In partnership with the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, The Franklin Institute Science Museum will develop, test, and pilot an exportable and replicable cyberlearning exhibit using two cutting edge technologies: Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). The exhibit's conceptualization is anchored in the learning research vision of the NSF-funded workshop Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Learning for the Future (Computing Research Association, 2005). The incorporation of VR and AR technologies into the Franklin Institute's electricity and Earth science exhibits is an innovation of traditional approaches to hands-on learning and will improve the quality of the learning experience for the primary audience of families with children and elementary school groups. The project has implications for future exhibit development and more broadly, will provide new research on learning on how to incorporate cyberlearning efforts into traditional exhibits. Fifteen participating exhibit developers across the ISE field will assist in the evaluation of the new exhibit; receive training on the design and development of VR and AR exhibits for their institutions; and receive full access to the exhibit's new software for implementation at their informal learning sites. The technology applications will be developed by Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center--leaders in the field in Virtual Reality design and development. Front-end and formative evaluation will be overseen internally by the Franklin Institute. The Institute for Learning Innovation will conduct the summative evaluation. Research will be conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education on the effects of AR and VR technologies on exhibit learning.
Mission to Mars engages 6th-8th grade students in the science, engineering and careers related to Mars exploration. The program is led by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, and includes as partners Challenger Learning Centers in Woodstock, IL, Normal IL and three NASA Centers (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Marshall Space Flight Center, and Johnson Space Center). The project aims to:
Link, via videoconference, urban and rural middle school students from low income communities in an exploration of space science
Develop and launch programs that showcase NASA Center research
Enrich middle school curricula and promote learning about NASA’s space missions with experiences that inspire youth to pursue in NASA-related STEM careers.
Programs and products produced include:
3 videoconference program scenarios that highlight research being conducted at NASA Centers
Pre- and post-event curriculum materials designed for middle school classrooms
Teacher professional development workshops
Communication support for NASA professionals
iPad apps utilized during the program
Since the program launched five years ago, Mission to Mars has served 7,676 students. MSI seeks to provide opportunities for all learners, and works to remove barriers to participation in high-quality science learning experiences. Mission to Mars allows MSI to engage more Chicago Public Schools (where 86% of students are economically disadvantaged) in real and relevant science experiences that may lead to STEM careers.
As MSI’s CP4SMP grant comes to an end, the Museum has committed to continued delivery of the program through 2 Mission to Mars Learning Labs, offered to 6-8th grade school groups visiting on field trips. Live videoconferencing with JPL and Johnson will occur during roughly half of the sessions. Our Challenger Learning Center partners will integrate Mission to Mars activities, materials and iPad apps into their own Mars-themed programs. Together these efforts extend the transformative hands-on science experiences developed under the Mission to Mars grant to a whole new audience of middle school students and teachers.
The Cryptoclub: Cryptography and Mathematics Afterschool and Online is a five-year project designed to introduce middle school students across the country to cryptography and mathematics. Project partners include the Young Peoples Project (YPP), the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and Eduweb, an award-winning educational software design and development firm. The intended impacts on youth are to improve knowledge and interest in cryptography, increase skills in mathematics, and improve attitudes towards mathematics. The secondary audience is leaders in afterschool programs who will gain an increased awareness of cryptography as a tool for teaching mathematics and adopt the program for use in their afterschool programs. Project deliverables include online activities, online cryptography adventure games, interactive offline games, a leader\'s manual, and training workshops for afterschool leaders. The project materials will be developed in collaboration with YPP staff and pilot tested in Year 3 at local afterschool programs and YPP sites in Chicago in addition to four national sites. Field testing and dissemination occurs in Year 4 at both local sites in Chicago and national locations such as afterschool programs, science centers, and community programs. Six 3-day training workshops will be provided (2 per year in Years 3-5) to train afterschool leaders. It is anticipated that this project will reach up to 11,000 youth, including underserved youth in urban settings, and 275 professional staff. Strategic impact resulting from this project includes increased awareness of cryptography as a STEM topic with connections to mathematics as well a greater understanding of effective strategies for integrating and supporting web-based and offline activities within informal learning settings. The Cryptoclub project has the potential to have a transformative impact on youth and their understanding of cryptography and may serve as a national model for partnerships between afterschool and mentoring programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Janet BeissingerSusan GoldmanDaria TsoupikovaBonnine Saunders
