This paper examines the summative evaluations of two exhibits at the Please Touch Museum: "Foodtastic Journey" and "Gateway to China". By contrasting and comparing the most and least engaging components of these two exhibits, a theoretical framework is being built for assessing the effectiveness of exhibits for young children.
This paper presents the methodology and findings of the formative and summative evaluation of the "Kongo Ranger Station" interactive interpretive displayed located in the new "Africa Rain Forest" exhibit at the Metro Washington Park Zoo. This display focuses on conservation, natural history and cultural issues in West and Central Africa.
In this paper, evaluator Randi Korn of Randi Korn and Associates describes front-end and formative evaluation procedures used to help create and perfect interactive components for a junior gallery in the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania. Key findings from both studies are briefly summarized.
In this article, Barbara A. Birney of Interpretive Planning in Nuce discusses findings from a 1988 study of 12-year-old children's perceptions of their social experience in musuems and zoos. Birney found that children associated visiting museums and zoos with their parents with a lack of control over their own learning experience.
Volunteer "Species Stewards" adopt one or more species of native prairie or savanna plants. On semi-monthly or more frequent visits, stewards log locations, bloom dates, and seed ripening dates, and collect seed to be used to restore additional prairie on old field sites. Additional opportunities for individual or group seed collection and sowing are provided. Buckthorn-busting is also available.
This proposal calls for development, over five years, of a national, interactive, telecommunications-supported Network of 85 or more affiliated neighborhood technology learning centers in inner cities and other impoverished areas, for the purpose of attracting, and then nurturing underserved peoples' active involvement with math, science, and technology. Network affiliates will provide informal opportunities for disadvantaged minority young people and their families and friends to get access to, and learn to use, the most powerful tool for personal empowerment yet known, to engage in explorations designed to increase awareness of their ability to do math and science and of the potential for careers in these areas, and, through telecommunications, to involve themselves with distant peer groups in collaborative investigations. Such opportunities present attractive and cost-effective alternatives to the dead ends that street life, drugs, incarceration, and/or welfare offer. Success in achieving these goals depends, however, on the availability of continuing programmatic and staff development assistance, and on the ability of Network members to engage, not as disparate entities, but as a mutually supportive community, in this momentous task. Proposed Network services include (in addition to telecommunications linkages) the identification, development, and dissemination of technology-mediated math and science activities appropriate to community education, consultative planning and technical assistance, staff development workshops, the development of a resource database, and an annual all-affiliates meeting -- all these to be accompanied by systematized self-assessment procedures. Also included is the development of a Network infrastructure to support continued existence of the Network beyond the grant period.
The National Science Outreach Network will provide school children, teachers, and the general public with highly accessible interactive exhibits dealing with popular topics in science and technology. The network, initiated as a partnership between regional science centers and public libraries, will be modeled after the highly successful statewide Oregon Library Exhibits Network established in 1987. Through this smaller network, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, a nationally recognized pioneer in science exhibitry and outreach programming, circulates small hands-on exhibits to rural population centers through installations in public libraries, where school groups and families have free and convenient access. This national dissemination project will be initiated in five regional sites across the country (Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Tennessee, and Oregon) to further establish the model in rural, inner-urban, economically disadvantaged, and culturally diverse regions. With support from both the NSF and the regional networks, The National Science Outreach Network will design and duplicate six exhibits for circulation to dozens of local communities in each designated region. Over the next seven years, over six million individuals, many of whom do not currently frequent a local science center, will be introduced to popular science in a non-threatening, resource- rich setting. This will encourage further exploration and possible future visits to an accessible science center, and ultimately establish an ever-expanding network of museum and non-museum partners providing science and technology learning opportunities to millions of individuals each year.
The National council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's principal Hispanic constituency-based organization, seeks funding from the National Science Foundation's Informal Science Education Program for a four-year community-centered demonstration program. Project EXCEL-MAS, the Math and Science component of its EXCEL-MAS is designed to develop and encourage the adoption of supplemental math and science programs for at-risk Hispanic elementary and middle school students and their parents, using thematic, hands-on approaches; and ultimately help to increase the numbers of Hispanic student enrolling and succeeding in paths which lead to advanced study in math and science. Hispanics -- the youngest and fastest-growing major U.S. population, numbering 22.4 million or 9% of the U.S. population according to the 1990 Census -- continue to be most undereducated major U.S. population. Only about half of Hispanics are high school graduates, and fewer than one in ten have completed college; only about one-quarter of high school graduates have followed curricular tracks including the math, science and language arts needed for college attendance; national studies suggest that Hispanic 17-year-olds on average have math and science skills at the level of White 13-year- olds. Contributing to these problems are a lack of culturally appropriate, meaningful parent involvement or family-wide approaches to education, supplemental programs to motivate and support at-risk students, wrap-around social services for low- income students and their families, and efforts to promote more equitable Hispanic access to the full school curriculum.
