The Maryland Science Center (MSC), in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), and Morgan State University (MSU), has sought the support of the National Institutes of Health SEPA (Science Education Partnership Award) Program to develop "Cellular Universe: The Promise of Stem Cells," a unique exhibition and update center with related programs that highlight the most current science in cell biology and stem cell research. Visitor surveys have shown that science museum visitors are very interested in learning about stem cell research, but know little about the science of stem cells or cell biology, which form the basis of stem cell research. The goal of this project is to help visitors learn about advances in cell biology and stem cells so that they will make informed health-related decisions, explore new career options, and better understand the role of basic and clinical research in health advances that affect people's lives. Topics to be covered include the basic biology of cells, the role of stem cells in human development, current stem cell research and the clinical research process. This exhibition will also address the controversies in stem cell research. Our varied advisory panel, including cell biologists, physiologists, adult and embryonic stem cell researchers and bioethicists, will ensure the objectivity of all content. "Cellular Universe: The Promise of Stem Cells" will be a 3,500 square-foot exhibition to be planned, designed and prototyped in Fall 2006-Winter 2009, and installed in MSC's second-floor human body exhibition hall in Spring 2009. This exhibition will build on the successful model of "BodyLink," our innovative health science update center funded by a 2000 SEPA grant (R25RR015602) and supported by partnerships with JHU and UMB.
One issue of interest to practitioners and researchers in science centres concerns what meanings visitors are making from their interactions with exhibits and how they make sense of these experiences. The research reported in this study is an exploratory attempt, therefore, to investigate this process by using video clips and still photographs of schoolchildren’s interactions with science centre exhibits. These stimuli were used to facilitate reflection about those interactions in follow‐up interviews. The data for this study were 63 small group interviews with UK primary school children (129
The Nature Research Center is a project through which the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences provides NASA with a permanent presence through the creation of NASA-themed exhibits in its new wing (the Nature Research Center), hosting special events, educator workshops and special programming, all of which serve the general population and seek to improve understanding of and engagement with science. The lead institution is the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Goals, expected and actual outcomes are as follows: Exhibits in the new wing were expected to reach 200,000 individuals in its inaugural year; in only 8 months, the Museum has welcomed over 1 million visitors. Astronomy Days’ goal was to reach 20,000 people per year and is on target for meeting this goal. Educator Workshops’ goal was to reach 32 educators per workshop and is on target for meeting this goal. The Museum’s visitor base has demonstrated an insatiable desire for NASA-themed programs. Attendance at Astronomy Days remains impressive and special space events (such as the transit of Venus, or live downlinks with the International Space Station) attract larger-than-expected audiences. The Museum appreciates NASA’s support and is eager to continue providing NASA with an ongoing presence in Raleigh, NC.
The Dynamic Earth: You Have To See it To Believe It is a public exhibition and suite of programming designed to educate and excite K-8 students, teachers, and families about weather and climate science, plate tectonics, erosion, and stream formation. The Dynamic Earth program draws attention to the importance of large-scale earth processes and the human impacts on these processes, utilizing real artifacts, hands-on models, and NASA earth imagery and data. The program includes the exhibition, student workshops, family workshops, annual professional development opportunities for classroom teachers, innovative theater shows, lectures for adults by visiting scientists, and interpretive activities. The Montshire Museum of Science has partnered with Chabot Space and Science Center (CA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (NH) on various components. The project has broadened our internal capacity for providing quality earth science programming by greatly expanding our program titles and allowing us to create hands-on materials for use by our educators and to loan to schools in our Partnership Initiative. Programming developed during the grant period continues to reach thousands of students and teachers each year, both on-site and as part of our rural outreach efforts.
