Museums and similar informal learning settings offer opportunities for children and families to learn together in an engaging way. Current exhibits rely mainly on parents, teachers, signage, and staff in science museums to provide support and guidance. Since it is not always feasible to have knowledgeable staff on hand and not all parents have the same knowledge and background, children receive varied support and people often miss the point of the learning experience or activity. This project will develop and research a new genre of Smart Science Exhibits that use artificial intelligence (AI) in an adaptive system to support children in learning science by doing science. The aim of the project is to incorporate AI adaptivity and personalization to maximize inquiry-based STEM learning and engagement in informal learning settings. This research builds on the project team's first Smart Science Exhibit (EarthShake), which uses AI vision to give interactive feedback to visitors based on their actions and guides them through scientific inquiry. In the project's preliminary work, the first smart exhibit demonstrated higher engagement and more learning gains than resulted from a traditional museum exhibit addressing the same scientific content. Smart exhibits can extend and enhance the limited support that staff and parents can provide. This project will develop and investigate adaptive approaches to mixing exploration and AI guidance, which will personalize feedback during constructive exploration. The project will build on learning science techniques and technology, proven in intelligent tutoring systems in formal settings, and apply this to different informal learning contexts. The goal is to provide just-in-time learning support, which will extend the time visitors spend with exhibits, thereby deepening inquiry-based science learning. The project is partnering with science museums and afterschool programs, which will enable thousands of children and families from a wide variety of backgrounds to use the project's smart exhibits each year. Smart Science Exhibits is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources as part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments.
Many informal learning settings are considering mixed-reality (MR) technologies to increase engagement and understanding of science. Using Smart Science Exhibits, the project will investigate how design choices in mixed-reality systems impact users' engagement and learning of STEM concepts. (Mixed reality is the blending of the physical world and the digital world, enabling interaction between human and artificial intelligence.) Project research will extend current research, which is largely descriptive, by investigating empirical results on learner outcomes. Key research questions are: What types of adaptivity and personalization can improve Smart Science Exhibits and MR systems generally? What balance of exploration and AI guidance is best to maximize enjoyment, engagement and learning? Do findings about the effective features of Smart Science Exhibits generalize to different content areas and informal learning settings? The project will employ user-centered design research, formative evaluation, and controlled experimentation to discover how mixed-reality systems should be designed to best meet visitor and staff needs in informal learning settings including multiple museums and afterschool providers. Data on learner behaviors in mixed-reality experiences in a variety of informal settings will inform the design of Smart Science Exhibits. The project will investigate whether adaptive approaches generalize across content and context to achieve better STEM learning, engagement, collaboration, and productive dialogue. The project will incorporate the team's prior technical research, which developed both vision techniques to track children's physical interactions and interactive pedagogical techniques to provide scaffolds for and reactive feedback on children's inquiry and construction behaviors. New technical research will develop AI techniques for adaptive task selection and personalized feedback that draws on a visitor's history of interaction. Project research and design resources will be widely shared with the science museum educators and designers through presentations at annual conferences and with researchers, developers and others through peer-reviewed journal publications and professional publications.
This Innovations in Development 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.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Nesra YannierScott HudsonKen Koedinger
The Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. An ongoing challenge to the design of effective STEM learning exhibits for diverse young children is the absence of reliable and evidence-based resources that designers can apply to the design of STEM exhibits that draw upon play as a child's primary pedagogy, while simultaneously engaging children with STEM content and processes that support development of STEM skills such as observation. To address these challenges, the project team will use a collaborative process in which learning researchers and informal STEM practitioners iteratively develop, design, and test the STEM for Play Framework that could then be applied to the design of STEM-focused exhibits that support play and STEM skill use among early learners.
This Research in Service to Practice project will address these questions: 1) What is a framework for play in early STEM learning that is inclusive of children's cultural influences?; 2) To what extent do interactions between early learners (ages 3-8) and caregivers or peers at exhibits influence the structure and effectiveness of play for supporting STEM skill development?; 3) How do practitioners link play to STEM skill development, and to what extent does a framework for play in early STEM learning assist in identifying types of play that supports early STEM skill development?; and 4) What do practitioners identify as best practices in exhibit design that support the development of STEM skills for early childhood audiences, and conversely, to what extent do practitioners perceive specific aspects of the design as influential to play? The project team will address these questions across four phases of study that will include (a) development of a critical research synthesis to inform the initial STEM for Play framework; (b) the use of surveys, focus groups, and interviews to solicit feedback from practitioners; (c) testing and revising the framework by conducting structured observations of STEM exhibits at multiple museums. The project team will use multiple analytic approaches including qualitative thematic analyses as well as inferential statistics. Results will be disseminated to children?s museums, science centers, and research communities.
