The Lineage project was a collaboration between Twin Cities Public Television and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The project included creation of a feature-length video program, a Virtual Reality game, and a set of hands-on activities designed for use by multigenerational audiences—all of which were incorporated as part of a series of seven Fossil Festival events at museums and other sites around the United States. This report presents findings from a set of external evaluation studies that examined impacts on families who participated in Fossil Festival events as well
As part of the public impacts evaluation work conducted for the Explore Science: Earth & Space activity toolkits developed and created through the NASA-funded Space and Earth Informal STEM education (SEISE) project, this summative evaluation study of the toolkits was designed to address and answer questions regarding the number and range of audiences reached by the project, visitor engagement, relevance, science identity, and their understanding around NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) content areas (astrophysics, planetary science, heliophysics, Earth science). The results are based on
‘6 Degrees of Connection’ is an informative and memorable program that combines a one-hour Science On a Sphere® interactive presentation with a follow-up creative art activity – each aspect of which encourages middle school students to think of interconnections among phenomena on the planet, including the natural world and human activity.
The ‘6 Degrees of Connection’ program was developed by the Nurture Nature Center (Easton PA) in collaboration with the Maryland Science Center (Baltimore MD) through an extensive process of developing the concept, prototypes, and final program. Lehigh
Supported by the National Science Foundation, the Global Soundscapes! Big Data, Big Screens, Open Ears project employs a variety of informal learning experiences to present the physics of sound and the new science of soundscape ecology. The interdisciplinary science of soundscape ecology analyzes sounds over time in different ecosystems around the world. The major components of the Global Soundscapes project are an educator-led interactive giant-screen theater show, group activities, and websites. All components are designed with both sighted and visually impaired students in mind. Multimedia
A quasi-experimental separate-sample pretest/posttest design was used to assess the impact of the giant screen film "The Greatest Places" on adult viewers. A second evaluation was implemented with eighth grade students who either viewed the film after two related reading activities or viewed the film without associated activity.
The summative evaluation with middle school students focused on three major outcomes: (1) To what extent did the film appeal to middle school viewers? (2) To what extent did the film achieve its intended viewing goals? (3) Did the implementation of school-based activities prior to viewing affect outcomes? A quasi-experimental pretest/posttest nonequivalent comparison group design was used with middle school students to evaluate the film and ancillary schoolroom activities. Intact school classes were assigned to one of two treatments: Viewing the film only (FILM, N = 225)) and viewing the film
The summative evaluation focused on four major outcomes: (1) to what extent did the film appeal to adult viewers? (2) to what extent did the film achieve its intended viewing goals? (3) what did viewers perceive that they learned from the film, if anything? (4) did viewing the film influence the audience beyond the museum visit? A quasi-experimental separate-sample pretest-posttest design was used to evaluate the film in its natural theater setting: 204 adults responded to the presurvey and 199 to the post survey. Thirty adult audience members were also interviewed by phone one week later
From 2013-2016, Pacific Science Center, implemented the Exploring Earth Systems Sciences (EESS) project with the purpose of developing and delivering scripted demonstrations utilizing the Science On a Sphere (SOS) technology in order to promote understanding of and increase interest in Earth systems sciences. Specifically, the grant allowed the Science Interpretation team to research and write 20-minute presentations, targeted towards visitors aged 11 and older, about nine unique topics such as: climate change, weather, seasons, or the Polar Regions. Staff were then provided training in
National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded an Informal Science Education (ISE) grant, since renamed Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) to a group of institutions led by two of the University of California, Davis’s centers: the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) and the W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES). Additional partner institutions were the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center (ECHO), Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) at the University of California, Berkeley, and Audience Viewpoints Consulting (AVC). The summative evaluation study was
Frontier Scientists is comprised of a website and portfolio of videos created for distribution web-wide and through television broadcast. The goal of this program is to excite the general public about ongoing science in Alaska and the Arctic. This is the summary evaluation of a three-year National Science Foundation grant received by Frontier Scientists. Frontier Scientists contracted PEER Associates to conduct the evaluation. Over the course of the three years, the evaluation was focused on both formative (intended to inform and improve programming) and summative (what has the program
Roots of Wisdom (also known as Generations of Knowledge; NSF-DRL #1010559) is a project funded by the National Science Foundation that aims to engage Native and non-Native youth (ages 11-14) and their families in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and western science within culturally relevant contexts that present both worldviews as valuable, complementary ways of knowing, understanding, and caring for the natural world. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and its partner organizations, The Indigenous Education Institute (IEI), The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI
Roots of Wisdom (also known as Generations of Knowledge) is a 5-year project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF-DRL #1010559) in support of a cross-cultural reciprocal collaboration to develop a traveling exhibit, banner exhibit, and education resources that bring together Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and western science. The summative evaluation for public audience impacts was conducted by the Lifelong Learning Group (COSI, Columbus, OH), in collaboration with Native Pathways (Laguna, NM).