Beginning in 2010, Thanksgiving Point Institute leveraged its one-of-a-kind assets to deliver NASA and space-related programming. Informally referred to as NASA BLAST (Bringing Light and Space Together), the program included three exhibitions and a multitude of informal learning opportunities including field trips, camps, classes, and family programming. During the two-year program, Thanksgiving Point achieved its goal of increase the public’s knowledge and awareness of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Thanksgiving Point incorporated unique space-related messages in each of its venues and provided educational lessons to 554,873 guests. Thanksgiving Point did this through three exhibitions: a light exhibition at the Museum of Ancient Life featuring exhibitions from San Francisco’s Exploratorium, a space garden at Farm Country, and walk able version of the solar system at Thanksgiving Point Gardens. In addition, Thanksgiving Point hosted a number of youth programs, day camps, and field trips centered on these exhibitions.
Laurel Clark Earth Camp was a set of interconnected programs for Middle and High School students and their teachers that help them develop new perspectives on global change. The project was a partnership of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Arizona Project WET at the University of Arizona, and the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. Project goals were to: I. Engage students in lifelong learning in STEM disciplines to inform their Earth stewardship practices, career decisions and capacity for innovation; II. Provide teachers with tools and experiences to inspire students to discover the real-world relevancy of STEM disciplines and apply this learning to the pursuit of STEM careers and technological innovation; III. Enhance public awareness of environmental change in the southwestern US and the importance of NASA satellites for recording, understanding and predicting these changes. Over four years, Earth Camp served 132 students and 42 teachers. Program participants understand more about Earth System connectivity and are more aware of their impacts on the environment and how to quantify and reduce these impacts. A post-camp online survey of alumni from previous years indicated that 75% of participants were felt that the camp influenced them to be more interested in STEM careers and 80% were more motivated to do well in their science classes. Teachers in the program were able to implement many of the project activities in their classrooms and most of them were exposed to satellite data for the first time; The project also created a public exhibit “Earth Change from Space” at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and an online tool that allowed students to explore, research and report on global change issues using Google Earth historical imagery.
Exoplanets Exploration is an interactive exhibition to explore exoplanets for the primary audience of students grades 5th through 12th with a secondary audience of younger children and adults. The exhibition is located in the astronomy wing of the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery (Dayton, Ohio). The project goals are to provide a STEM base for visitors from which to explore exoplanet discoveries; for them to have a basic understanding of exoplanet missions, instruments used in the discoveries, and the science knowledge necessary to understand the discoveries; to learn about the exoplanet discoveries through hands-on tactile, auditory, visual, and kinesthetic interactive exhibition components; and to challenge visitors to contemplate the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. Aspects of the exhibition are integrated into space-related programming by linking to school visits, Distance Learning programs, summer Discovery Camps, FIRST LEGO league, and homeschool programming. Components of the exhibition addresse relevant Ohio Academic Content Standards for Earth and Space Science and will evolve to incorporate new Next Generation Science Standards. With the STEM career information presented along with scientific learning, students will be able to visualize the possibilities that NASA and space science represents.
