of the prototype of this kiosk, presenting the results of visitor observations, exit surveys, and interviews. The findings of these data served to provide the Nanomedicine Explorer production team a basis from which to make improvements to the program, which was released as Version 1.0 in May of 2009
This formative evaluation was conducted to see how the addition of an interactive media piece enhanced visitors' understanding of Nasturtium, a life sciences exhibit that demonstrates the water repelling properties of nasturtium leaves. The media piece allows the visitor to view leaf structures at progressively higher magnifications to better illustrate their scale and function. The interview questions used in this study are included in the appendix of this report.
This report documents two formative evaluations on an interactive media piece that allows its users to zoom in from a human hand to an atom. This zoom uses a spiral to connote zooming and is a departure from a more conventional zoom in which each successive image is a magnification of a portion of the preceding image. Interview protocols are included in the appendix of this report.