Making Stuff Summative Evaluation

WGBH and the Materials Research Society (MRS) collaborated to create Making Stuff, a multi-faceted project about the all-encompassing role that materials play in shaping our lives. The project included a four-episode NOVA mini-series originally broadcast in January, 2011 that was hosted by NY Times columnist David Pogue, a large-scale national outreach campaign with collaborating partnerships funded in 20 locations, web pages on the NOVA website, and an online contest promoted and hosted on Facebook. Across all project components, the overarching goals were to enhance the general public's engagement with materials science and appreciation of its effects on society, and to enhance collaborations among professional audiences (e.g., educators, scientists, community-based organizations) such that together they would reach a broader audience of adults, youth, and underserved populations than they could individually. Goodman Research Group's (GRG) summative evaluation has focused on the process and outcomes of all of the project components, assessing the extent to which the various Making Stuff resources (e.g, television series, website, national outreach collaborations and community events) achieved their intended impacts on public and professional audiences. The multi-method evaluation study included recruiting different groups to use particular Making Stuff resources, along with surveying others after they used a particular resource on their own.

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