This by the project external evaluation partner presents findings from the first phase of the Co-Created Public Engagement with Science project (CC-PES). The CC-PES project has sought to bring together informal science education institutions, civic partners, and community partners to create forums that address socio-scientific issues that are important to audience being served. The project is designed to lead these collaborative teams through three key steps of public engagement with science: agenda setting (identifying the topic of interest and designing a forum to address it), decision
RK&A conducted prototype testing for the Game Changers exhibition with a general public adult audience (18 years and older). The Game Changers exhibition is being developed by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History.
With assistance from Access Smithsonian, RK&A conducted prototype testing for the Game Changers exhibition with nine adults who identify as having low vision or limited mobility. The Game Changers exhibition is being developed by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History.
RK&A conducted prototype testing for the Game Changers exhibition with three audiences: adults, female youth 10-17 years old, and male youth 13-14 years old. The Game Changers exhibition is being developed by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History.
Middle Ground, funded by the National Science Foundation, was an outdoor public installation developed by the Exploratorium and located in San Francisco’s Civic Center. This installation focused on the social science of how people think about others, particularly the cognitive basis for biases, judgements, and stereotypes, as well as more pro-social behavior and ways of connecting with others. Garibay Group conducted a summative evaluation to assess project outcomes.
PocketMacro is a mobile app designed by The Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University to help users better identify benthic macroinvertebrates commonly found in streams and other waterways. In Summer 2021, the app and other supplemental materials were highlighted during trainings for educators held at the Stroud Water Research Center.
The evaluation team from Rockman et al Cooperative (REA) surveyed and interviewed educators who participated in the summer trainings to determine what they took away from the experience and to gather feedback about the PocketMacro app
This is the summative evaluation report for the “Understanding the Physics of Collaborative Design and Play,” a collaboration between researchers and children’s museum practitioners to design and build a physics-based children’s museum exhibit to provide opportunities for children and their caregivers to tinker with play related to the STEM concepts of momentum, mass, velocity, friction, and balance in the context of informal learning related to skateboarding. The exhibit, “The Science of Skateboarding” at the Iowa Children’s Museum, was designed and fabricated as a result of this grant.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Deb DunkhaseKristen MissallBenjamin DeVane
Engaging Faith-based Communities in Citizen Science through Zooniverse was an 18-month pilot initiative funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Any opinions, findings, or recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Foundation. The goals of this initiative were to broaden participation in citizen science (aka people-powered research) among religious and interfaith communities by establishing pathways for them to engage with science using the online Zooniverse platform, and to build positive, long-term relationships with these
NSF generously funded the Science Museum of Minnesota's exploration of whether or not the "theatrical gaming" technique could improve visitors' understanding of complex topics requiring conceptual shifts--topics like evolution. COVID disrupted our formal evaluation plans, but this report offers finding and guidance/best practices for other informal education institutions interested in developing this type of experience. Individual sections discuss our particular, three-phased project, theatrical gaming as a technique, storytelling, gaming, technology, and evaluation.
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
ChemAttitudes: Using Design-Based Research to Develop and Disseminate Strategies and Materials to Support Chemistry Interest, Relevance, and Self-Efficacy (ChemAttitudes, NSF DRL-1612482) is a collaborative project between the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS), the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) among others. As a part of this project, researchers and educators from MOS and the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) used design-based research to create chemistry hands-on activities meant to positively impact visitors’ attitudes towards
This report presents summative evaluation results for a National Science Foundation funded project entitled Grounding Institutional Partnerships in Structures for Broader Impacts Design (BID). The project represents a collaboration between five institutions: Institute for Learning Innovation, The STEM Research Center at Oregon State University, Scicenter, University of Washington-Bothell, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. BID aimed at creating an inter-institutional structure and toolkit to assist higher education institutions (HEIs) and informal science education organizations (ISEs) in