This article explores the ways imagination and how museum professionals can foster new ways of thinking in their work and products as well as encourage visitors to be more aware of their museums experiences. In the Introduction, D. Lynn McRainey, Elizabeth F. Cheney Director of Education at the Chicago History Museum, discusses two projects that changed her practices as a museum educator and her understanding of learning in museums. Next, Leslie Bedford, Director of Leadership in Museum Education Program at Bank Street College, examines the meaning of imagination and how narrative and
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D. Lynn McRaineyLeslie BedfordDaniel SpockAndrew Anway
SciGirls is a national outreach program of DragonflyTV supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation's Program for Gender Equity. SciGirls empowers PBS outreach professionals and science museum educators, often partnering with local youth organizations, educators and parents, to deliver hands-on science encouragement and career guidance to girls in their communities. SciGirls is based on existing standards-based DragonflyTV outreach resources, which teach scientific inquiry.
In April 2001, the Museum of Science in Boston launched the Current Science & Technology Center, an effort to engage public and school audiences in leading edge research and to provide depth and context for science and technology stories in the news within a museum context and through various outreach methods. Health science programming in the CS&T Center is researched, produced and delivered to primarily public audiences in partnership with selected New England area medical and public health schools, teaching hospitals, and biomedical research institutes. This Health Science Education
This article presents three museums with new approaches to sharing information about dinosaurs. The authors include Nancy Lynn, Director of Traveling Programs at the American Museum of Natural History, Jennifer Pace Robinson, Director of Exhibit Development at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Jeffrey H. Patchen, President and CEO, The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, and Todd J. Tubutis, Senior Project Manager of Exhibits at The Field Museum in Chicago.
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Nancy LynnJennifer Pace RobinsonJeffrey H. PatchenTodd J. Tubutis
This article highlights some of the diverse ways that different types of museums use place-based education to further their missions and benefit their audiences. Authors include Janet Petitpas, Assistant Director of the Bay Area Discovery Museum, Maggie Russell-Ciardi, Education Coordinator for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Lori Salles, Exhibit Manager at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park, and Mary Jo Sutton, Director of Exhibitions at the Bay Area Discovery Museum.
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Janet PetitpasMaggie Russell-CiardiLori SallesMary Jo Sutton
This article features perspectives from four museum professionals on strategies borrowed from children's museums to best engage families in exhibits and programs. Authors include Marcia MacRae, Arts Specialist at the DuPage Children's Museum, Liza Reich Rawson, Senior Exhibition Developer/Project Manager at the Brooklyn Children's Museum, Gail Ringel, Vice President for Exhibits & Production at the Boston Children's Museum, and John Russick, Curator at the Chicago History Museum.
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Marcia Z. MacRaeLiza Reich RawsonGail RingelJohn Russick
This guide to partnering with researchers and scientists is designed for the U.S. science museum community, and was produced by the Strategic Projects Group at the Museum of Science, Boston, for the NISE Network. Note: Beta Site, under development
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Museum of Science
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This research agenda is a living document, constructed in response to on-going field-wide conversations following the 21st Century Natural History Settings Conference at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. At the conference, natural history professionals explored new directions for museums and other natural history institutions, including zoos, aquaria, botanical gardens, and nature centers. The research agenda is intended to be edited, discussed, and fleshed out by the field as we work together and make progress. New research questions will emerge spurred by surprising findings
Making Connections, a three-year design-based research study conducted by the Science Museum of Minnesota in partnership with Twin Cities' communities, is developing and studying new ways to engage a broader audience in meaningful Maker experiences. This study draws and builds on existing theoretical frameworks to examine how community engagement techniques can be used to co-design and implement culturally-relevant marketing, activities, and events focused on Making that attract families from underrepresented audiences and ultimately engage them in meaningful informal STEM learning. The research is being done in three phases: Sharing and Listening - co-design with targeted communities; Making Activities Design and Implementation; Final Analysis, Synthesis and Dissemination. The project is also exploring new approaches in museums' cross-institutional practices that can strengthen the quality of their community-engagement. In recent years, Making - a do-it-yourself, grassroots approach to designing and constructing real things through creativity, problem-solving, and tool use - has received increasing attention as a fruitful vehicle for introducing young people to the excitement of science and engineering and to career skills in these fields. Maker Faires attract hundreds and thousands of people to engage in Making activities every year, and the popularity of these events, as well as the number of museums and libraries that are beginning to provide opportunities for the public to regularly engage in these types of activities, are skyrocketing. However, Maker programs tend to draw audiences that are predominantly white, middle class, male, well educated, and strongly interested in science, despite the fact that the practices of Making are as common in more diverse communities. Making Connections has the potential to transform how children begin to cultivate a lifelong interest in engineering at a young age, which may ultimately encourage more young people of color to pursue engineering careers in the future.
