How People Make Things is an exhibition that helps families talk together and learn about the making of everyday objects. The goal of the project was to create a learning environment that mediates difficult manufacturing concepts for parents, and scaffolds the development of family conversations about the processes of making both inside and outside the museum. A visit to the exhibition would be deemed successful if visitors demonstrated changes in what they knew and how they talked about objects and manufacturing processes. A model of change describing how families might build such an
This Pathways Project connects rural, underserved youth and families in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho to STEM concepts important in sustainable building design. The project is a collaboration of the Palouse Discovery Science Center (Pullman, WA), Washington State University and University of Idaho, working in partnership with rural community organizations and businesses. The deliverables include: 1) interactive exhibit prototype activities, 2) a team cooperative learning problem-solving challenge, and (3) take-home materials to encourage participants to use what they have learned to investigate ways to make their homes more energy-efficient and sustainable. The project introduces youth and families to the traditionally difficult physics concept of thermal energy, particularly as it relates to sustainable building design. Participants explore how building materials and their properties can be used to control all three types of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. The interactive exhibit prototypes are coupled with an Energy Efficient Engineering Challenge in which participants, working in cooperative learning teams, use information learned from the exhibit prototype activities to retrofit a model house, improving its energy efficiency. The project components are piloted at the Palouse Discovery Science Center, and then travel to three underserved rural/tribal communities in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Front-end and formative evaluation studies will demonstrate whether this model advances participant understanding of and interest in STEM topics and careers. The project will yield information about ways that other ISE practitioners can effectively incorporate cooperative learning strategies in informal settings to improve the transferability of knowledge gained from exhibits to real-world problem-solving challenges, especially for rural and underserved audiences. This project will also provide the ISE field with: 1) a model for increasing the capacity of small, rural science centers to form collaborative regional networks that draw on previously unused resources in their communities and provide more effective outreach to the underrepresented populations they serve, and 2) a model for coupling cooperative learning with outreach exhibits, providing richer experiences of active engagement.
This article features critiques of the "Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear" exhibit at the Liberty Science Center. Brenda Cowan, Chairperson of the Graduate Exhibition Design program at SUNY/Fashion Institute of Technology, Paul Orselli, Chief Instigator of Paul Orselli Workshop, and Martin Weiss, Science Interpretation Consultant at the New York Hall of Science, share their analysis of the exhibition and assess its strengths and weaknesses.
In this article, Janet Petitpas, assistant director at the Bay Area Discovery Museum and President of the Youth Museum Exhibit Collaborative, discusses how the group of North American children's museums share and manage traveling exhibits between the United States and Canada. Petitpas addresses the challenges associated with international exhibitions and offers suggestions based on her experiences.
In this article, Alissa Rupp, architect and exhibit designer at The Portico Group, reveals the importance of integrating emotional connections into exhibit designs for children. Rupp explains how exhibits can elicit strong emotional connections as well as the value of these emotional experiences for children and families.
This article describes the research effort of ASTC and Reach Advisors to explore the motivations and engagement levels of visitors to science museums. The team discovered surprising and telling information about mothers who visit with their children. This article explores the survey methodology, key findings including helpful terms to describe four types of visitors, and conclusions with recommendations.
This report presents the findings of a summative evaluation of Invention at Play, conducted by Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A), for the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Invention at Play is a traveling exhibition developed by the Lemelson Center in partnership with the Science Museum of Minnesota and is funded by The Lemelson Foundation and the National Science Foundation. Data collection took place at two venues: in December 2002 at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.,
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Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Smithsonian Institution
This study was commissioned to provide systematic feedback regarding visitor experience of the Low-Carb Craze exhibits (about nutrition and dieting) in Current Science Central. The principal issues to be investigated were about the interpretive experience: are visitors getting the idea that this is about current science information?; do visitors perceive the information to be recent?; are they learning any new information or not? To address these issues, an evaluation strategy was developed that focused on people's perceptions of the content and reactions to the activities; specifically
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Jeff HaywardScience Museum of MinnesotaJolene Hart
Nanoscale science and engineering study and create materials and devices on the molecular scale. The Nanobiotechnology Center, a National Science Foundation supported Science and Technology Center, collaborated with Ithaca, New York's Sciencenter, a hands-on museum, and Painted Universe, Inc. an exhibition design-and-fabrication team, to create It's a NanoWorld, a 3,000 square-foot, hands-on traveling exhibition. Edu, Inc., an external evaluation group, led front-end research and formative evaluation to guide and refine development of the exhibition. Summative evaluation investigated visitors'
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Douglas SpencerCornell UniversityVictoria AngelottiSciencenter
This project brings together polar researchers, science centers and broadcast media reporters to tell the story of four polar research expeditions to the general public, teachers and students. The four expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic were chosen based on their relevance to the three primary IPY research emphasis areas defined by NSF. A science writer and a professional photographer/oceanographer reporting on each expedition will do daily webcasts on the "Polar Discovery web site (http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu)" as well as several scheduled real-time phone patches to audiences at the Museum of Science, Boston, the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, The Field Museum (Chicago), the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Pacific Science Center (Seattle), the Birch Aquarium (San Diego), National Public Radio stations, CBS News and to student "reporters" writing for Scholastic Online. Programs will also be broadcast on University of California TV. A museum exhibit at the WHOI Exhibit Center will highlight polar research. Components of it will either travel to partner museums or be replicated in the partnering museums. Photo archives of the expeditionary material will also be created and made available to interested users.
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Christopher LinderFrederic HeideJames Kent
Explore Evolution is a three-year project that uses a combination of traveling exhibits and activity kits to introduce the concept of evolution to museum audiences and 4-H groups. Six museum partners will collaborate on the development of eleven interactive exhibit modules on the following topics: disease in humans, eye development in animals, fruit fly diversity, sexual selection, hominoid development and extinction. The museum consortium includes the Kansas Museum and Biodiversity Center, Museum of the Rockies (MT), Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Science Museum of Minnesota, University of Nebraska State Museum and the Exhibits Museum of the University of Michigan. The inquiry-based activity kits will be modeled after the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's "Wonderwise" kits, funded in part by NSF, and designed for middle school audiences. An "Explore Evolution" website will be launched to support the exhibits and activity kits. Dissemination will occur through museum education programs as well as a consortium of 4-H programs in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Michigan, Nebraska and Wyoming. It is anticipated that more than 1.8 million museum visitors and 800,000 4-H members will participate in this project.
The goal of this planning grant is to establish an innovative collaborative of arts and science institutions to enhance informal science learning in Boston. The project will create a partnership between Northeastern University, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Wang Center for the Performing Arts to enhance the delivery of informal science programming for families with children ages 5-12 using interactive programs and exhibits. The planning project will develop and prototype programs across science themes that relate to each partner's mission, while highlighting science concenpts and topics. Deliverables include a front-end evaluation, pilot programs and then preliminary design of web modules. A national advisory comittee will convene to assist with the planning process while careful study of each site will be undertaken to determine how to maximize learning opportunities for participants in the diverse learning venues.
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Arun BansilNicholas GrossMarta Hersek