The goal of this evaluation was to determine how museum visitors responded to the museum's existing live animal exhibits and identify recommendations for their new Live Animal Garden exhibit.
The project team published a research synopsis article with Futurum Science Careers in Feb 2023 called “How Can Place Attachment Improve Scientific Literacy?”
Few people realize that the largest part of our planet’s biosphere remains virtually unexplored and unknown. This enormous habitat, accounting for an area of 116 million square miles or the equivalent size of roughly 30 times the area of the United States, is the abyssal zone of the deep ocean. The abyssal sea floor, at about 6000 ft., contains more than four times as much habitat for animal life as all of the dry mountains, forests, deserts, plains and jungles combined. Microscopic larvae in the deep ocean, are essential for the renewal and replenishment of life and they repopulate areas damaged by human activities such as mining and trawling, and they make marine protected areas both feasible and important. The National Science Foundation has funded intensive studies of oceanography related to larval recruitment for decades. However, findings from this large NSF investment of personnel, technology and funding have never been widely presented to the public. This project proposes to remedy this by developing a 40 minute giant screen film to be shown in science centers across the country, supported by virtual reality and augmented reality learning tools. The film will cover select deep ocean science expeditions using the deep-sea vehicles Alvin and ROV Jason. Content will include elements of the research process, activities related to the design and operation of deep-sea vehicles as well as interviews with scientists and technologists. The companion activities, Deep-Ocean Pilot (a VR-360° viewing station) and Plankton Quest (an AR biology treasure hunt) will extend the audience experience of the deep ocean out of the giant screen theater and into the surrounding museum environment. The website and social media will extend awareness and resources into homes. The project will be appropriate for a broad general audience, with particular appeal for the target audience of women and girls (ages 7-20). The larval biologist team is led by the PI at the University of Oregon, in collaboration with scientists from North Carolina State University, Western Washington University and the University of Rhode Island. Several young women scientists will be featured in the film providing role models. The production company, Stephen Low Productions, Inc. will use the latest technology on the Alvin and other cinematic tools to capture the visual images in the abyss. Collaborating museums will participate in the development and implementation of the Virtual and Augmented Reality learning tools as well as showing the film in their theaters.
Broader impact project goals include 1) Advancing public awareness of the abyssal ocean, the role of microscopic larvae, and what scientists are learning from expeditions that use deep submergence technologies; 2) Introducing public audiences and young women specifically to the wide range of STEM-related occupations encompassed in the field of ocean exploration and research; and 3) Advancing STEM learning research and practice in the area of immersive media in conveying STEM concepts and enhancing audience identification with STEM. Oregon State University’s STEM Research Center will build new knowledge by conducting formative and summative evaluation of the film and its associated support products (e.g., Virtual and augmented reality activities, website resources), addressing the following evaluation questions: 1)What do audiences take away from their experience in terms of fascination/interest, awareness and understanding related to ocean science exploration? 2) To what degree does the film alone or in combination with supplemental experiences trigger career awareness in girls and young women, and youth of racial/ethnic backgrounds? 3) To what degree do immersive experiences (a sense of “being there”) contribute to learning from the film? 4) How enduring are outcomes with audiences past the onsite immediate experience? Formative evaluation will be designed as ongoing improvement informed by empirical evidence in which evaluators work with team members to answer decision-relevant questions in a timely and project-focused way. The summative evaluation will be structured as an effectiveness study using mixed methods and ascertaining whether key programmatic outcomes have been reached and the degree to which particular program elements will have contributed to the results.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Craig YoungAlexander LowStephen LowGeorge von DassowTrish Mace
The Westmoreland Sanctuary Nature Center and Museum will develop an interactive educational museum exhibition to teach visitors about pond ecology, watershed health, and sustainable resource management and encourage them to become more involved in environmental conservation. The museum will use its pond ecology curriculum, which comports with Next Generation Science Standards, to educate approximately 10,000 visitors annually. The interactive exhibition will include a touchable model of a pond’s edge; a roll-out specimen drawer with additional taxidermy such as a green heron, frog, spotted salamander, or freshwater clam; and a microscope with slides of rainwater so students can see the “life” in a drop of water. Multi-level, take-home reading materials aimed at elementary, middle/high school, and adult learners will further promote science literacy and provide concrete ways individuals can get involved in their communities to support sustainable aquatic ecosystems.
The Montana Natural History Center, in collaboration with the University of Montana, will develop an exhibit to showcase a selection of the university's extensive fossil collection. This new exhibit will help create inclusive, inquiry-based, educational opportunities for preschoolers through adults. University faculty will guide specimen interpretation and story development. The exhibit will explore modern research into evolution in a time of climate change, sharing ongoing university research and highlighting STEM careers and citizen science work. The project is based on interests identified through surveys, museum visitor recommendations, and a member focus group.
Through the T523: Formative Evaluation for Educational Product Development course, our team conducted a semester-long formative evaluation for the Museum of Science, Boston (MoS) Gaia Exhibit. The Gaia Exhibit (Gaia) is a new, temporary art installation located in the MoS’s Blue Wing exhibition hall. Gaia that strives to inspire appreciation for the earth and climate change awareness. The exhibit displays imagery of the Earth’s surface on a twenty feet diameter, three-dimensional globe. Additional exhibit elements include projected questions on the floor to prompt reflection and exhibit-
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Programming includes
Neighborhood Walks led by teams of scientists/engineers and artists
Community Workshops, Local Artist Projects, and Youth Mentorship focused on neighborhood and citywide water issues
Intergenerational participation, from seniors and adult learners to young adults, teens, and middle schoolers
This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
The Accessible Oceans study will design auditory displays that support learning and understanding of ocean data in informal learning environments like museums, science centers, and aquariums. Most data presentations in these spaces use visual display techniques such as graphs, charts, and computer-generated visualizations, resulting in inequitable access for learners with vision impairment or other print-related disabilities. While music, sound effects, and environmental sounds are sometimes used, these audio methods are inadequate for conveying quantitative information. The project will use sonification (turning data into sound) to convey meaningful aspects of ocean science data to increase access to ocean data and ocean literacy. The project will advance knowledge on the design of auditory displays for all learners, with and without disabilities, as well as advance the use of technology for STEM formal and informal education. The study will include 425 participants but will reach tens of thousands through the development of education materials, public reporting, and social media. The study will partner with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Discovery Center, the Georgia Aquarium, the Eugene Science Center, the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired, and Perkins School for the Blind.
