To build understanding of the essential needs involved in human exploration on Mars, the museum will create the Build a Mars Habitat – Survive and Thrive exhibit which allows museum visitors, especially school field trips and families with children in grades 4-8, to design and construct their own imaginary habitat for successful living on Mars using interchangeable building pieces. This would be designed to appeal particularly to girls, be accessible to audiences using a universal design approach, and be understood by Spanish-language visitors. Partnerships include the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISENet), NASA Ames Research Center, and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. The project team will also develop professional development materials for both facilitated and unfacilitated experiences to accompany the exhibit. This immersive experience augments the existing “Sun, Earth, Universe” exhibit that was recently distributed to 52 science and children’s museums across the U.S. by NISENet, collectively reporting attendance of over 10 million visitors per year. The exhibition serves as a platform for scientists and museum staff and volunteers to engage visitors with additional facilitated educational programming and hands-on experiences. Anticipated STEM learning outcomes include audience’s increased interest and positive attitudes towards learning about space exploration, increase in informal education professionals’ capacity to engage public audiences in space exploration, and strengthened partnerships among NASA and museums.
It is estimated that over 95% of all school children across the country are out of the classroom due to social distancing mandates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost overnight, families have had to develop and support new practices for learning at home as districts scramble to meet the academic, social and emotional needs of their communities. It is essential to collect data now to develop a deeper understanding of how schools and families are adapting to these changes and will continue to do so in coming weeks/months - the troubles they encounter, and the solutions they generate. Retrospective accounts may mask critical features of what was experienced, minimizing the country’s capacity to conceptualize and build more robust, equitable and transformative learning ecologies for the future. Emphasizing an equity approach to solution development, this research will document how families engage in creative practices to generate powerful learning based on local needs, values, contexts, and histories in this present crisis. It will address the following questions: (1) What resources are schools providing and how are parents navigating and extending these resources to sustain their child’s learning? (2) How are families exploring science and math concepts related to the pandemic? (3) How are parents and families learning to adapt (e.g. communication with teachers; broader social networks) and what challenges do they face (e.g. subscription costs; reliable Internet)? (4) How are digital resources for STEM, curated by the research team, utilized for learning?
Emergency school closures are exposing significant gaps in access to the Internet and communication devices, and the capacity of parents/caregivers and communities to capitalize on technology to sustain health-relevant learning in a time of crisis. This project will use a novel, remote-diary tool based on a smartphone-enabled data collection platform, to reach families across the country. Mobile-phone-enabled remote diary tools make it possible to reach families who are under-connected, not just those with robust technical infrastructure. The data collected will lay the groundwork for creating new socio-technical support systems informed by diverse families’ experiences, as the crisis unfolds. Approximately 200 parents with school age children (early and upper elementary grades) living at home will be recruited. This study and a subsequent virtual workshop with other researchers who are also using remote methods to study learning will help establish a broader research agenda to specify the conditions under which socio-technical systems productively augment a family’s capacity to innovate and learn when traditional co-located school settings disappear. It will advance our understanding of how human learning adapts to unexpectedly changed learning environments. This study draws on advances in remote data collection and new analytical tools for innovation in research design.
Three-dimensional digital models are increasingly prevalent in preserving tangible and intangible aspects of Indigenous material heritage. Yet, there are no comprehensive, clearly laid-out best practices that can guide researchers, Indigenous communities, and museum personnel in designing ethically sound and socially engaged 3D heritage preservation projects. The use of 3D technologies for heritage preservation and providing public access to digital 3D collections is well-established in the European context. While there have been several robust efforts on digitizing European national heritage, in the U.S. context, the focus often involves work with Indigenous heritage, instantly placing 3D projects into a post-colonial research paradigm with a complex set of ethical ramifications. This research examines emerging thoughts from the European context and connects them with best practices in digital Indigenous data management to identify practices that contribute to cultures of academic integrity that are inclusive of all stakeholder voices. This work fosters ethical cultures of STEM through the development of a comprehensive Responsible Conduct of Research guiding document that can be adapted to address culture-specific Indigenous perspectives as well as project-specific challenges in future 3D heritage preservation endeavors.
Project goals are accomplished through workshops and virtual collaborations that bring together researchers, Indigenous community members, and heritage preservation professionals with previous experience in the responsible management, protection, and sharing of Indigenous digital data and the use of 3D technology for heritage preservation. The collaboratively produced guidelines outline ethical considerations that can be used in developing: 1) partnerships with origin/descendant communities, 2) institution- and collection-specific museum policies on using 3D technology, 3) Tribal policies for culturally appropriate use of 3D technologies, and 4) training material and curriculum that integrates with other research compliance regulations pertaining to heritage preservation. The project explores the questions that have emerged through previous experiences using 3D technologies to preserve Indigenous ancestral heritage. These questions include the factors contributing to developing ethically sound 3D heritage preservation projects; the practices useful in 3D projects to foster a culture of integrity that equally engages academic and Indigenous perspectives; consideration for what constitutes Responsible Conduct of Research in using 3D technologies to preserve Indigenous cultural heritage; and addressing practice-based questions that contribute to understanding ethical challenges in digitally preserving and presenting Indigenous heritage. The project situates 3D modeling and heritage representation as part of the larger discourse on decolonizing core methodologies in museum management and anthropological collection practices. Results from this work can be adapted to training future researchers and digital heritage management professionals and creating meaningful partnerships in heritage documentation. This research cultivates cultures of academic integrity by informing heritage management policy on the critical importance of heritage ethics for the creation and management of 3D digitization projects involving Indigenous collections. This award is funded by the Directorate of Geosciences and the Directorate of Education and Human Resources.