Video games have been heralded as models of technology-enhanced learning environments as they exemplify many of the ideas emerging from contemporary learning sciences research. In particular, such games promote learning through goal-directed action in simulated environments, through producing as well as consuming information, embedded assessments, and through participation in self-organizing learning systems. Research suggests that participation in such environments involves many forms of scientific thinking and may lead to increased civic engagement, although to date, there are few examples of game-based learning environments that capitalize on these affordances. This project will investigate the potential of online role playing games for scientific literacy through the iterative design and research of Saving Lake Wingra, an online role playing game around a controversial development project in an urban area. Saving Lake Wingra positions players as ecologists, department of natural resources officials, or journalists investigating a rash of health problems at a local lake, and then creating and debating solutions. Players will solve challenges within an interactive, simulated lake ecosystem as they attempt to save the lake, working for one of several constituencies. This design-based research project will span the full life cycle of a project, from case studies of learning in small, constrained settings to controlled experimental studies of games implemented across classrooms. In addition to asking if participation in scientific role-playing games can produce robust conceptual understandings, it will also examine if role playing games might serve as assessment tools for comprehending scientific texts, assessing conceptual understandings within scientific domains, and designing innovative solutions to environmental problems that draw upon scientific understandings. The education plan includes the production of game-based media that can be used to support a variety of research studies, an online professional development community of educators using games for learning, support for graduate students trained in game theory, the learning sciences, and new forms of assessment, and new courses in game-based learning and assessment.
The University of Central Florida Media Convergence Laboratory, New York Hall of Science, and the Queens Museum of Art are developing a 3-D, multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) of the 1964/65 New York World's Fair. Virtual fairgoers of all ages will be immersed in an accurately modeled historical world with more than 140 pavilions on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and an array arts and humanities exhibits. The virtual world can be freely explored through self-designed avatars, and avatar-led guided tours. Discovery Points throughout the virtual environment will afford opportunities for in-depth engagement in STEM topics that will empower participants to explore the broader consequences of technological innovations. The centerpiece of user-generated content is FutureFair, an area where online users can create and share their personal visions of the future. Interconnections reaches beyond its virtual component through its partnership with the New York Hall of Science and the Queens Museum of Art, which are both situated in the heart of Queens in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, a 1255 acre urban park that hosted the 1939/1940 and 1964/65 Fairs. The New York Hall of Science will provide face-to-face youth workshops that employ problem-based learning. Single and multi-session programs will connect adolescents to STEM content presented at the Fair through the virtual world environment. Participants will create multimedia content for inclusion in the project's website. Multi-touch interactive stations at the Queens Museum of Art will enhance their NY World's Fair Exhibit Hall by empowering visitors to individually or collectively explore various STEM topics and the symbiotic relationships between STEM and the humanities, and by serving as an attractor for visitors to the online Fair exploration. The project will be completed in time for the 50th Anniversary celebration of the 1964 World's Fair. Building upon prior research on learning in virtual worlds, the project team will investigate how STEM concepts are advanced in a simulated multi-user virtual environment and studying the effectiveness of using Virtual Docents as enhancements to the informal learning process. The research and development deliverables have strong potential to advance the state of informal science education, research on modeling and simulation in virtual world development, and education research. Michigan Technological University will conduct the project formative and summative evaluations.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lori WaltersMichael MoshellCharles HughesEileen Smith
This project will develop a comprehensive Space Weather Outreach program to reach students, educators, and other members of the public, and share with them the discoveries from this scientific discipline. The Space Science Institute will capitalize on its prior successes and the success of other education programs to develop a comprehensive and integrated program that has the following five components: (1) the Space Weather Center website that includes online educational games; (2) Small Exhibits for Libraries, Shopping Malls, and Science Centers; (3) After-School Programs; (4) Professional Development Workshops for Educators, and (5) an innovative Evaluation and Education Research project. Its overarching goal is to inspire, engage, and educate a broad spectrum of the public and make strategic and innovative connections between informal and K-12 education communities. Partners include UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory; the American Library Association; Macerich: a mall developer with nationwide impact; and the Math, Engineering, Science Achievement program. The project brings together a creative collaboration between exhibit designers, graphic artists, formal/informal educators, and research scientists. The project spans a full spectrum of science communication strategies (formal, informal, and public outreach). The evaluation part of the project will examine how well the project elements work together and a pilot research study will explore the efficacy of online digital games for communicating complex space weather content. Results will be published and the findings presented at professional meetings and online. The three-year project is expected to impact well over two million people, including exhibit and website visitors and outreach visitors at various venues such as libraries and malls.