In the Fall of 1994 The New York Botanical Garden will begin its second 100 years of commitment to science education with the opening of the Children's Adventure Garden and the Children's Adventure Trails. As two components of the Children's Adventure Project , these informal science education facilities will use participatory discovery to engage urban children and their families in learning botanical science, inquiry skills, positive attitudes towards science, and the methods of scientists. In the 1.5 acre Adventure Garden children will interact with living plants and fabricated exhibits to discover fundamental principles of plant biology; and in the one mile of Adventure Trails they will closely observe interdependencies of complex ecosystems using the framework of these fundamental principles. To expand visitor understanding of plant biology and the ways that scientists study it, Investigation Stations, integral components of each facility, will be placed so that visitors will handle, sense, and observe living plants in situ and interact with fabricated exhibits and scientific tools. The Project will be developed by NYBG staff educators and scientists with on-going participation of a broad spectrum of advisors and consultants, including exhibition designers, evaluators, community school teachers, and environmental education specialists.
Children's Television Workshop proposes to produce a fourth and fifth season of SQUARE ONE TV, a daily series on mathematics for children ages eight to twelve. Season Four will consist of 40 new half-hours for air on PBS stations beginning September 1991. Consistent with CTW's experimental mission in education, CTW also proposes to undertake a new programming approach to expand the reach of SQUARE ONE TV to a family audience by converting the daily detective serial featured in the series, MATHNET, into four one-hour specials for family viewing. These Season Four MATHNET Specials will be researched to test their effectiveness. Eleven hour-long weekly SQUARE ONE TV programs will be produced for Season Five to be aired in addition to re-broadcasts of the daily series starting January, 1993. Seasons Four and Five production will capitalize on the educational impact and appeal of prior seasons. Mathematical content will be based on research and in conjunction with the Series Advisory Committee and consultants. The additional seasons will be supported by a full range of promotion, community outreach activities, and school services, including teacher's guides.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David ConnellKeith MielkeEve HallJoel Schneider
Consumer Reports Television will produce a series of four half- hour TV specials and companion outreach materials, called "YOU TEST IT|," for public television broadcast and broad educational and home video distribution. Targeted for children ages 7 to 13 -- particularly those from low-income, minority families -- the project will draw on the resources of Consumers Union, the non- profit, scientific, research and education organization that publishes Consumer Reports magazine and ZILLIONS, the Consumer Reports for Kids. The "YOU TEST IT| series, created by an experienced team of children's TV producers, focuses on testing and evaluating popular products -- from observing the bubble-power of bubble gum to measuring the efficiency of 10-speed bicycles. Using lively, state-of-the-art techniques appealing to kids, "YOU TEST IT|" will encourage children to use science and math skills to investigate and, ultimately, solve real-world problems. Each of the 4 programs will cover a broad product theme such as Foods/Snacks, Toys/Games, Sports/Recreation, and Electronic Gear. Activity Guides, expanding on these topics, will delve more deeply into the science content of each show, providing hands-on learning materials for children. With repeated broadcasts of "YOU TEST IT|" over hundreds of PBS stations, and reuse of tape and print materials, millions of children will gain greater access to objective product information and greater awareness of science and its importance in everyday life.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joyce NewmanEdward GrothSusan Markowitz
This exhibit will integrate graphics, artifacts, highly interactive electro-mechanical demonstration devices together with state of the art interactive educational computer technology to demonstrate how probability shapes nature. It will draw its examples from a variety of scientific fields including physics, chemistry, earth sciences, and biology. It is planned as a permanent addition to the Museum's exhibition program, but will be designed to facilitate easy reproduction for individual copies or for circulation as a travelling exhibit. Millions of visitors--families, teachers, children form diverse communities--will gain a first hand aesthetic appreciation of the pattern finding process of scientific investigation as well as a better understanding of the usefulness of mathematics in explaining how the natural world works.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
H. Eugene StanleyDouglas SmithEdwin Taylor