Bio Med Tech: Engineering for Your Health was a 2,750 square foot exhibition at the Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) that dealt with issues related to biomedical technology. Partially funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health Science Education Partnership Awards program (NIH/SEPA), the project was developed through a partnership between GLSC and Case Western Reserve University. The SEPA grant also funded a variety of programming activities, including informal Exploration Cart activities in the exhibition, presentations in the exhibition's theater space, and teacher training. The project was targeted particularly at children in middle school and above and at adults, although the team realized they would also need to engage younger children within the exhibition. The project team developed the Bio Med Tech exhibition around the main message, Rapidly advancing biomedical technologies give doctors new tools to improve personal and public health. Major themes included rapid advances made by biomedical technology, the broad range of professions that contribute to these advances, local connections in biomedical technology research, and controversial topics related to biomedical technology. Sections of the exhibition focused on medical imaging, infectious diseases, prosthetics, Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), stem cells, and genomics. Each section included a mix of graphics panels, multimedia presentations, interactive exhibits, and examples of medical devices. In addition, the exhibition included a multimedia theater where videos were shown continuously and bulletin boards for news updates and visitor responses to questions about controversial issues in biomedical technology. This report focuses on the remedial/summative phase of a multi-stage evaluation by Selinda Research Associates, Inc. (SRA). The evaluation used a naturalistic inquiry methodology, collecting data using naturalistic observations, depth interviews, and post-program surveys during winter and spring, 2008. SRA staff spent about 50 visitor contact hours in the exhibition, which included time for observing and interviewing visitors and for debriefing about the resulting data. Including all methods of data collection, there were 483 individual respondents from 130 respondent groups. The summative evaluation found that the Bio Med Tech exhibition provided an enjoyable learning experience for many visitors in the target age ranges. Many respondents in the target age ranges were engaged with the graphic/text panels, multimedia components, and interactives. The interactive exhibits proved particularly engaging for middle and high school students. Younger visitors who were already interested in human biology and/or were considering health care as a career showed deeper interest in the Bio Med Tech exhibition and engaged with more elements of the exhibition. Visitors connected most readily to the personal aspects of Bio Med Tech, articulating a range of personal connections with the many medical devices and procedures on display and often sharing these connections with others in their groups. Because adult visitors were more likely than younger visitors to engage with the graphic/text panels, younger visitors learned more when an adult was guiding their experience. The exhibition made some respondents aware of new areas of medical technology, while other respondents filled gaps in their knowledge or discovered surprising connections between technologies. Children under the age of 7 or 8 years sometimes learned more about the human body than about biomedical technologies. The exhibition was most successful at communicating with respondents about recent advances in biotechnology. Most respondents learned little about either biomedical technology professions or the prevalence of biomedical research and development in the Cleveland area, because the exhibition addressed these topics in only a few places. Many respondents expressed surprise at the range of responses that were posted on bulletin boards, and most also expressed tolerance for but not complete acceptance of this range of views. Most respondents said they considered the Bio Med Tech exhibit about stem cells to be informative, balanced, and providing a viewpoint that helped them put the controversy in perspective. The Exploration Carts added much appreciated opportunities for hands-on and interactive experiences to the Bio Med Tech exhibition and, with appropriate adult support, were effective as young children's entry points to other aspects of the exhibition. Public programming in the Bio Med Tech theater provided strong support for the exhibition's themes. Factors that contributed to the success of theater programs included coaching of the speakers, inclusion of hands-on and interactive experiences during and after the presentations, and effective orientation of visitors who join the presentations in progress. The final section of the report discusses lessons that the researchers learned through this summative evaluation study and makes a range of recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the Bio Med Tech exhibition and related programming. The appendix of this report includes the observation protocol, interview protocol, and survey used in the study.
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