Curious Scientific Investigators (CSI): Flight Adventures immerses children and families in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. Launched in February 2012, the project supports NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD), focusing on “innovative ideas to convey the fundamentals of flight, flight technology, and NASA’s role in aeronautics.” The project’s audience includes youth ages 6-18 and the Museum’s more than 1 million annual visitors of all ages. The project’s lead agency, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (Museum), developed and implemented the project in Indianapolis in partnership with the Academy of Model Aeronautics and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The project’s goals focus on inspiring children and families to develop an interest in STEM concepts and learn about NASA’s role in science and aeronautics research and the evolution of flight, and on engaging and educating them through inquiry-based programs that facilitate understanding of STEM concepts and knowledge and NASA’s contributions to flight. Centered on an original Multimedia Planetarium Show on flight, Flight Adventures, the Museum designed several components, all of which complement the show and the messages it conveys. Among these components are an exhibit area composed of a movable wind tunnel, a display of models, low- and high-tech interactives; a Unit of Study; a TV show, Wings Over Indiana; a website; and a variety of educational and family programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jennifer Pace-RobinsonGordon Schimmel
Climate Change: NASA’s Eyes on the Arctic is a multi-disciplinary outreach program built around a partnership targeted at k-12 students, teachers and communities. Utilizing the strengths of three main educational outreach institutions in Alaska, the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska partnered with the University of Alaska Museum of the North, the Anchorage Museum and UAF researchers to build a strategic and long lasting partnership between STEM formal and informal education providers to promote STEM literacy and awareness of NASA’s mission. Specific Goals of the project include: 1) Engaging and inspiring the public through presentation of relevant, compelling stories of research and adventure in the Arctic; 2) strengthening the pipeline of k-12 students into STEM careers, particularly those from underserved groups; 3) increasing interest in science among children and their parents; 4) increasing awareness of NASA’s role in climate change research; and 5) strengthening connections between UAF researchers, rural Alaska, and Alaska’s informal science education institutions. Each institution chose communities with whom they had prior relationships and/or made logistical sense. Through discussions analyzing partner strengths, tasks were divided; the Challenger Center taking on the role of k-12 curriculum development, the Museum of the North creating animations with data pulled from UAF research, to be shown on both in-house and traveling spherical display systems and the Anchorage Museum creating table top displays for use in community science nights. Each developed element was used while visiting the identified communities both in the classroom environment and during the community science nights.
The Maryland Science Center (MSC) Astrobiology project includes an interactive exhibit and Davis Planetarium program for school and public museum visitors, exploring the search for life in our Solar System, the search for exoplanets and an understanding of extreme forms of Earthly life. Four day-long Educator Workshops have taken place during the project with a total of 179 teachers participating.
Baltimore’s MSC is the lead institution, with the project led by PI Van Reiner, MSC President and CEO and Co-PI Jim O’Leary, MSC Senior Scientist, and science advisors consisting of astronomers, biologists, a geologist and educators representing NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Space Telescope Science Institute, Carnegie Institute of Washington, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland and Maryland School for the Blind.
The project provides visitors with a sense of the Milky Way Galaxy’s size and composition, the galaxy’s number of stars and potential planets, and the number of other galaxies in the Universe. The exhibit explores Earthly extremophiles, what their survival signifies for life elsewhere in the Solar System, and examines possibilities for life on Mars and moons of the Solar System, explores techniques used to detect exoplanets and NASA’s missions searching for exoplanets and Earth-like worlds. The project looks to provide a sense of the vast number of potential planets that exist, the hardiness of Earthly life, the possibilities for life on nearby planets and moons, and the techniques used to search for exoplanets.
The exhibit and Planetarium program premiered November 2, 2012, and both remain as long-term Science Center offerings. Since opening, MSC has hosted nearly a million visitors, and with the Life Beyond Earth exhibit located in a highly trafficked area near the Davis Planetarium and Science On a Sphere, the great majority of visitors have experienced the exhibit. The We Are Aliens program in the Davis Planetarium has been seen by more than 26,000 visitors since opening.
In this paper, we introduce the Exploratory Behavior Scale (EBS), a quantitative measure of young children's interactivity. More specifically, the EBS is developed from the psychological literature on exploration and play and measures the extent to which preschoolers explore their physical environment. A practical application of the EBS in a science museum is given. The described study was directed at optimizing parent guidance to improve preschoolers' exploration of exhibits in science center NEMO. In Experiment 1, we investigated which adult coaching style resulted in the highest level of
The current political and social backdrop in China that is characterized by rapid educational reforms to the K-12 education system, rapid growth in the number of science museum institutions, and Central Government policy which encourages collaboration between museums and school has the potential to be fertile ground for meaningful engagement between museums and schools. Notwithstanding, the Chinese K-12 education system generally does not utilize museum resources to support the curriculum, as is common in Western countries. This hermeneutic phenomenographic study elucidates the current Chinese
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Changyun KangDavid AndersonXinchun Wu