This Advancing Informal Science Learning Pathways project, Using Technology to Research After Class (UTRAC), explores whether a combination of technology (e.g., iPad-enabled sensors, web-based inquiry-focused portal) and facilitated visits improves learning outcomes for rural and Native American elementary-age youth in after school programs. Expected outcomes include improved engagement, knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Project goals include promoting STEM learning through science inquiry activities keyed to specific Next Generation Science Standards as well as improving how technology can be used to enhance learning outcomes in afterschool programs. The experimental design of this project - testing the effects of physical or virtual facilitation visits on learning outcomes - will lead to improvements in STEM learning outcomes among rural and underrepresented students. This project will employ several innovations in utilizing technology to teach STEM topics including: (i) hands-on, real-time, crowd sourced data collected by participants in their schoolyards; (ii) a pedagogic emphasis on communication of schoolyard data among and between participants; (iii) testing of motivational incentives; and (iv) partnerships between after school providers, preservice teachers, and university researchers as facilitators. The entire process will be modularized so that it can be modified in terms of place, STEM topic or student cohort. The topic focus of the project -- Life Under Snow -- is relevant to participating students, as Montana school playgrounds lie blanketed under snow for the majority of the school year; it includes elements of snow science, carbon cycle science, and a combination at the intersection of three recent literacy initiatives (e.g., Earth Science, Climate, or Energy). UTRAC will pilot and evaluate facilitated snow science/carbon cycle science activities that couple real-time schoolyard data with tools patterned after those available through WISE (Web-based Inquiry Science Environment; wise.berkeley.edu). Participants will collect and compare data with other youth participants, and researchers will use formative assessments to define interventions with potential to maximize student engagement and learning improvements among underserved youth. The project will advance understanding of informal education's potential to improve STEM engagement, knowledge, skills and attitudes by quantifying how - and to what extent - youth engage with emerging technologies iPad-enabled sensors, and crowdsourcing and visualization tools. The deliverables include a quantifying metric for learning outcomes, a training model for the iPad sensors and web application, an orientation kit, a social media portal, and database for the measurements.
The Rutgers Film Bureau in collaboration with the scientists of the LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) project at Palmer will produce a multi-platform documentary project, Antarctic Quest: Racing to Understand a Changing Ocean. This Connecting Researchers to Public Audiences proposal will focus on the scientists who are studying ocean physics, chemistry, biology, and ecology in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), which is the fastest winter warming location on earth. The aim of the project is to promote scientific knowledge about the world's oceans and climate change, inspire interest in scientific careers, as well as train a cadre of next generation film students in the craft of science documentary filmmaking. The project will articulate the research of the Palmer LTER's quest to understand the impact of climate change on the marine ecosystems of the WAP, while involving university students in the filmmaking process. Deliverables include an hour television documentary intended for PBS television broadcast, an online "Antarctic Quest community" created through interactive and interconnected social media, three five-minute educational videos produced for the PBS Learning Media website, and a Digital Media Library to assist Earth science educators. The production team will employ a diverse group of twenty film students from Rutgers University to be involved in the many phases and components of the project. The project is designed to advance the public's environmental literacy. The project will raise awareness of the changes being observed in the world's oceans by illustrating how small changes in the physical conditions in the WAP can have profound impact on marine ecosystems and potentially the entire ocean system. The project will also highlight the significance of innovative new technologies that are revolutionizing research methods as well document the importance of scientific collaboration to understand a complex interdisciplinary problem and the challenges of working in extreme environments. The summative evaluation of the project will assess the effectiveness of the project in meeting its educational goals. By communicating significant scientific research to the public while training a cohort of next generation of science documentary filmmakers, the project will also contribute to capacity-building in the Informal Science Education field.
This early-stage design and development, integrated media and research project will contribute important new understandings to the informal science learning literature by exploring science engagement on social media when integrated with broadcast television. It will help answer questions including: What does such engagement look like? Who participates? How and why does it happen? and What is the degree or depth of engagement? The project builds on the previous successful work by WGBH nationally distributing the television series NOVA scienceNOW and the research expertise of EDC. WGBH's NOVA scienceNOW program will collaborate with EDC to develop new metrics to understand how and why learners engage with science on social media. Deliverables will include six one-hour episodes of NOVA scienceNOW, short online videos, moderated online discussion events, and an online film festival. A new social Media Initiative will develop six live broadcast microblogging events, six post-broadcast online discussion events, daily social media updates, and an online film festival that will feature user generated videos. A range of STEM content in the videos and online posts will be framed around big science and engineering questions such as animal communication and survival systems, the biology of sleep, climate change, new technologies, energy, genetics, and natural disasters. The continued innovations and expansion of social media channels provides significant new opportunities for providing learner's access to high quality science content, researchers, and opportunities to participate in science. In the first phase of this work to deepen the evidence based understanding of how social media supports informal science engagement, NOVA and EDC will collaborate to develop new measurement instruments: (1) a Network Profile to quantitatively represent the size and activity of NOVA's social media network; (2) an Informal Science Engagement (ISE) index to measure the degree of engagement by coding and analyzing conversations and posts; (3) a Follower Profile to assess the degree of activity and the nature of the engagement; and (4) a Science Social Media Engagement survey instrument. They will then use these measures and data collection protocols to explore whether and how the initiative might influence science engagement. External expert reviewers with content and methodological expertise will review all aspects of the project at critical junctures. This project will contribute important new knowledge and research instruments and methods to better understand how the learning opportunities of social media channels can be realized most effectively. This has significant potential for broad and lasting benefits to society as well as advancing the informal science learning field.
