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
In this article, Rita Mukherjee Hoffstadt, Assistant Director for Traveling Exhibits and Special Projects at The Franklin Institute, summarizes the conversations discussed at the American Association of Museums (AAM) awards session for the 23rd Annual Excellence in Exhibition Competition held at the AAM annual conference in Houston, Texas in May 2011. The winners all embraced and managed an element of risk in the process of creating their exhibitions.
Living Liquid will identify strategies for creating visualization tools that can actively engage the public with emerging research about the ocean's microbes and their impact on our planet. It addresses a critical issue for the ISE field: creating ways for visitors to ask and answer their own questions about emerging areas of science with visualizations. This Pathway project will provide important lessons learned for a future full-scale development project at the Exploratorium's new location over San Francisco Bay, and for informal science educators and other professionals working to create interactive visualization tools using the vast data sets now available. Living Liquid is a collaboration between developers, educators and learning researchers at the Exploratorium, computer scientists at the Visualization Interface and Design Innovation Group at UC Davis, and marine scientists at the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education. The project's research and development process includes a front-end study of visitors' interests and prior knowledge related to ocean microbes, interviews with scientists to identify potential datasets and activities, a survey of candidate visualizations, and a series of prototypes to identify promising strategies to engage visitors with and allow visitors to explore large scientific datasets through visualization tools.
In this Communicating Research to Public Audiences (CRPA) project, the University of Washington and the Pacific Science Center (PSC) are highlighting the results of Dr. Kelley's active research discoveries about deep-sea life located on active hydrothermal vents of the ocean floors (OCE-0426109). The STEM content of this project includes oceanography, marine biology, and ecology. The project team will develop a multimedia, interactive kiosk exhibit that builds on the existing Portal to the Public project at PSC. Kelley\'s graduate students are actively involved in the exhibit and outreach components. The target audience for "Life in Extreme Environments" is the approximately 800,000 U.S. and international visitors to PSC, including a significant number of urban, underserved minorities. This CRPA project will become a component of the existing Portal to the Public exhibit. This exhibit kiosk will subsequently be made available to other scientists to promote research and related topics in their respective disciplines. The exhibit will be fabricated and evaluated by PSC staff.
In this Communicating Research to Public Audiences (CRPA) project, the University of Washington and the Pacific Science Center (PSC, Seattle) are highlighting the results of PI Kelley's active research discoveries about deep-sea life located on active hydrothermal vents of the ocean floors (NSF award OCE 0426109). The STEM content of this project includes oceanography, marine biology, and ecology. The project team will develop a multimedia, interactive kiosk exhibit that builds on the existing Portal to the Public project at the PSC. Kelley's graduate students are actively involved in the exhibit and outreach components of this CRPA. The target audience for 'Life in Extreme Environments' is the ~800,000 U.S. and international visitors to the PSC, which also includes a significant number of urban, underserved minorities. This CRPA project is a component of the existing Portal to the Public exhibit. After \'Life in Extreme Environments\' ends at the PSC, this exhibit kiosk will be made available to other scientists to promote research and related topics in their respective disciplines. The exhibit is being fabricated and evaluated by the staff at the Pacific Science Center.
Brown University, a founding member of the 72-member New England Science Center Collaborative (NESCC), is leading Seasons of Change, a traveling exhibit development project involving members of NESCC as well as the 31-member North Carolina Grassroots Science Museums Collaborative. The key concept of the exhibit is how regional iconic "harbingers" are related to climate change - for example, the impacts of a changing climate on the maple syrup industry in New England and shifts in bird migration patterns in North Carolina. Two customizable and modularized versions of an approximately 900 square foot exhibit on local impacts of climate change are being produced for small and medium-sized venues. The project expects to serve approximately 1.5 million visitors in the two regions and is positioned as an innovative model for other regions of the country. A citizen science program will be developed by staff at TERC for those participating centers with outdoor venues. The exhibit is being designed by Jeff Kennedy Associates and MegaFun simulation software designers. NESCC is also developing a project Web site. Goodman Research Associates is conducting both formative and summative evaluation processes on visitor learning and on the project's collaborative process. The Association of Science-Technology Centers will manage the two tours.