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.
The science museum field is only starting to look at ways of providing visitors with opportunities for the authentic observation of complex, real-time biological phenomenon. The project will develop and research a microscope-based exhibit with pedagogical scaffolding (i.e., helpful prompts) that responds to visitors' changing views as they explore live samples and biological processes. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. Scientific observation is a systematic, complex practice, critical in the biological sciences where investigation is heavily reliant on visual data. Using techniques and equipment similar to what scientists themselves use, the exhibit will enable visitors to see and explore the complex, dynamic visual evidence that scientists themselves see. The exhibit will use new and more affordable high-resolution imaging technology and image analysis software to make microscopic images of living organisms visible. Armed with "smart" (i.e., computer-assisted) pedagogical scaffolding that supports inquiry, the project will develop exhibits that help informal learners bridge the gap between everyday observation and authentic scientific observation. The platform will incorporate strategies grounded in prior work on learning through observation that will be applicable to a range of biological content and live specimens. The project platform will be designed for use to a variety of informal science learning environments, including nature centers and mobile laboratories as well as interactive science centers. The project platform itself, including the microscope, related imaging, and learning technologies will be relatively inexpensive, bring it within reach of small science museum and schools. The exhibit will directly engage thousands of learners who visit the Exploratorium and will reach underserved audiences through partnerships with BioBus, a mobile unit that serves the New York City area, and the Noyo Center of Marine Science, a science museum that serves rural areas in Northern California.
The project will move beyond simulation and modeling of complex visual phenomena and provide learners with experiences using real visual evidence that can deeply engage them with the content and practice of biological science. By grounding the work in prior theoretical and empirical findings, project research will refine and broaden understanding of scaffolding strategies and their effect on informal science learning at exhibits. Project research will investigate how the project supports learners (1) asking productive questions (i.e., those answerable through observations) that are meaningful to them, (2) interpreting what they see, and (3) connecting their observations to biological concepts to build a more coherent understanding of the content and practice of biological disciplines. A series of comparative studies across and within venues, specimens, and content will assess engagement and scaffolding strategies, with a particular focus on appropriately integrating computational imaging techniques in a way that is responsive to the interests and needs of different venues' audiences. Project research will contribute important knowledge on ways to support informal learners who are engaged in authentic observation of biological phenomenon. Project research findings and technology resources will be widely shared with informal STEM researchers and practitioners concerned with engaging the public in current research in biology, as well as those interested in supporting observation in other disciplines (e.g., meteorology, ocean science, environmental science) that rely on an evidence base of live, dynamic, complex imagery.
This Innovations in Development 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.
Exploratorium’s The Phenomenal Genome: Evolving Public Understanding of Genetics in the Post-Mendelian Era project addresses the increasing need to develop genomic literacy in the public at large. The explosion of genomics research over the past two decades has led to an increasingly complex picture of the determinants of human health and human phenotypes, and the applications of this research are now making their way into the clinic, the media, and the hands of consumers. The goal of this project is to create a model for increasing genomic literacy through Informal Science Education programming (ISE), creating a pathway for better decision making for the health of individuals and society at large. The Phenomenal Genome focuses on general science museum visitors and teachers of middle and high school students.
The core of the Exploratorium’s approach to science education is the creation of intriguing, provocative and investigable phenomena that are experienced directly and personally through exhibits, facilitated explorations, programs, and teacher professional development. Over two years, we will develop, test, and iterate inquiry-based professional development to help teachers develop understanding and integrate the principles of contemporary genomics and genetics into their classrooms. 120 middle and high school teachers will be served during this period, and many more beyond that, as the activities and workshops developed become a regular part of our teacher professional development programming. A learning scientist specializing in teacher learning will conduct research to determine which approaches and experiences are most effective for this context, and why.
In a parallel process, we will develop and test exhibits and experiences on the museum floor for museum visitors, using a similar iterative process of prototype testing with an embedded learning scientist to study visitor learning. We plan to define the approaches that work across audiences and contexts, as well as those that work best in particular contexts.
Through this work, we will develop new resources for teaching and learning contemporary genomics and genetics, and identify promising practices in communicating contemporary genomics and genetics in informal spaces across audiences. We will disseminate our findings via conferences, peer-reviewed articles, and workshops for the ISE community.