The Seeing Scientifically project will research a new way of supporting museum visitor experiences so they can have authentic scientific observation of live microscopic specimens. By adapting existing computational imaging techniques from current biological research, the project aims to encourage and support visitors in observing scientifically, that is, in asking productive questions, interpreting image-rich information, and making inferences from visual evidence that increasingly characterizes current biological research. The scaffolding (e.g., visual cues or information supporting learning) will consist of a system of virtual guides and prompts that are responsive to what visitors see. The scaffolding prompts will be overlaid on a real time, high-density image of a live sample that the visitor is investigating with a research grade microscope. Project research will contribute early knowledge on ways to scaffold informal learners in the practice of authentic scientific observation with the complex, dynamic visual evidence that scientists themselves see using the equipment and techniques they use. Project research and resources will be widely disseminated to learning science researchers, informal science practitioners, and other interested audiences through publications, conference presentations and sharing of resources via the NSF-supported informalscience.org website and other relevant websites. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The project will prototype an innovative microscope exhibit that scaffolds visitors in scientific observation of live specimens and their biological processes. The overarching hypothesis is that scientific observation of real-time visual phenomena can deeply engage learners with the content, tools and practices of modern science, which increasingly rely on image-based data. Through three rounds of iterative prototype development and evaluation, the project will generate early findings for the following related questions: (1) what are promising ways of scaffolding observation of live specimens at an unmediated exhibit; (2) How can computational imaging techniques be integrated into a microscope exhibit to engage and scaffold learners to ask productive questions, interpret what they see, and make evidence-based inferences from complex, dynamic images. Data will be collected and analyzed by coding think-aloud interviews with visitors concerning their interest in and description of the biological phenomenon observed; coding of think aloud transcripts of visitor questions types and answers, relevant features noted, inferences and scaffold use; and statistical comparison of holding time, questions asked, answers, inferences, and scaffold use. Project findings will seed more rigorous research on the combination of scaffolding and computational imaging techniques effective for supporting scientific observation in image-rich areas of science.
Libraries serve vital roles in communities not only for access to print media but also family programming and access to the internet. Because of their widespread local presence in communities and the diverse communities served, libraries are well-positioned to address inequalities in access to technology, family programming, and spaces for collaboration. Science centers, universities, and community centers represent resources that can partner with libraries to create science and technology-related content for delivery to diverse communities. Research has firmly established the link between parent engagement and a broad range of student academic outcomes, including higher student attendance, achievement and graduation rates. A growing body of research in out-of-school science learning is focusing on the rich and varied ways in which families learn science outside of school, including habits of mind, motivation, and identities as scientists. Pilot work showed that backpacks have the potential for youth and parents to take on new roles relative to STEM work, with parents or older siblings taking on roles of lab partners, translators, and even teachers. The Robotics and E-Textiles project will support increased capacity within libraries and community centers to hold robotics workshops for families in their own communities. Libraries and community centers will serve as vehicles through which families engage with robotics and e-textiles, resulting in wider access to Next Generation Science Standards' engineering practices to more people. This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. Librarians and community engagement leaders will participate in professional experiences to develop science and technology content and facilitation skills. University researchers in collaboration with project partners will use a design-based research methodology to iteratively design the professional development and backpack programs and to investigate learning processes and outcomes. The Cultural Learning Pathways theoretical model will guide the study of how engagement with robotics/e-textiles experiences can lead to changes in practice, identity, and deeper participation in communities of practice on the part of librarians, youth, and families. Although collaborations between public libraries and informal science providers are becoming increasingly common, this project will document the process of developing such collaborations and draw insights that may be applied to other contexts. By bringing together traditional and non-traditional community organizations to develop and facilitate STEM learning experiences, this project has the potential for resulting in a new model for a decentralized system of informal STEM education and broadening participation in STEM. Over the life of the project, the number of partner libraries will expand from one to four, and it is anticipated to reach more than 550 families. It is being conducted through a partnership between the University of Washington, the Pacific Science Center, the Seattle Public Libraries, and Red Eagle Soaring, a Native American community youth program.
Nationally, there is tremendous interest in enhancing participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Providing rich opportunities for engagement in science and engineering practices may be key to developing a much larger cadre of young people who grow up interested in and pursue future STEM education and career options. One particularly powerful way to engage children in such exploration and playful experimentation may be through learning experiences that call for tinkering with real objects and tools to make and remake things. Tinkering is an important target for research and educational practice for at least two reasons: (1) tinkering experiences are frequently social, involving children interacting with educators and family members who can support STEM-relevant tinkering in various ways and (2) tinkering is more open-ended than many other kinds of building experiences (e.g., puzzles, making a model airplane), because it is the participants' own unique questions and objectives that guide the activity. Thus, tinkering provides a highly accessible point of entry into early STEM learning for children and families who do not all share the same backgrounds, circumstances, interests, and expertise. This Research-in-Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. The project will take place in the Tinkering Lab exhibit at Chicago Children's Museum. The research will investigate how reflective interactions between parents and children (ages 6-8) during tinkering activities ultimately impact child engagement in STEM. Design-based research (DBR) is well-suited to the iterative and contextually-rich process of tinkering. Using a DBR approach, researchers and museum facilitators will be trained to prompt variations of simple reflection strategies at different time points between family members as a way to strengthen children's engagement with, and memory of these shared tinkering events. Through progressive refinement, each cycle of testing will lead to new hypotheses that can be tested in the subsequent round of observations. The operationalization of study constructs and their measurement will come organically from families' activities in the Tinkering Lab and will be developed in consultation with members of the advisory board. Data collection strategies will include observation and interviews; a series of coding schemes will be used to make sense of the data. The research will result in theoretical and practical understanding of ways to enhance STEM engagement and learning by young children and their families through tinkering. A diverse group of at least 350 children and their families will be involved. The project will provide much needed empirical results on how to promote STEM engagement and learning in informal science education settings. It will yield useful information and resources for informal science learning practitioners, parents, and other educators who look to advance STEM learning opportunities for children. This research is being conducted through a partnership between researchers at Loyola University of Chicago and Northwestern University and museum staff and educators at the Chicago Children's Museum.