This Smart and Connected Community (SCC) project will partner with two rural communities to develop STEMports, an innovative Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning game for workforce development. The game's activities will take players on localized Augmented Reality (AR) missions to both engage in STEM learning challenges and discover emerging STEM careers in their community, specifically highlighting innovations in the fields of sustainable agriculture and aquaculture, forest products, and renewable energy. Community Advisory Teams (CATs) and co-design teams, including youth, representatives from the targeted emerging STEM economies, and decision-makers will partner with project staff to co-design STEMports that reflect the interests, cultural contexts, and envisioned STEM industries of the future for each community.
The project will: (a) design and pilot an AR game for community STEM workforce development; (b) develop and adapt a community engagement process that optimizes community networking for co-designing the gaming application and online community; and (c) advance a scalable process for wider applications of STEMports. This project is a collaboration between the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance and the Field Day Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to both build and research the co-designing of a SCC based within an AR environment. The project will contribute knowledge to the informal STEM learning, community development, and education technology fields in four major ways:
Deepening the understanding of how innovative technological tools support rural community STEM knowledge building as well as STEM identity and workforce interest.
Identifying design principles for co-designing the STEMports community related to the technological design process.
Developing social network approaches and analytics to better understand the social dimensions and community connections fostered by the STEMport community.
Understanding how participants' online and offline interactions with individuals and experiences builds networks and knowledge within a SCC.
With the scaling of use by an ever-growing community of players, STEMports will provide a new AR-based genre of public participation in STEM and collective decision making. The research findings will add to the emerging literature on community-wide education, innovative education technologies, informal STEM learning (especially place-based learning and STEM ecosystems), and participatory design research.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
STEM Pathways is a collaboration between five Minnesota informal STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education organizations—The Bakken Museum, Bell Museum of Natural History, Minnesota Zoo, STARBASE Minnesota, and The Works Museum—working with Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and advised by the Minnesota Department of Education. STEM Pathways (logo shown in Figure 1) aims to provide a deliberate and connected series of meaningful in-school and out-of-school STEM learning experiences to strengthen outcomes for students, build the foundation for a local ecosystem of STEM
The Interactive Video Science Consortium is a non-profit group of fifteen science centers and museums that developed interactive video exhibits about Earth and Planetary sciences with two purposes in mind. One, the videodisc-based kiosk exhibits served as educational vehicles for four million visitors, representing the combined audiences of the fifteen participating museums. Two, through extensive testing and visitor research during the development process, the consortium members enlarged understanding of the appropriate and effective uses of the interactive video medium in science museums
From exhibitions to theatrical performances, from fireworks to video games, countless events and ventures have been held all over the world in 2005 to mark the occasion of the World Year of Physics (WYP2005). The year that is drawing to a close has brought physics out into the streets and University campuses, but in a few cases physics has even invaded theater stages and art museums, it has involved musicians and even architects. The worldwide objective was to highlight a science that has more and more need to communicate its close connections with society, its involvement in themes that are
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Marzia MazzonettoMaria Chiara Montani
Living Liquid will identify strategies for creating visualization tools that can actively engage the public with emerging research about the ocean's microbes and their impact on our planet. It addresses a critical issue for the ISE field: creating ways for visitors to ask and answer their own questions about emerging areas of science with visualizations. This Pathway project will provide important lessons learned for a future full-scale development project at the Exploratorium's new location over San Francisco Bay, and for informal science educators and other professionals working to create interactive visualization tools using the vast data sets now available. Living Liquid is a collaboration between developers, educators and learning researchers at the Exploratorium, computer scientists at the Visualization Interface and Design Innovation Group at UC Davis, and marine scientists at the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education. The project's research and development process includes a front-end study of visitors' interests and prior knowledge related to ocean microbes, interviews with scientists to identify potential datasets and activities, a survey of candidate visualizations, and a series of prototypes to identify promising strategies to engage visitors with and allow visitors to explore large scientific datasets through visualization tools.
The Jackprot is a didactic slot machine simulation that illustrates how mutation rate coupled with natural selection can interact to generate highly specialized proteins. Conceptualized by Guillermo Paz-y-Miño C., Avelina Espinosa, and Chunyan Y. Bai (New England Center for the Public Understanding of Science, Roger Williams University and the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), the Jackprot uses simplified slot-machine probability principles to demonstrate how mutation rate coupled with natural selection suffice to explain the origin and evolution of highly specialized proteins. The
The overarching purpose of the Climate Literacy Zoo Education Network is to develop and evaluate a new approach to climate change education that connects zoo visitors to polar animals currently endangered by climate change, leveraging the associative and affective pathways known to dominate decision-making. Utilizing a polar theme, the partnership brings together a strong multidisciplinary team that includes the Chicago Zoological Society of Brookfield, IL, leading a geographically distributed consortium of nine partners: Columbus Zoo & Aquarium, OH; Como Zoo & Conservatory, St. Paul, MN; Indianapolis Zoo, IN; Louisville Zoological Garden, KY; Oregon Zoo, Portland, OR; Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, PA; Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence, RI; Toledo Zoological Gardens, OH, and the organization Polar Bears International. The partnership leadership includes the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. The partnership is joined by experts in conservation psychology and an external advisory board. The primary stakeholders are the diverse 13 million annual visitors to the nine partner zoos. Additional stakeholders include zoo docents, interpreters and educators, as well as the partnership technical team in the fields of learning innovations, technological tools, research review and education practice. The core goals of the planning phase are to a) develop and extend the strong multidisciplinary partnership, b) conduct research needed to understand the preconceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and learning modes of zoo visitors regarding climate change; and c) identify and prototype innovative learning environments and tools. Internal and external evaluations will be conducted by Facet Innovations of Seattle, WA. Activities to achieve these goals include assessments and stakeholder workshops to inventory potential resources at zoos; surveys of zoo visitors to examine demographic, socioeconomic, and technology access parameters of zoo visitors and their existing opinions; and initial development and testing of participatory, experiential activities and technological tools to facilitate learning about the complex system principles underlying the climate system. The long-term vision centers on the development of a network of U.S. zoos, in partnership with climate change domain scientists, learning scientists, conservation psychologists, and other stakeholders, serving as a sustainable infrastructure to investigate strategies designed to foster changes in public attitudes, understandings, and behavior surrounding climate change.