Escape rooms are an engaging and increasingly popular game format in which a team of players is “locked” in a room and challenged to solve a series of narrative-embedded puzzles encoded in the room’s artifacts in order to “escape” within a set period of time. The University of California Museum of Paleontology, with partners University of Kansas Natural History Museum and the California Academy of Sciences, aim to develop, evaluate, and disseminate a “serious game” (i.e., a game designed for a purpose other than entertainment) based on the escape room model. Our traveling/loanable pop-up escape room and associated extension activities will engage diverse families (ages 8 and up) in museums and libraries in solving a biomedical mystery that teaches fundamental concepts in biology, engages critical-thinking and collaboration skills, and stimulates interest in biomedical careers. STEM Escape will address NGSS-aligned content central to medical research – in particular, it will communicate basic concepts regarding evolutionary relationships, a topic with relevance to a wide variety of medical applications, such as determining the source of emerging infectious diseases, tracking the progression of disease within a host, and identifying new medicines. The project is designed to lay the groundwork for extended family interactions surrounding scientific content and biomedical careers. The immersive game will be supplemented by a set of solo and docent-led follow-up activities that reinforce key concepts and emphasize connections between players’ experience in the game and biomedical research careers. Learners will also receive takeaway media (e.g., activity book) that highlights a diverse set of NIH-funded researchers whose work directly relies on evolutionary patterns/processes. Caregivers will have the option of receiving a follow-up email with free at-home activities. The themed inflatable pop-up room will be wheelchair-accessible and all materials will be bilingual in English and Spanish. The STEM Escape experience will be developed with and for the diverse audiences visiting urban/suburban natural history museums and libraries, as well as with and for rural families, whom we will reach through rural libraries. The project will also produce and evaluate a suite of support materials to facilitate institutional adoption and deployment of the experience. Nine host sites across the country have committed to hosting the room (with an additional two sites in the planning stages), and after the life of the grant, the room will continue to make an impact as a rentable traveling exhibit. Long term, this project will improve the public’s understanding of medically relevant evolutionary content, increase interest in biomedical careers, particularly among underserved groups targeted, and improve our understanding of how immersive games can be used to serve educational objectives.
American Indian and Alaska Native communities continue to disproportionately face significant environmental challenges and concerns as a predominately place-based people whose health, culture, community, and livelihood are often directly linked to the state of their local environment. With increasing threats to Native lands and traditions, there is an urgent need to promote ecological sustainability awareness and opportunities among all stakeholders within and beyond the impacted areas. This is especially true among the dozens of tribes and over 50,000 members of the Coast Salish Nations in the Pacific Northwest United States. The youth within these communities are particularly vulnerable. This Innovations in Development project endeavors to address this serious concern by implementing a multidimensional, multigenerational model aimed at intersecting traditional ecological knowledge with contemporary knowledge to promote: (a) environmental sustainability awareness, (b) increased STEM knowledge and skills across various scientific domains, and (c) STEM fields and workforce opportunities within Coast Salish communities. Building on results from a prior pilot study, the project will be grounded on eight guiding principles. These principles will be reflected in all aspects of the project including an innovative, culturally responsive toolkit, curriculum, museum exhibit and programming, workshops, and a newly established community of practice. If successful, this project could provide new insights on effective mechanisms for not only promoting STEM knowledge and skills within informal contexts among Coast Salish communities but also awareness and social change around issues of environmental sustainability in the Pacific Northwest.
Over a five-year period, the project will build upon an extant curriculum and findings codified in a pilot study. Each aspect of the pilot work will be refined to ensure that the model established in this Innovations and Development project is coherent, comprehensive, and replicable. Workshops and internships will prepare up to 200 Coast Salish Nation informal community educators to implement the model within their communities. Over 2,500 Coast Salish Nation and Swinomish youth, adults, educators, and elders are expected to be directly impacted by the workshops, internships, curriculum and online toolkit. Another 300 learners of diverse ages are expected to benefit from portable teaching collections developed by the project. Through a partnership with the Washington State Burke Natural History Museum, an exhibit and museum programming based on the model will be developed and accessible in the Museum, potentially reaching another 35,000 people each year. The project evaluation will assess the extent to which the following expected outcomes are achieved: (a) increased awareness and understanding of Indigenous environmental sustainability challenges; (b) increased skills in developing and implementing education programs through an Indigenous lens; (c) increased interest in and awareness of the environmental sciences and other STEM disciplines and fields; and (d) sustainable relationships among the Coast Salish Nations. A process evaluation will be conducted to formatively monitor and assess the work. A cross cultural team, including a recognized Coast Salish Indigenous evaluator, will lead the summative evaluation. The project team is experienced and led by representatives from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Oregon State University, Garden Raised Bounty, the Center for Lifelong STEM Learning, the Urban Indian Research Institute, Feed Seven Generations, and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
The project will refine, research and disseminate making exhibits and events that the museum has developed and tested to support early engineering skill development. The project will use cardboard, a familiar and flexible material, to support the activities. The goal is to develop insights and resources for informal educators across the museum field and beyond into how to effectively structure and facilitate open-ended maker education experiences for visitors that expand the number and kinds of museums and families who can engage in these activities. Maker education is often linked to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning and uses hands-on and collaborative approaches to support activities and projects that foster creativity, interest, and skill development. To address patterns of inequitable access to and participation in both formal and informal learning opportunities, the project will be designed to engage families from under-represented communities and research how they participate in informal engineering activities and environments. The project will make a suite of resources available for museums and other ISE practitioners that will be developed through iterative testing at all of the different settings. These resources will be made widely available via an open access online portal.
