This is a collaborative research project between Montana State University (MSU), Bozeman, USA and Gorno-Altaisk State University (GASU), Altai Republic, Russian Federation. In this NSF International Research Experiences for Students project MSU students will travel to the Altai Republic and work with faculty and students at Gorno-Altaisk University to conduct research related to native language use in learning ecological sciences in informal settings. Student researchers will conduct individual studies related to the project theme of science learning in ecological contexts. This project will help students learn how to conduct educational research related to the ecological learning experiences of indigenous youth (ages12-16) and the use and influence of native language in learning about environment. This research directly addresses the results of our prior NSF supported work that identified shared issues of indigenous people, natural resources and the decline of native language use among underserved populations in the Altai and Yellowstone systems. This project contributes significantly to our emerging understanding of science learning in informal settings. It addresses a unique conception of ecological learning in three dimensions; personal, community and cultural perspectives. Research and education objectives align with modern conceptualizations of informal science learning as proposed by the National Academies of Science (2009). The MSU-GASU collaboration provides a holistic view of science learning and will unite diverse intellectual resources and research efforts in unique ecological and social systems. Both the Yellowstone and Altai mountain systems are of global concern as part of worldwide natural and cultural resources impacted by pervasive development, recreation and tourism activities and climate change. The underlying theoretical foundation for learning proposed in this research project is the basis for effective approaches to enable isolated rural populations to contribute traditional knowledge and wisdom to contemporary issues related to world-wide ecological and cultural issues including global climate change. Aspects of sustainability practices that are embedded in the knowledge and social processes of both marginalized and dominant societies will be better understood and taken into consideration for future research and education activities. Research outcomes will contribute to more effective informal, place-based and experiential science learning to help empower communities and decision makers in meeting challenges of sustainability. Inevitably, we expect this work to extend our understanding of science learning related to critical natural and cultural resources and their management. An understanding of how, why and where learning takes place will help extend the US and international research and education agendas related to informal science learning, natural and cultural resource management and sustainability.
Non-technical part.
This is a collaborative research project between Montana State University (MSU), Bozeman, USA and Gorno-Altaisk State University (GASU), Altai Republic, Russian Federation. In this NSF International Research Experiences for Students project MSU students will travel to the Altai Republic and work with faculty and students at Gorno-Altaisk University to conduct research related to native language use in learning ecological sciences in informal settings. Student researchers will conduct individual studies related to the project theme of science learning in ecological contexts. This project we will help students learn how to conduct educational research related to the ecological learning experiences of indigenous youth (ages12-16) and the use and influence of native language in learning about environment. Three cohorts of five MSU students will travel to the Altai Republic for eight weeks in the summers of 2013, 2014 & 2015. MSU students will comprise a research team with GASU science, education and language faculty to conduct research in the city of Gorno-Altaisk, two medium size villages such as Onguday and two small villages such as Karakol. We expect to work with youth in each setting and interview a representative sample at each site. As a research team we expect to gain a better understanding of how indigenous youth use native Altai language in informal settings to learn about environment. We expect to compare sights within the study. As part of our larger research interests in ecological learning and native people, we will conduct a similar comparative study in the Yellowstone Ecosystem with Native American youth. The studies associated with this project will add to our understanding about the extent and nature of native language use to learn science in underserved populations in very sensitive and unique ecological and cultural settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Michael BrodyClifford MontagneArthur BangertChristine StantonShane Doyle
This report presents a project overview and findings from a formative evaluation of the Ready, Set, School prototype exhibit space at Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh, NC. This study was conducted by museum staff in consultation with Randi Korn & Associates in May 2013.
Produced by National Geographic Kids and Cricket Moon Media with support from the National Science Foundation, Marine Missions is a free iPad touch screen application for preschoolers. The app is hosted by Jacques, a hermit crab character who guides pre-readers through six ocean missions and the building of a fantasy sea creature. Players steer Jacques’ boat to three green markers to clean up polluted spots in the ocean and three orange markers to complete different water current challenges in which players rescue Jacques’ tools from a whirlpool, run past blowholes, and surf on tidal bores
This is a descriptive summative evaluation study of visitors’ experiences with the permanent collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts, after the extensive museum-wide visitor-centric renovation and reinstallation that began in 1998 and culminated with a grand opening in 2007. Using a naturalistic methodology, three researchers from Selinda Research Associates made two three-day site visits (in January and March of 2013) and spent over 32 hours observing and interviewing 45 groups (181 individuals). Visitors’ experiences with works of art included stories and storytelling, visiting an old
Over a period of three weeks in October 2012, Marbles Kids Museum conducted focus groups to support the development of a new school readiness-focused exhibit space and programming. Focus groups included parents of children ages 3-5, preschool and early elementary school educators, and staff from community organizations involved in early childhood education in Wake County, NC. Focus groups addressed the following questions: (1) What does school readiness mean to you? (2) What do you envision or expect in a school readiness exhibit space? (3) What school readiness program possibilities can you
This is a presentation about the ScienceCenter Netzwork, a network of science centers and museums in Austria. The presentation was a part of the Summit on Informal Science Networks at the Association of Science-Technology Centers annual conference in Albuquerque, NM.