This proof-of-concept project is a collaboration of the Museum of Science in Boston, WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) and Ideum. The project will demonstrate that the project team can design and develop digital interactive museum exhibit devices that work for visitors who have a wide range of disabilities. The outcome will be one "exemplar" exhibit based on an exhibit scenario where museum visitors learn STEM concepts by manipulating and analyzing real data. The project will also develop and test the efficacy of a prototype Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Toolkit that will help other museum professionals implement the digital interactive strategies. In addition, the project will produce a white paper on the specific exemplar and a research paper with guidelines for digital interactive exhibits in museum. The project uses an innovative workshop approach that brings together individuals from a diverse range of fields to develop the digital interactive strategies. After developing the "exemplar" exhibit, the team will develop the DIY Toolkit and test the efficacy of the Toolkit in museums that do not have the same level of exhibit development resources as larger institutions. The the project's evaluation will not only determine if the exemplar works well with a wide range of people with disabilities, but also determine the cost-effectiveness and efficacy of the workshop strategy and the ability of other museums to use the DIY toolkit. If successful, this project will attend to an area of high need in the informal science education (ISE) museum exhibit community and provide a resource that will serve a wide range of ISE institutions. If the project evaluation outcomes are positive, the project will lead to a larger effort to develop more exemplar exhibits based on different scenarios and an expansion of the DIY Toolkit.
The Interactive Video Science Consortium is a non-profit group of fifteen science centers and museums that proposes to develop interactive video exhibits about Earth and Planetary sciences with two purposes in mind. One, the video exhibits on the two subject areas will serve as educational vehicles for four million visitors, representing the combined audiences of the fifteen participating museums. Two, through extensive testing and visitor research during the development process the consortium members will enlarge understanding of the appropriate and effective uses of the interactive video medium in science museums. Consortium members will fund the costs of conducting research on the subject matter and producing the first two discs. The request to the National Science Foundation is for the systematic analysis of the effectiveness of this type of program and of the educational impact of the medium in science museums.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in collaboration with the Illinois State Museum (ISM), the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications(NCSA) at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, will form a museum consortium to develop two virtual reality interactive displays (River Pilot Simulator and Digital River Basin) and other web-based activities that focus on the Mississippi River. This group will be known as the Mississippi River Web Museum Consortium. Each museum will end up with both software modules that will lead visitors to the story of the River. The river's local presence will serve as an entry point for the visitors at each museum. The NCSA will contribute their access to and knowledge of powerful computer simulation, scientific visualization, and collaborations technologies that are usually restricted to research settings and rarely available to a museum audience or the general public. The Consortium will also develop a shared site on the WWW that will invite users to engage in guided inquiry that will deepen their understanding of the large, complex, and integrated river system. The science content underlying the project will include river hydrology and geomorphology, life sciences, environmental studies employing geographic information systems, and the physics of motion. The activities will address a number of the National Science Education Standards. Complementary programming linking these activities with formal education include a RiverWeb(tm) Posting Board and a RiverWeb(tm) Classroom Resource Guide.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in collaboration with the Illinois State Museum (ISM), the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications(NCSA) at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, will form a museum consortium to develop two virtual reality interactive displays (River Pilot Simulator and Digital River Basin) and other web-based activities that focus on the Mississippi River. This group will be known as the Mississippi River Web Museum Consortium. Each museum will end up with both software modules that will lead visitors to the story of the River. The river's local presence will serve as an entry point for the visitors at each museum. The NCSA will contribute their access to and knowledge of powerful computer simulation, scientific visualization, and collaborations technologies that are usually restricted to research settings and rarely available to a museum audience or the general public. The Consortium will also develop a shared site on the WWW that will invite users to engage in guided inquiry that will deepen their understanding of the large, complex, and integrated river system. The science content underlying the project will include river hydrology and geomorphology, life sciences, environmental studies employing geographic information systems, and the physics of motion. The activities will address a number of the National Science Education Standards. Complementary programming linking these activities with formal education include a RiverWeb(tm) Posting Board and a RiverWeb(tm) Classroom Resource Guide.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in collaboration with the Illinois State Museum (ISM), the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications(NCSA) at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, will form a museum consortium to develop two virtual reality interactive displays (River Pilot Simulator and Digital River Basin) and other web-based activities that focus on the Mississippi River. This group will be known as the Mississippi River Web Museum Consortium. Each museum will end up with both software modules that will lead visitors to the story of the River. The river's local presence will serve as an entry point for the visitors at each museum. The NCSA will contribute their access to and knowledge of powerful computer simulation, scientific visualization, and collaborations technologies that are usually restricted to research settings and rarely available to a museum audience or the general public. The Consortium will also develop a shared site on the WWW that will invite users to engage in guided inquiry that will deepen their understanding of the large, complex, and integrated river system. The science content underlying the project will include river hydrology and geomorphology, life sciences, environmental studies employing geographic information systems, and the physics of motion. The activities will address a number of the National Science Education Standards. Complementary programming linking these activities with formal education include a RiverWeb(tm) Posting Board and a RiverWeb(tm) Classroom Resource Guide.