In 2008, COSI received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to develop the exhibit Labs in Life (LG-26-08-0146). The development of the Labs in Life embodies a unique model for collaboration, with active researchers interested in research outcomes while simultaneously serving as models for the public, and science center staff concurrently gleaning new and changing content for exhibits and programs. While each partner is motivated by many different goals, all agree that they are interested in stimulating public interest in and understanding of science and technology
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Institute for Learning InnovationJoe E Heimlich
COSI developed and installed a set of exhibits to complement the health sciences research being conducted by Ohio State University researchers in four visible lab areas within the Life exhibit area at COSI. Specifically, the interactive experience platform was designed to serve as an interface between the labs and the public to provide space for community educational programming on nutrition and physical activity. The purpose of this evaluation was to identify problems with the new exhibits that can be corrected through remediation. Specifically, a timing and tracking study was conducted to
Research shows that the main motivation of people who come to zoos is to have quality time with their families. At the Cincinnati Zoo, we have placed a strategic focus on becoming more visitor-focused, with a commitment to better understanding their needs in a free-choice learning environment. This includes tailoring interpretive exhibits to engage families, our primary audience. Made possible with funding from a Museums for America grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, we underwent a two-year process of research, development and design, and evaluation to re-interpret the award-winning Jungle Trails exhibit with a focus on active family engagement. In Jungle Trails, guests journey along a path that winds through nearly two acres of jungle-type landscape, featuring African and Asian primates, including Sumatran orangutans, gibbons, and bonobos. The exhibit appeals to visitors' emotions and motivations through an innate connection we all have with our closest animal relatives. As they learn how primates survive in the jungle, new interpretive signage and family interactives encourage guests to wonder what it would be like if their family lived in the forest. Interactives present group challenges that our non-human primate relatives face every day. Together with their troop, guests use sticks to push a stone through a maze, test their memories to find fruit in a matching game, bang out a troop rhythm on a buttress root, and compete to see who is best at tying shoes without using their thumbs. They also try out more physical skills such as swinging across bars like a gibbon and balancing like a lemur on a mini-ropes course. Colorful and playful signage introduces guests to the animals from the first-person perspective of the animal and includes questions to prompt discussion of how the animal's life compares to their own. Interactive iPad kiosks at the orangutan, gibbon and bonobo exhibits allow them to engage deeper. Guests may choose to watch videos on taking care of the animals, read about the individual animals' personalities, learn how they can help save the species or build a super primate of their own. By the time families reach the end of the trail, they have participated in activities together that have brought them closer to their primate relatives, human and non-human. Evaluation found that families engage with the interactives as intended. When asked how they would describe Jungle Trails to a friend, the word most commonly used by guests was "fun", followed by those that indicate it was "interactive" and "educational". Once overlooked and often missed by guests, Jungle Trails is now a destination exhibit as summed up by a regular Zoo guest who noted: "I got bored with Jungle Trails. Now looking forward to coming again!" Jungle Trails received an Excellence in Exhibition Special Distinction, Exemplary Model of Creating Experiences for Social Engagement, from the American Association of Museums in 2014.
This project entails the creation of a coordinated colony of robotic bees, RoboBees. Research topics are split between the body, brain, and colony. Each of these research areas is drawn together by the challenges of recreating various functionalities of natural bees. One such example is pollination: Bees coordinate to interact with complex natural systems by using a diversity of sensors, a hierarchy of task delegation, unique communication, and an effective flapping-wing propulsion system. Pollination and other agricultural tasks will serve as challenge thrusts throughout the life of this project. Such tasks require expertise across a broad spectrum of scientific topics. The research team includes experts in biology, computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering, and materials science, assembled to address fundamental challenges in developing RoboBees. An integral part of this program is the development of a museum exhibit, in partnership with the Museum of Science, Boston, which will explore the life of a bee and the technologies required to create RoboBees.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert WoodRadhika NagpalJ. Gregory MorrisettGu-Yeon WeiJoseph Ayers
Researchers have now acquired so much information about how the brain learns that a new academic discipline has been born, called “educational neuroscience” or “mind, brain, and education science.” This field explores how research findings from neuroscience, education, and psychology can inform our understandings about teaching and learning, and whether they have implications for educational practice. This interdisciplinary approach ensures that recommendations for applying these findings to instructional practices have a foundation in solid scientific research. It also ensures that teachers
In this interview, author and professor R. Keith Sawyer describes the importance of and interconnections among creativity, collaboration, and the science of learning. He explains that the older paradigm of schooling from 50 years ago where rote learning was predominant is no longer relevant in a knowledge-based society. We now have to prepare students for jobs that require adaptability, flexibility, and creativity. He endorses an approach to education that fosters a deeper conceptual understanding, especially through collaborative creativity. He maintains that true innovation usually comes