Following on the outcomes of an NSF-funded conference to this project's principal investigator, a team of educators, scientists, and communication experts from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, University of Massachusetts Boston, Hofstra University, the Boston Museum of Science and other professionals is implementing a full-scale development project to investigate the impact of an Out-of-Home Multi-Media (OHMM) exhibit on adults riding Boston's subway system (the "T"). The project's goal is to design, implement, and study the efficacy of an OHMM model for free-choice science learning about our changing climate. A rotating exhibit of twelve specially designed placards, posters, as well as virtual, web-based learning resources linked to the exhibit content will potentially engage over 420,000 adult riders per day along two of the T's four lines. Wireless access throughout light rail systems and the rise of smart phones represent a confluence of factors making an innovative form of engagement possible. The work is positioned to test this new model for informal science education and potentially could be expanded in Boston and into other cities around the country.
In this article, we review concepts, measures, and strategies that can be applied to opinion-leader campaigns on climate change. These campaigns can be used to catalyze wider political engagement on the issue and to promote sustainable consumer choices and behaviors. From past research, we outline six relevant categories of self-designated opinion-leaders, detailing issues related to identification, recruitment, training, message development, and coordination. We additionally analyze as prominent initiatives Al Gore's The Climate Project and his more recent We campaign, which combines the
Climate Change Education produced climate change educational experiences for both professional and general public audiences. In particular, the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), in collaboration with NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, and the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), developed new content for SMM’s Earth Buzz online network, developed a climate change educational program for middle and high school teachers, invited audiences of policy- and decision-makers to SMM for climate change discussions, and recruited and mentored a climate change team of high school students through SMM’s Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center. The project goals were to increase the awareness and understanding in target audiences that (1) human activities are now surpass natural processes as driving forces of atmospheric change, (2) the behavior of Earth's atmosphere in the 21st Century will be increasingly determined by humans, and (3) human ingenuity is the key to adapting to and mitigating the climate changes underway. Highlights of the project included organizing and hosting the October 26-28, 2011 City of Saint Paul Climate Change Adaptation Scenario Planning Workshop, which catalyzed climate resilience as a city planning priority, organizing and hosting with Morris A. Ward, Inc. the October 5-6, 2012 Climate Change Science for Minnesota Broadcast Meteorologists workshop which brought together local TV and radio meteorologists with some of the best climate scientists in the U.S., helping to organize and host on November 7, 2013 the State of Minnesota’s first conference devoted exclusively to climate change adaptation, and the adoption by the museum of a public statement on climate change (www.smm.org/climatechange). The project endures although the grant has concluded through the continued delivery of the museum’s Climate Changed outreach program to a wide array of audiences and through the museum’s continued involvement with the many partnerships established during the Climate Change Education project, as exemplified by the museum working with the City of Saint Paul and Macalester College on an upcoming St. Paul Neighborhood Climate Adaptation Workshop and a Worldwide Views on Climate and Energy event (climateandenergy.wwviews.org/).
Rockman et al (REA), a San Francisco-based research and evaluation firm, conducted the summative evaluation of the Sea Change website. Through funding from the National Science Foundation, Dan Grossman Media developed this website as part of Dr. Maureen Raymo's research. Her research looks at the Pliocene era (thought to be the most recent time in geologic history with a concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere with levels as high as today). The aim of the Sea Change website is to raise awareness about global-warming-induced sea level rise and how scientists study it. This report follows a
This documentary film series and community story project aims to raise awareness of the critical role of trees for all life on Earth and to spark interest in getting involved with trees at the local level. Trees are threatened by climate disruption and deforestation, and yet at the same time are essential to efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Many citizen groups are involved with planting and care of trees. Collaboration with these groups at the national and community level offers a practical, action-oriented opportunity to mobilize networks of citizens already interested in and identified with trees in the effort to raise broader awareness of the subject. Project deliverables include a 3-part PBS documentary series, a multimedia story project in collaboration with several of these citizen groups; a website and social media; and informational materials to support broadcast meteorologists in reporting about tree science in the context of current weather/changing climate. The project is projected to reach at least 15 million Americans during the grant period and many more during the 10-year project lifespan of the films. Principal public audiences include PBS viewers and citizen foresters. The professional audience is broadcast meteorologists. Partners include the U.S. Forest Service, National Environmental Education Foundation, and Alliance for Community Trees. This is a new model of local/national collaborative storytelling and community engagement designed to increase knowledge, awareness, and interest in tree biology and forest ecology.
