In this article, staff at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History discuss the efforts of the Learning in Informal Settings Program, including three international evaluation studies.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John J. Koran, Jr.Mary Lou KoranBetty Dunckel CampAnne E. Donnelly
In this article, Janette Griffin of the University of Technology in Sydney discusses a project designed to investigate the applicability of a School-Museum Learning Framework piloted in an earlier study. Implementation of the Framework involved 5th and 6th grade students bringing their own chosen questions or "areas of inquiry" to the museum and students having considerable control over their learning within parameters provided by the teacher.
The article describes the Informal Learning Program (ILP), co-directed by Michael Spock and Deborah Perry, and initially funded by the Joyce Foundation of Chicago. The purpose of the program is to serve as an advocate for and to conduct research on informal learning and on the design and development of public spaces, programs, and exhibits.
The overarching purpose of the Climate Literacy Zoo Education Network is to develop and evaluate a new approach to climate change education that connects zoo visitors to polar animals currently endangered by climate change, leveraging the associative and affective pathways known to dominate decision-making. Utilizing a polar theme, the partnership brings together a strong multidisciplinary team that includes the Chicago Zoological Society of Brookfield, IL, leading a geographically distributed consortium of nine partners: Columbus Zoo & Aquarium, OH; Como Zoo & Conservatory, St. Paul, MN; Indianapolis Zoo, IN; Louisville Zoological Garden, KY; Oregon Zoo, Portland, OR; Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, PA; Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence, RI; Toledo Zoological Gardens, OH, and the organization Polar Bears International. The partnership leadership includes the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. The partnership is joined by experts in conservation psychology and an external advisory board. The primary stakeholders are the diverse 13 million annual visitors to the nine partner zoos. Additional stakeholders include zoo docents, interpreters and educators, as well as the partnership technical team in the fields of learning innovations, technological tools, research review and education practice. The core goals of the planning phase are to a) develop and extend the strong multidisciplinary partnership, b) conduct research needed to understand the preconceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and learning modes of zoo visitors regarding climate change; and c) identify and prototype innovative learning environments and tools. Internal and external evaluations will be conducted by Facet Innovations of Seattle, WA. Activities to achieve these goals include assessments and stakeholder workshops to inventory potential resources at zoos; surveys of zoo visitors to examine demographic, socioeconomic, and technology access parameters of zoo visitors and their existing opinions; and initial development and testing of participatory, experiential activities and technological tools to facilitate learning about the complex system principles underlying the climate system. The long-term vision centers on the development of a network of U.S. zoos, in partnership with climate change domain scientists, learning scientists, conservation psychologists, and other stakeholders, serving as a sustainable infrastructure to investigate strategies designed to foster changes in public attitudes, understandings, and behavior surrounding climate change.
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) served as the external evaluator of the three-year NSF-funded Science Festival Alliance (SFA), a collaborative started by the University of California San Diego, the MIT Museum (Cambridge, MA), the University of California San Francisco, and The Franklin Institute (Philadelphia, PA). The focus of the SFA over its first three years was helping establish and sustain science festivals in each of these four cities. The Alliance’s long-term goal is to facilitate the creation of a growing network of festivals and a community of science festival practitioners. To
This research addresses the importance and benefits of informal science learning which complement formal science learning in school. Informal science learning is not fully developed and is a relatively new idea in Malaysia. Most of the researches in the field of science teaching and learning are focused on the formal learning environment in school hours. However, this research has an added value for the field of science teaching since the focus is on informal science learning environment. Informal science learning is not yet explored by any other local universities in Malaysia, thus, this research will lead to the existence of Informal Science Learning Centre in long term mission. Although the existence of the National Science Centre and Petroscience KLCC provide informal environment for science learning, nevertheless, it is argued that those two places has a weak foundation in integrating educational learning theories into the informal science activities offered in these two places. This research will provide a strong theoretical foundation of designing the informal science learning because the informal science learning in this study will be developed by using rigorous research methodology which comprise of action research method and case study design in order to translate the Multiple Intelligence Theory as informal science learning practices.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mohd Ali SamsudinZurida IsmailAnna Christina AbdullahNooraida YakobSalmiza SalehMaznah Ali
The Museum is partnering with San Francisco State University's Department of Biology to learn more about the zombie fly, Apocephalus borealis, and how this parasitoid (like a parasite, except they always kill their host) affects honey bees, Apis mellifera. You can join this investigation by becoming a ZomBee Hunter! ZomBees are honey bees that have been parasitized by zombie flies. We know that zombie flies have been affecting honey bees in California and South Dakota. The big mysteries that need to be solved are: Where exactly are honey bees being affected? How big of a threat are zombie flies to honey bees? Have zombie flies spread to honey bees across North America? By collecting honey bees in L.A. that look like they have been affected by the zombie fly, you can be a detective for this exciting case.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles CountyJohn Hafernick
The Museum is partnering with Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) to share data and learn more about L.A. butterflies and moths. Help us find and photograph them in Los Angeles. Why Butterflies? Unlike some of the other Citizen Science projects here at the Museum, the L.A. Butterfly Survey (LABS) isn't looking for lost butterflies. We already know the species we are likely to find in L.A., all 236 of them. What we need to find out is which butterflies and moths we're likely to find when we plant the new Pollinator Garden in the Museum's upcoming outdoor exhibit, the North Campus. When you submit images of L.A. butterflies and moths, we'll map the species closest to the Museum and determine which one's might show up when we start planting butterfly attracting plants.