The popularity of the anti-vax movement in the United States and elsewhere is the cause of new lethal epidemics of diseases that are fully preventable by modern medicine [Benecke and DeYoung, 2019]. Creationism creeps into science classrooms with the aim of undermining the teaching of evolution through legal obligations or school boards’ decisions to present both sides of a debate largely foreign to the scientific community [Taylor, 2017]. And one simply has to turn on the TV and watch so-called science channels to be bombarded with aliens, ghosts, cryptids and miracles as though they are
While previous studies have found games and gaming to be a new and innovative communication strategy to inform the public and citizens about scientific research and engage them with it, this article addresses the under-researched question of credibility aspects in research-based gaming. The study analyses agricultural stakeholders' discussions on the credibility of scientific descriptions in The Maladaptation Game — a game based on research on climate change maladaptation in Nordic agriculture. The analysis of focus group transcripts and frame credibility finds that players attribute
What exactly is “scientific culture”? How does it relate to science communication, non-formal education or artistic interactions with the scientific world? That was the topic of the 14th International Summer School of Mind, Brain and Education (ISMBE), held 1–4 October 2019 at the Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice (Sicily), Italy. The ISMBE has a long history of bringing together researchers from diverse fields to catalyze research relating to cognitive science and neuroscience through to education, and the directors of the School, Drs. Kurt Fischer, Antonio Battro and
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Guadalupe Díaz CostanzoDiego Golombek
As the digital revolution continues and our lives become increasingly governed by smart technologies, there is a rising need for reflection and critical debate about where we are, where we are headed, and where we want to be. Against this background, the paper suggests that one way to foster such discussion is by engaging with the world of fiction, with imaginative stories that explore the spaces, places, and politics of alternative realities. Hence, after a concise discussion of the concept of speculative fiction, we introduce the notion of datafictions as an umbrella term for speculative
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Gernot RiederThomas Völker
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Build SciComm, an international symposium on strategies for fostering science communication in Japan held at the University of Tsukuba in November 2019, brought together academics and practitioners to discuss issues faced by the field in Japan and vision for future direction. Informally, the symposium was well received and generally considered to be a useful and stimulating event. We discuss issues to be considered for future incarnations and explain why this symposium provides an important forum for inclusive discussions on fundamental questions about the nature of science communication in
Science communication research is dominated by Western countries. While their research provides insight into best practices, their findings cannot be generalized to developing countries. This study examined the science communication challenges encountered by scientists and science communicators from Manila, Philippines through an online survey and semi-structured, investigative interviews. Their answers revealed issues which have been echoed in other international studies. However, challenges of accessibility and local attitudes to science were magnified within the Philippine context. These
The goal of Science Cafés and Science on Taps is to encourage open discourse between scientists and the public in a casual setting (e.g., a bar) in order to improve the public understanding of, and trust in, science. These events have existed for over two decades, but there is no research studying their efficacy. Data presented here demonstrate that a yearlong Science on Tap series induced little change among the attendees with respect to attitudes, emotions, and knowledge about the nature of science. Ultimately, we found this event may be preaching to the choir rather than changing hearts and
Science communication is proliferating in the developing world, however, with respect to science centres, as a whole Africa is being left behind. Here 15 participants in a capacity building program are investigated using traditional needs-based and contemporary asset-based development conceptualisations. These development theories parallel deficit and participatory approaches, respectively, within science communication and demonstrate synergies between the fields. Data showed staffing, funding, governments, host institutions, and audiences are prominent needs and assets, networks are a major
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Graham WalkerLeapotswe BantsiSiphesihle BukhosiniKnowledge ChikundiAkash DusrathMartin KafeeroBhamini Kamudu ApplasawmyKenneth Monjero IgadwaKabelo MoswetsiSandile RikhotsoMarthinus J. SchwartzPuleng Tsie
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
As science communication programs grow worldwide, effective evaluation and assessment metrics lag. While there is no consensus on evaluation protocols specifically for science communication training, there is agreement on elements of effective training: listening, empathy, and knowing your audience — core tenets of improvisation. We designed an evaluation protocol, tested over three years, based on validated and newly developed scales for an improvisation-based communication training at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. Initial results suggest that ‘knowing your audience’ should
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Christine O’ConnellMerryn McKinnonJordan Labouff