The project will research how effectively the use of cardboard making exhibits and events engage families, particularly families from underrepresented groups, in STEM and early engineering. The project's theoretical framework combines elements of: (1) learning sciences theories of family learning in museums; (2) making as a learning process; (3) early engineering practices and dispositions, and (4) equity in museums and the maker movement. The research will be conducted within two multi-month implementations of a large-scale Cardboard Engineering gallery at the Science Museum of Minnesota and two-week scaled implementations of the gallery at each of three recruited partner museum sites. The project design interweaves evaluation and research aims. Paired observations and surveys will be used to research how effectively the project is working in different venues. This integration of research and evaluation will generate a large data set from which to generalize about cardboard making across contexts. Case studies will be used to identify barriers to engagement that can be remedied, but they will provide a rich data set for understanding family learning and engineering in making. Research findings and products will be posted on the Center for Informal Science Education website and submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals such as Visitor Studies, ASTC Dimensions, the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research and others.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
There is a dearth of prominent STEM role models for underrepresented populations. For example, according to a 2017 survey, only 3.1% of physicists in the United States are Black, only 2.1% are Hispanic, and only 0.5% are Native American. The project will help bridge these gaps by developing exhibits that include simulations of historical scientific experiments enacted by little-known scientists of color, virtual reality encounters that immerse participants in the scientists' discovery process, and other content that allows visitors to interact with the exhibits and explore the exhibits' themes. The project will develop transportable, interactive exhibits focusing on light: how we perceive light, sources of light from light bulbs to stars, uses of real and artificial light in human endeavors, and past and current STEM innovators whose work helps us understand, create, and harness light now. The exhibits will be developed in three stages, each exploring a characteristic of light (Color, Energy, or Time). Each theme will be explored via multiple deliveries: short documentary and animated films, virtual reality experiences, interactive "photobooths," and technology-based inquiry activities. The exhibit components will be copied at seven additional sites, which will host the exhibits for their audiences, and the project's digital assets will enable other STEM learning organizations to duplicate the exhibits. The exhibits will be designed to address common gaps in understanding, among adults as well as younger learners, about light. What light really is and does, in scientific terms, is one type of hidden story these exhibits will convey to general audiences. Two other types of science stories the exhibits will tell: how contemporary research related to light, particularly in astrophysics, is unveiling the hidden stories of our universe; and hidden stories of STEM innovators, past and present, women and men, from diverse backgrounds. These stories will provide needed role models for the adolescent learners, helping them learn complex STEM content while showing them how scientific research is conducted and the diverse community of people who can contribute to STEM innovations and discoveries.
The project deliverables will be designed to present complex physics content through coherent, immersive, and embodied learning experiences that have been demonstrated to promote engagement and deeper learning. The project will research whether participants, through interacting with these exhibits, can begin to integrate discrete ideas and make connections with complex scientific content that would be difficult without technology support. For example, students and other novices often lack the expertise necessary to make distinctions between what is needed and what is extra within scientific problems. The proposed study follows a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach characterized by iterative cycles of data collection, analysis, and reflection to inform the design of educational innovations and advance educational theory. Project research includes conceiving, building, and testing iterative phases, which will enable the project to capture the complexity of learning and engagement in informal learning settings. Research participants will complete a range of research activities, including focus group interviews, observation, and pre-post assessment of science content knowledge and dispositions.
By showcasing such role models and informing about related STEM content, this project will widen perspectives of audiences in informal learning settings, particularly adolescents from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. Research findings and methodologies will be shared widely in the informal STEM learning community, building the field's knowledge of effective ways to broaden participation in informal science learning, and thus increase broaden participation in and preparation for the STEM-based workforce.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Todd BoyetteJill HammJanice AndersonCrystal Harden