Across the globe, citizen science projects are becoming increasingly poised to address social and environmental challenges and answer broad scientific questions. Although rapidly increasing in number, these projects need easy-to-use software tools for data management, analysis, and visualization to be successful. This project transforms how citizen science projects unfold locally, regionally, and globally by creating software that supports the full spectrum of project activities. It empowers projects to ask and answer their own local questions while contributing data critical to larger-scale issues. These tools will allow projects to announce training events; track volunteers; create datasheets; enter, review, analyze, and visualize data; publish reports; discover resources; integrate data; and ensure that data are contributed to repositories (e.g., DataONE, NEON, GBIF, HydroShare, and EOL). Tools will be made available to citizen science projects and will be delivered as reusable software elements for use in existing websites; as website features on CitSci.org; and as Application Programming Interface (API) services and mobile applications. The tools will expand the national reach, local appeal, computational abilities, visualization techniques, statistical analysis capabilities, and interoperability of the nations' cyber-infrastructure. Using participatory design and agile methods, the project will: (1) develop reusable software elements that citizen science organizations can embed into their own websites, (2) harden and expand the functionality and capabilities of CitSci.org through new website features, and (3) extend the APIs of CitSci.org and develop associated mobile applications to increase system and tool interoperability. The target user communities will include citizen science project coordinators. It will deliver customizable tools and services related to all project activities and engage projects across a wide array of disciplines. Project coordinators will be able to customize all tools developed to suit their specific project needs. Adoption and use of the tools developed will create a cyber-ready workforce capable of collecting, contributing, and applying high quality ecological, geophysical, social, and human health related observations to solve real-world problems. These broader impacts will help the citizen science community better understand effective models of public engagement to ensure more impactful application of citizen science to societal challenges.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gregory NewmanStacy LynnMelinda Laituri
The Exploring Engagement and Science Identity Through Participation is a research project that examines the outcomes of various citizen science models for Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR). The investigation specifically targets citizen science projects that focus on relationships between science learning and science identity. A mixed-method, meta-analysis approach will be employed. The two primary goals of the study are to better understand science learning and science identify within PPSR contexts and to develop a valid Participant Engagement Metric (PEM) for use within PPSR contexts. Data will be collected and analyzed from several PPSR projects and over 4,000 PPSR participants. The project will address several research questions: (1) What are the dimensions of PPSR engagement and how can we measure them across different project models? The research for this question will include approximately 50 interviews of participants in six primary projects representing a range of PPSR approaches to develop and validate a Participant Engagement Metric (PEM) that will be constructed from the frequency, duration and intensity of involvement in key activities. The project will use a constant comparative method of data analysis (processing of data as they are gathered in order to compare them with emerging categories. The development of the PEM will be one concrete outcome of the proposed research. (2) Within and among projects, what is the relationship between participant engagement and individual learning outcomes? The project will use validated measures of learning outcomes derived from Learning Science in Informal Environments (NRC, 2009) and developed for the DEVISE project described below. The six measures include: Behavior & Stewardship, Skills of Science Inquiry, Knowledge of the Nature of Science, Interest in Science & the Environment, Efficacy, and Motivation. The proposed research will look at how engagement affects learning outcomes, as assessed by these six measures (science interest, efficacy, etc.). The project will conduct participant surveys in the six participating citizen science projects in addition to several other PPSR projects to test the relationship of the PEM and other measures of activity involvement to the learning outcomes measured by the survey instruments developed and validated through a previous project. The data analysis will begin with univariate summary statistics that will provide an overview of the basic dataset. Inferential statistics including multiple regression analysis will be used to test the relationships among the independent variables (type of PPSR project, demographics), PEM as a mediator variable, and the dependent variables. (3) How does degree and quality of participation in scientific research develop and/or reinforce individual science identity? The project will conduct a 3-year longitudinal study using surveys, a series of in-depth interviews, and on-site observations of 36 participants from the six primary projects to understand the development of individual science identity within PPSR environments over time. Quantitative and qualitative data and findings will be "triangulated" to determine if convergent, inconsistent or complementary results can be identified. The project proposes a strong dissemination plan, using these approaches, to present research in journals, disseminate research briefs, host online forums, and launching various listserves and online forums at the citizenscience.org website.