This project will produce a multi-part radio project including eight half-hour documentaries, 40-50 short radio features, an audio clearinghouse and a website on scientific research in the Polar Regions. The content of the programs support the goals of IPY. The project will be produced with four international radio partners: the science units of The Australian Broadcasting Co., the BBC World Service, Radio Deustche-Welle and Radio New Zealand. These international collaborators will look at issues such as the influence of conditions in Polar Regions on global climatic change, how animals adapt to rapid environmental change, survival in extreme environments and processes of change among native people in the Polar regions. The programs will reach a large audience in the United States as well as internationally through the collaborating partners. The clearinghouse/website will be designed to provide organized learning resources and an audio archive of the project's radio programs and archival interviews and sounds for use by both the general public and professional audiences. There will be both formative and summative evaluation of the programs and website.
The project DIG: Scientists in Alaska's Scenery will perform proof-of-concept on integrating a tourist's visit with place-based stories of meaningful science research in the Arctic. DIG (Digitally Integrated Guide) will widen the general public's interaction with the cultural and natural environment by allowing them to access Web sites and load their handheld mobile devices with engaging descriptions of research. Access can occur before, during, or after their visit - even if the visit takes them far from computers, electricity and the Internet. The creation of user-friendly access to technology and to scientists' stories will provide a new information tool for the public. For these tourists, or others interested in research in Alaska, opportunities to learn directly from the scientists themselves are almost non-existent. Moreover, tourists have no capability to link such research with places they visit. DIG's place-based outreach will be delivered using standard media (broadcast TV, publications) and social media (Web, facebook, twitter, etc.) and mobile devices. DIG demonstration project will join scientists, Alaska Native peoples, tourists, media makers, interpreters and technology experts in inquiry-based learning designed to maximize engagement by the general public. The radically different approach to Arctic-focused science documentary proposed here fosters the close collaboration of the scientist and media maker. Video podcasts (vodcasts) and supporting Web-based materials will be created for three current research projects in Alaska, with a focus on NSF-funded projects. Such projects include anthropology and cultural/linguistic study, paleontology, climate change research, biology, and other areas. Delivery and evaluation will emphasize tourists who visit, or are planning to visit, the National Parks of Alaska. These tourists are accessible to the research team, and they are motivated to seek out information about the places they are visiting. If successful, our approach to science education and outreach will augment their knowledge about research in Alaska, resulting in a deeper and more informed experience.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gregory NewbyLiz O'ConnellDeborah Perry
I-CLEEN, a project led by the Museum of Science of Trento (Italy), has developed and currently manages an information gateway of Earth system science educational resources. The aim of the project is to support Italian science teachers in setting up Earth science student-centred lessons. To do so effectively, the gateway exhibits the following key features: it adopts a bottom – up approach to resource development that relies on strong cooperation between science teachers and professional researchers (who also act as resource referees); it is subject–oriented and enhances the multi- and interdisciplinary traits that characterize geosciences; it embraces the concept of open source, through the technological tools (LifeRay) used and copyright policies adopted. A service usability study was performed after the first launch of the gateway and the results were used to develop the second release, which is currently online. During the preliminary phase of the project, as well as the development and set-up of the gateway, valuable insight was gained in various different fields: On the current situation in geoscience education in Italy – where teachers are encouraged to take up a student-centred approach, experiential education and learning initiatives, but currently opt for academic teaching methods because they lack the support and the tools needed. On the educational resource gateways currently available online, on the materials they provide and on the role of ICT in Earth science education. On the results achieved and the tools developed during previous science communication activities that involved teachers and students in research projects.
The Great Immensity is a play with music created by the New York-based theater company, The Civilians. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), this production explores humans' relationship to the environment focusing on critical issues of conservation and climate change. It premiered at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre (KC Rep) from February 17 through March 18, 2012. This summative evaluation employs the Framework for Evaluating Impacts of Informal Science Education Projects (Friedman 2008) to assess the play and its ancillary programs' impact on adult and student audiences