Conservation education at zoos, parks and other free-choice conservation settings is geared towards teaching and/or reinforcing certain key conservation messages that relate to the mission of the institution. These messages are communicated through a variety of channels ranging from interpretive signage, to resource elements (e.g., animals, scenic vistas, etc.) and personnel (e.g., docents and interpreters. A number of studies have focused on the outcome of visits to such settings, but little is known about the accuracy of message communication through these channels, or the factors that
The work described in this white paper was undertaken in direct response to information WNET received from science museums describing certain challenges they face when partnering with public television stations on outreach initiatives. The PBS Series THE HUMAN SPARK provided the perfect opportunity to explore better ways to collaborate on large-scale initiatives, and to learn how these collaborations might provide the framework for attracting new audiences, increasing membership and revenue, and developing long-lasting partnerships.
This report presents the findings of a qualitative study that asked 38 secondary science teachers, ‘How can natural history museums effectively support science teaching and learning?’ A partnership of four natural history museums across England, teachers from their local areas and a university education department were involved. The museums work in partnership to support school science at 11–18. In-depth focus groups held at the museums and questionnaires were used.
The media are the most pervasive disseminators of informal science education in this country. Watching commercial and non-commercial television will provide you with information on alligators or zygotes, bio-fuels or stem cells, polar bears or hurricanes. Radio, too, provides discussions of genetics and global warming and birds and stars. Often radio and television will cover science issues with a contextual overlay of politics or morality, so viewers and listeners can sense how they and their community relate to it. But for excitement, going to the theater to see an IMAX movie will take you
This report details a nine-month summative evaluation of the Underwater Dome Exhibit at the Seattle Aquarium. The study was undertaken to inform the Aquarium's development of short- term, cost-effective updates to improve visitor satisfaction and experience in the dome. The study sought to develop a baseline understanding of how visitors use and react to the exhibit, as well as to determine whether or not visitors understand that the dome represents the Puget Sound. Data was collected using observational and survey instruments (included in the appendix of this report).
The purpose of this research study was to investigate: students' schema structure for human evolution; their idiosyncratic conceptual change after visiting a museum exhibition; the role of alternative frameworks during learning; and the function of affect in learning. Thirty eleventh and twelfth grade high school students, eleven males and nineteen females, visited an exhibition on human evolution and participated in an opened-ended pre and post interview and Likert-type questionnaire. The interviews were transcribed, segmented by using shifts in natural language, and pre and post schema
In the following pages I describe what happens when an exhibit dense in local meanings enters the national arena. The Yup'ik mask exhibit Agayuliyararput (Our Way of Making Prayer) began as visual repatriation—bringing objects out of museums back into a local context—and ended as a tribal exhibit displayed in three very different majority institutions, including an American Indian museum, a natural history museum, and an art museum. The mask exhibit was developed as a three-way collaboration between Yup'ik community members, an anthropologist, and museum professionals. As it traveled farther
This is an interview with paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould exploring his personal background, career accomplishments, research on Darwinism, and views regarding religion.
This study investigated middle school students’ identity development as learners of science during learning conversations at an informal science education camp. The central research question was: What is the role of conversation in influencing science learner identity development during an informal science education camp? Identity in this study was defined as becoming and being recognized as a certain type of person (Gee, 2001). This study focused particularly on discursive identity, defined as individual traits recognized through discourse with other individuals (Gee, 2005; 2011). The study
Although schools traditionally take their pupils to Natural History Museums, little has been elicited about either the overall content of the conversations generated by such groups or of the effect on content in the presence of an adult. Transcripts were coded using a systemic network which had been designed based on pilot studies. A range of variables was created from the coded data. The number of conversations that contained at least one reference to the designated categories were ascertained overall and those of the three sub-groups, pupils and teacher, pupils and chaperone and pupils alone
This paper explores the role of questioning in scientific meaning-making as families talk, look and gesture in front of realistic and artful dioramas at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The focus is on the ways questioning can either enable movement towards scientific understanding or hinder such progress. The socio-cultural framework of this research emphasizes Vygotsky's interpretation of the zone of proximal development (zpd). Questions are viewed as tools for mediation in the zpd. This paper examines three families' dialogues, excerpted from a larger study of collaborative
This chapter explores natural history exhibits, particularly dioramas, with regard to both art and authenticity. Dioramas are treated as a novel form of scientific model.