Indianapolis / City as Living Laboratory (I/CaLL) is a city-wide civic collaboration engaging in cross-sector research that builds on prior research in informal science learning in public settings. It extends research in place-based and service learning traditions, and uses the city itself as an informal science learning (ISL) environment for Science and Engineering for Environmental Sustainability learning outcomes. This project is creating place-based science learning experiences as part of public spaces in Indianapolis and establishes the next generation of urban science museums that increase opportunities for learning. The project will develop a self-sustaining program for art/science collaborations as they inaugurate city-sanctioned changeable installations at I/CaLL sites. Data from the project will be used to inform ISL professionals at museums throughout the community and around the country. Thousands of volunteers and their families will help create I/CaLL spaces, engage with communities, and serve as research participants connecting with science learning through site development. The unprecedented scale of this project provides a full measure of informal science service learning at a city scale, offering data that can change how science learning is measured, how people from all walks of life develop science literacy as part of their social public experience, and embodying the concept of the city as a living science learning lab. Broader impacts include the development of the city as an informal science learning environment that will become a new standard for thinking about what cities as cultural units can become as we build a resilient Science and Engineering culture for Environmental Sustainability.
National Parks are full of interesting and unusual STEM features which often intrigue visitors whose questions are answered by park personnel. In addition to the natural features, there are often researchers in the parks gathering data and conducting experiments. Park personnel are not apprised of these studies yet are often questioned about them. This collaborative project's goals are to derive a mechanism to educate the park personnel so they can respond to the visitor's inquiries. Collaborators include the National Park Service (NPS), TERC, Winston-Salem State University, and the park personnel at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The plan is to work through the park interpreters who are employees of NPS and often are the voice for explaining the park's natural features. For this project, the interpreters and researchers will collaborate on the explanations of the science and TERC will work with the interpreters on interacting or educating the public visitors on the research. This is a pilot study to determine how best to bridge the scientists and their research to the park visitors. Evaluation on all elements in this study will be done by Char Associates and the Institute for Mathematics and Science Education at New Mexico State University. The results of this study are to determine the issues in explaining the research to the park interpreters and thence to the park visitors. If successful, it is anticipated that a model will be developed in collaboration with the NPS for use in other National Parks.
Our goal is to demonstrate an educational model fully commensurate with the demands of the 21st Century workforce, and more specifically, with the emerging “green-tech” economy. We recognize a pressing need creating more sustainable solutions for the (human) built-environment and of stabilizing economic patterns that uphold sustainable systems. to prepare citizens for the challenges of The ASCEND model is designed to encourage these societal shifts, but at the same time, it is an attempt to put theory into practice - activating educational practices aligned with research on human development and cognition. For some time now strong recommendations for apprenticeship learning have emphasized the function of legitimate peripheral participation – the possibility of which becomes more prevalent in robust communities of practice. As compared to top-down approaches (typical of formal education settings) these "learning communities" are seen as being more closely aligned with our natural propensities for learning and cognition. ASCEND represents a design-experiment -an attempt to learn how we can create and sustain opportunities for apprenticeship learning in an interdisciplinary arena at the leading edge of technical innovation. In addition, the ASCEND model introduces and examines the efficacy of “digital storytelling” as an alternative to more traditional forms of apprenticeship learning and as a means to engage and advance this and future generations in STEM. A further goal is to develop innovative measures of assessment commensurate with this new model of apprenticeship learning. Finally ASCEND explore how informal learning organizations (museums, libraries, preserves etc.) can use digital storytelling to develop community-driven programs inclusive of at-risk youth and other hard to reach audiences.
Living Liquid is a full-scale development project that will develop and research a new genre of science exhibit that engage visitors in inquiry with large scientific datasets through interactive visualizations. Building on findings from a prior pathways project, Living Liquid will develop three interactive visualizations on a multi-touch Viz Table with a tangible user interface. Each visualization will support visitors in the exploration of a dataset provided by the project’s science partners: 1) Plankton Patterns will show how the ocean is defined by regions of microscopic life using data from the MIT Darwin Project; 2) Ocean Tracks will reveal the “highways” large marine creatures travel with data from the TOPP project at Stanford University; and 3) Genetic Rhythms will follow the activity of marine creatures’ genes in response to environmental conditions based on data from the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education (C-MORE). Through an iterative process of collaborative research and development among museum professionals, educational researchers, computer scientists, marine biologists, data artists and interaction designers, this project seeks to: (1) Advance public understanding of ocean ecosystems and large data inquiry skills through the development of a Viz Table. (2) Advance STEM professionals’ knowledge of how to engage the public in inquiry with visualizations through an educational research study. (3) Increase the capacity of STEM professionals (both ISE developers and research scientists) to develop visualizations through a collaborative development process that includes graduate student training and residencies.