Hamlin provides a how-to guide for leveraging traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) to teach science in indigenous contexts. Her process uses the Vitality Index of Traditional Ecological Knowledge with ethnography to identify TEK. She describes how a community-driven program used TEK to expand the learning opportunities of a historically oppressed group: Maya women in Guatemala.
Briseño-Garzón analyzed interviews with 20 families after they visited Universum Museo de las Ciencias. She concluded that the benefits of visiting a science museum are “much more than science,” including spending quality time together as a family, interacting with others, learning about local culture and history, learning from each other, and, of course, learning science.
Museum educators rarely experience ongoing training. They tend to rely on their past experiences of teaching and learning to guide their interactions with learners. Allen and Crowley describe the implementation of a new school trip program that challenged museum educators’ beliefs. The program involved a five-month process of reflective practice and the iterative testing of student-centered, inquiry-based facilitation approaches.
The Bronx Zoo of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) engaged Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. to conduct formative evaluation and community focus groups related to a proposed exhibit, "Safari Adventure." The aim with this exhibit is to provide better connections to nature for families in our community and foster a life-long sense of environmental stewardship. The exhibit concept was born of the issue that, today, there exists a greater need to connect people to nature than ever before, a topic especially relevant for our community—part of the largest urban population in the United States
Existing (and essentially school-based) approaches to assessment involve recording the extent to which learners gain particular knowledge or skills. In informal settings, outcomes depend on the participant’s own agenda. Michalchik and Gallagher propose an approach to assessment—of both individuals and programmes—that focuses on learner behaviour instead of on pre-determined objectives.
Achiam presents a template for improving the exhibit design process to ensure that the visitor experience matches the designer’s intended learning outcomes. The template is based on praxeology—a model of human activity that, in the case of museum engagement, addresses the ways in which visitors know what to do with an exhibit and then come to understand the scientific phenomena the exhibit was designed to demonstrate.
In 2011, the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) a Museums for America – Engaging Communities grant to explore the development of a new family exhibit at the Bronx Zoo, "Safari Adventure." Our aim with this exhibit is to provide better connections to nature for families in our community and foster a life-long sense of environmental stewardship. The exhibit concept was born of the issue that, today, there exists a greater need to connect people to nature than ever before, a topic especially relevant for our community—part of the largest urban population in the United States. The IMLS grant allowed us to take a multi-faceted approach to inform our current thoughts about useful nature exhibit practices and what resonates with our audiences. Through evaluation, prototyping, visits to other institutions, workshops, and community focus groups, we explored themes of child nature play, intergenerational learning, community engagement, and barriers to access. We are disseminating the various reports and products from this process to publicize our findings to the larger professional community. The Wildlife Conservation Society, founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society, saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. We are the world’s most comprehensive conservation organization, currently managing about 500 conservation projects in more than 60 countries and educating millions of visitors each year at our five living institutions in New York City: the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. Our conservation programs work directly with animals such as gorillas, elephants, condors, and penguins, and we manage more than 200 million acres of protected lands around the world.
This study considers the relationship between preschoolers’ early exposure to informal science experiences and their interest in science, with particular attention paid to gender differences. A longitudinal study of children ages 4 to 7 found that early science interest was a strong predictor of later parent-provided opportunities to engage in science learning.
Hobbyists are excellent learners. They are self-motivated; they seek out new information; they practice and refine their skills. As a result, some develop considerable expertise in their specialist areas. Studying the ways in which hobbyists engage with content may help both formal and informal educators to better understand and support learning.
To create more equitable learning opportunities for students from marginalized communities, educators can design learning experiences that help young people connect their everyday interests and knowledge to academic content. Nasir et al. synthesized research on how students use sophisticated math in everyday practices like discussing basketball, playing dominoes, and selling candy. Then they explain how learning improves when varied student experiences are made relevant in informal and formal learning environments.
This study examined the ways in which teachers’ beliefs influence their practice when taking students to visit a science and technology museum. The researchers interviewed 14 primary and secondary school teachers before and after their museum visit, which was also observed. They found a clear relationship between teachers’ beliefs about the value of informal, museum-based learning and their goals and actions before, during, and after the visit.
In this study of preschoolers’ understandings and enactments of racial and ethnic difference, Park asks, “How do different ideas about diversity play out in the day-to-day interactions and activities of young children?” Park takes a sociocultural perspective, seeking to understand the ways children talk about difference and behave toward others in their preschool.