With the Museum's increasing interest in urban biodiversity, we have started looking at all types of wildlife in our highly modified industrial, suburban, and urban habitats. One thing that quickly struck us was that in our own backyard, Exposition Park, nobody had documented any lizards since 1988. This seemed strange, as lizards are common in other parts of Los Angeles, and it led to the question, "Why are there no lizards here?" We hope to answer this question with the LLOLA (pronouced "lola") project. LLOLA aims to do two things: 1) Confirm the presence or absence of lizards in Exposition park. (After all, nobody has looked extensively for them! 2) Find out where lizards DO occur in the Los Angeles Basin, and start to hypothesize why they can survive there.
As an outreach program, Barb Finkleman of All American Cablevision of Columbus, OH arranged a field trip to the public access video studio in the basement of the Main Branch of the Columbus Public Library system in 1980 so that inner city children could see and meet music video producer Marshall Barnes and view his creation, The Last Communication through an arrangement with Cowtown Records and Videoworks and the Columbus Public Library. The children, all elementary school aged, listened to Marshall explain his work and the role of a video producer, as well as how a studio works. They then viewed The Last Communication, a 30 minute video animated space rock symphony that had been described by some as "Saturday morning cartoons for children on Mars". Of special note, the children were mesmerized and at one point, spontaneously began singing with the music in one section, prompting surprise from both Marshall and Barb but confirming Marshall's suspicions that children will respond to abstract stimulus within certain psychological parameters that can be exhibited aurally and visually. It was the beginning of the concrete data that years later would result in his science of technocogninetics.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marshall BarnesAll American CablevisionCowtown Records and VideoworksColumbus Public Library
Marshall Barnes was chosen by Larry Bock, founder of the USA Science and Engineering Festival as a late addition to the USASEF after viewing Marshall's impressive SuperScience for High School Physics activities for National Lab Day and his emphasis on advanced concept science and technologies. Marshall was given free booth space to set-up an exhibit that featured what is now being called "STEAM" or Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math and was fairly interactive. Marshall's booth emphasized his actual research that the visitors could take part in or analyze themselves. He had a VCR, TV, CD player, MacBookPro laptop and his own invention - the Visual Reduction Window. There were four elements to the exhibit. There was a TV monitor that showed a scene from a movie that you could view with 3D glasses for TV that Marshall invented that work even with one eye closed. At different times that same monitor would feature footage from an experiment that Marshall conducted to produce one of Nikola Tesla's ideas that Tesla never accomplished - a wall of light. This same footage could be analyzed by the visitors - frame by frame, on the Mac computer to see exactly how the principle of resonance produced the wall of light from the build-up of reflections off a physical wall created by strobe lights. Visitors could also listen to hyperdimensional music that Marshall produced that takes any kind of music to a new listening experience. Based on the concept that music is a coded language with cues and instructions that are cognitively recognizable when translated, Marshall invented techniques and technologies that allow such translations and brought examples for visitors to listen to. They included an upcoming radio show theme and the soundtrack to a documentary on the reality behind Fox TV's FRINGE. The music featured song elements that move around between the speakers and make you feel like the music is alive. The most dramatic of all was the Visual Reduction Window, again invented by Marshall, that made kids look transparent and at times, almost completely invisible. Based on his famous research into invisibility, which is documented at the Santa Maria Experiment exhibit in the Santa Maria Education Visitor's Center in Columbus, Ohio, the effect of real life transparency is stunning and Marshall, the world's leading expert on invisibility research was able to describe the physics behind what he was doing and its applications in the real world. His approach to invisibility is superior to those methods pursued by Duke University and others, trying to do the same with metamaterials, and is based on a completely different model of invisibility that he calls, Visual Density Reduction or VDR. Using VDR techniques, Marshall can make attack helicopters, small gun boats, tanks and many other things invisible, which is why he doesn't reveal the current level of his research, due to National Security reasons. Overall, the exhibit was a wild success and serves as a model for a traveling exhibit for informal science at malls, fairs, science centers, and other festivals.
The Climate Change Toolkit includes a suite of resources that address the science behind climate change while encouraging participants to take action to reduce the effects of climate change. Each resource has been designed to be low cost and easy for educators to reproduce. Contents of the Toolkit include: (1) Ten Hands-on Cart Activities - These hands-on, cart-type science activities for families in an informal education setting or for children in an afterschool setting, engage participants with the science of climate change. The activities are divided into two categories, those that address the science behind climate change, and those that address how individual choices affect the rate of climate change. (2) Four Portable Self-Guided Exhibits Kits - These self-guided science kits use four hands-on activities per kit to explore how climate change is affecting the forest, ocean, urban, and atmosphere environments. Each kit can be packaged in a small bag or box and bundled together with an activity map box for check-out by families in an informal education setting. (3) Public Presentation - CO2 and You is a twenty-minute presentation that provides the option of using interactive clickers to introduce the science behind how fossil fuel consumption leads to climate change. The interactive presentation also explores how simple energy choices can have a positive effect on the climate. (4) Museum Field Trip Program - The Power the Future field trip uses an interactive diagram to explain how carbon based fossil fuels such as coal emit carbon dioxide and contribute to climate change. The program then discusses the need to transition away from carbon based energy sources such as fossil fuels to those that do not emit carbon dioxide, such as wind power. The second section of the program guides visitors through a hands-on inquiry activity where they explore their own windmills.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Charlie TrautmannKatie LevedahlAlberto López