The project will leverage existing educational ocean datasets from the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative to produce and evaluate the feasibility of using integrated auditory displays to communicate tiered learning objectives of oceanographic principles. Integrated auditory displays will each be comprised of a data sonification and a context-setting audio introduction that will help to make sure all users start with the same basic information about the phenomenon. The displays will be developed through a user-centered design process that will engage ocean science experts, visually impaired students and adults (and their teachers), and design-oriented undergraduate and graduate students. The project will support advocacy skills for inclusive design and will provide valuable training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students in human-centered design and accessibility. The project will have foundational utility in auditory display, STEM education, human-computer interaction, and other disciplines, contributing new strategies for representing quantitative information that can be applied across STEM disciplines that use similar visual data displays. The project will generate publicly accessible resources to advance studies of inclusive approaches on motivating learners with and without disabilities to learn more about and consider careers in STEM.
This Pilots and Feasibility Studies project is supported by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
This NOVA multiplatform media initiative consisted of a 2-hour nationally broadcast PBS documentary, Polar Extremes; a 10-part original digital series, Antarctic Extremes; an interactive game, Polar Lab; accompanying polar-themed digital shorts, radio stories, text reporting, and social media content; a collection of educational resources on PBS LearningMedia; and community screening events and virtual field trips for science classrooms. Across multiple media platforms the project’s video content had nearly 13 million views.
The research explored the potential for informal STEM learning
As new technologies continue to dominate the world, access to and participation in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and computing has become a critical focus of education research, practice, and policy. This issue is exceptionally relevant for American Indians, who remain underrepresented as only 0.2% of the STEM workforce, even though they make up 2% of the U.S. population. In response to this need, this Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) project takes a community-driven design approach, a collaborative design process in which Indigenous partners maintain sovereignty as designers, to collaboratively create three place-based storytelling experiences, stories told in historical and cultural places through location-based media. The place-based storytelling experiences will be digital installations at three culturally, politically, and historically significant sites in the local community where the public can engage with Indigenous science. The work is being done in partnership with the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation (NWBSN).
The principal investigator and the NWBSN will investigate: (a) what are effective strategies and processes to conduct community-driven design with Indigenous partners?; (b) how does designing place-based storytelling experiences develop tribal members' design, technical, and computational skills?; (c) how does designing these experiences impact tribal members' scientific, technological, and cultural identities? The goals are to establish a process of community-driven design, build infrastructure to support this process, and understand how this methodological approach can result in culturally-appropriate ways to engage with science through technology. The principal investigator will work with the tribe to complete three intergenerational design cycles (a design cycle is made up of multiple design iterations). Each design cycle will result in one place-based storytelling experience. The goal is to include roughly 15 youth (ages 6-18), 10 Elders, and 10 other community members (i.e. members ages 18-50, likely parents) in each design cycle (35 tribal members total). Some designers are likely to participate in multiple design cycles. The tribe currently has 48 youth ages 6-18 and the project aims to engage at least 30 across all three design cycles. Over four years of designing three different experiences, the NWBSN aims to recruit at least 100 tribal members (just under 20% of the tribe) to make contributions (as designers, storytellers, or to provide cultural artifacts or design feedback).
This CAREER award is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences.
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.
Citizen science is a form of Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) in which the participants are engaged in the scientific process to support research that results in scientifically valid data. Opportunities for participation in real and authentic scientific research have never been larger or broader than they are today. The growing popularity and refinement of PPSR efforts (such as birding and species counting studies orchestrated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) have created both an opportunity for science engagement and a need for more research to better implement such projects in order to maximize both benefits to and contributions from the public.
Towards this end, Shirk et al. have posted a design framework for PPSR projects that delineates distinct levels of citizen scientist participation; from the least to the highest level of participation, these categories are contract, contribute, collaborate, co-create, and colleagues. The distinctions among these levels are important to practitioners seeking to design effective citizen science programs as each increase in citizen science participation in the scientific process is hypothesized to have both benefits and obstacles. The literature on citizen science models of PPSR calls for more research on the role that this degree of participation plays in the quality of that participation and related learning outcomes (e.g., Shirk et al., 2012; Bonney et al., 2009). With an unprecedented interest in thoughtfully incorporating citizen science into health-based studies, citizen science practitioners and health researchers first need a better understanding of the role of culture in how different communities approach and perceive participation in health-related studies, the true impact of intended educational efforts from participation, and the role participation in general has on the scientific process and the science outcome.
Project goal to address critical barrier in the field: Establish best practices for use of citizen science in the content area of human health-based research, and better inform the design of future projects in PPSR, both in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Genetics of Taste Lab (Lab), and importantly, in various research and educational settings across the field.
Aims
Understand who currently engages in citizen science projects in order to design strategies to overcome the barriers to participation that occur at each level of the PPSR framework, particularly among audiences underrepresented in STEM.
Significantly advance the current knowledge regarding how citizen scientists engage in, and learn from, and participate in the different levels of the PPSR framework.
Determine the impact that each stage of citizen science participation has on the scientific process.