To inform development of the Curious by Nature exhibit and related programs, staff at the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo (JMZ) wants to hear from parents. Staff are especially interested in the experience of families with children who have special needs. In recent years the JMZ has developed an audience in this community of often close-knit friends and organizations. JMZ is also part of a successful collaboration with Abilities United and PACE (Pacific Autism Center for Education) in which disabled adults volunteer in the Zoo on a weekly basis. The institution’s intimate nature, good design and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Wendy MeluchPalo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo
The Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo (JMZ) is working to create an accessible facility from the ground up as they plan for a new building, zoo habitats, and exhibits. During construction of the new JMZ the institution will occupy a temporary space in Palo Alto. The new JMZ is scheduled to open in 2019.
To inform their planning process, Tina Keegan, Exhibits Director at JMZ, contracted with Wendy Meluch of Visitor Studies Services (the evaluator) to conduct community conversation with two groups of parents on site at the Museum. Staff reached out to JMZ members and visitors, and local
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Wendy MeluchPalo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo
The Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo offers a satisfying mix of interactive exhibit experiences, close-up animal viewing, and a warm, welcoming staff in a small-scale setting which makes it easily manageable for families with special needs. In recent years the JMZ has attracted and embraced this audience of often close-knit friends and organizations. In addition to an ongoing dialog with visitors at the institution, on multiple occasions JMZ has invited families to participate in community conversations to share their perspectives, experiences and suggestions.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Wendy MeluchPalo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo
Flying Higher will develop a permanent hands-on exhibit that conveys the fundamentals of flight, technology, materials science, and NASA’s role in aeronautics for learners ages 3-12 years and their parents/caregivers and teachers. The exhibit, public programs, school and teacher programs, and teacher professional development will develop a pipeline of skilled workers to support community workforce needs and communicate NASA’s contributions to the nation and world. An innovative partnership with Claflin University (an historically black college) and Columbia College (a women’s liberal arts college) will provide undergraduate coursework in informal science education to support pre-service learning opportunities and paid employment for students seeking careers in education and/or STEM fields. The projects goals are:
1) To educate multi-generational family audiences about the principles and the future of aeronautics; provide hands-on, accessible, and immersive opportunities to explore state-of-the-art NASA technology; and demonstrate the cultural impact of flight in our global community.
2) To provide educational standards-based programming to teachers and students in grades K–8 on NASA-driven research topics, giving the students opportunities to explore these topics and gain exposure to science careers at NASA; and to offer teachers support in presenting STEM topics.
3) To create and implement a professional development program to engage pre-service teachers in presenting museum-based programs focused on aeronautics and engineering. This program will provide undergraduate degree credits, service learning, and paid employment to students that supports STEM instruction in the classroom, explores the benefits of informal science education, and encourages post-graduate opportunities in STEM fields.
The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History will enhance its staff capacity and train current educational staff in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education delivery, both of which will increase its ability to deliver interpretive tours and programming around the newly opened permanent exhibition, “Inspiring Minds: African Americans in Science and Technology.” The project will include hiring a full-time STEM educator to work with education and archival staff to create and implement a family learning approach to the sciences in the rich context of African American history and culture. A training facilitator will develop a cohort of STEM interns and train current staff educators to present STEM learning experiences. At the conclusion of the project, the museum will have increased staff capacity and widespread expansion and integration of STEM opportunities for the youth, families, and schools of Detroit.
The L.C. Bates Museum will provide 1,700 rural fourth grade students and their families museum-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) educational programming including integrated naturalist, astronomy, and art activities that explore Maine's environment and its solar and lunar interactions. The project will include a series of eight classroom programs, family field trips, TV programs, family and classroom self-guided educational materials, and exhibitions of project activities including student work. By bringing programs to schools and offering family activities and field trips, the museum will be able to engage an underserved, mostly low-income population that would otherwise not be able to visit the museum. The museum's programming will address teachers' needs for museum objects and interactive explorations that enhance student learning and new Common Core science curriculum objectives, while offering students engaging learning experiences and the opportunity to develop 21st century leadership skills.
Natural History museums have identified a need to transform their traditional spaces into vital forces for science education. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) will implement “Seeing as a Scientist,” a design-based research initiative to develop and test gallery interventions that have the potential to increase scientific observation skills for family groups. Working with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE), CMNH will pilot a series of quick changes and additions to dioramas and outline expectations for each. Visitors will be observed to measure the degree of engagement in scientific observation (deliberate looking in order to understand visual evidence)--an essential skill for learning across scientific disciplines. The four most promising interventions will be evaluated to determine which are most successful in providing the necessary support for families to establish shared focus and two-way, science-based conversation. The project will include a blog to share information and to disseminate the results to other museums.
During the development of the first permanent exhibition to be installed at COSI, a science center in Columbus, Ohio, a number of front-end, developmental, and remedial evaluations were implemented over the course of 3 years. As the embedded evaluator for this project, I was considered part of the design team and was present at almost all the project team meetings and facilitated all of the evaluations except for the summative evaluation, in which an outside evaluator was hired to perform the evaluation. This collection of reports contains a front-end evaluation that explored what COSI guests
As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is conducting regional STEM workshops in partnership with local science museums, entitled NFB STEM2U, for blind youth [youth], grades 3 – 6 and 9-12. During this second regional workshop in Boston, the NFB operated two different programs simultaneously: one program for youth, and a second program for their parents/caregivers. A third program, for Boston Museum of Science staff, was conducted earlier to prepare the museum staff to assist with the youth program. A separate report will discuss the
As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is conducting regional STEM workshops in partnership with local science museums, entitled NFB STEM2U, for blind youth [youth], grades 3 – 6 and 9-12. During the third regional workshop in Columbus, Ohio, the NFB operated two different programs simultaneously: one program for youth, and a second program for their parents/caregivers. A third program, for COSI (science center) staff, was conducted earlier to prepare the museum staff to assist with the youth program. A separate report will discuss
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Science of Sharing project (SoS) was a collaboration between the Exploratorium, the Museum of Life and Science, Dialogue Social Enterprise and The Heroic Imagination Project. SoS included two major components for members of the public to engage with: a permanent collection of interactive, multi-user exhibits at the Exploratorium, and a series of social-media based activities called Experimonths. SoS exhibits and Experimonths were designed to allow visitors to experiment with cooperation, trust, and social dilemmas, connect those experiences to
Over the final five years of the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), the “Research on Public Learning and Decision-Making” (PLDM) team studied how visitors make decisions and learn about nanotechnologies through a variety of NISE Network educational products. The focus of this report is an exploratory study conducted on the Nano exhibition in order to answer the research question: How do visitors use, interact with, and talk about the exhibit components within the Nano exhibition to learn about the relevance of nano to their lives? To answer this question, PLDM team