This study collected data from seven planetarium email lists (one per planetarium regional organization in the United States), as well as online survey panel data from residents in each area, to describe and compare those who do and do not visit planetariums.
The Children’s Museum will collaborate with six Hartford Public Library branches, three Hartford Family Centers, and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center to provide hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) - based programs to over 1,000 local 3 to 14-year old children and their care givers. Program design and development will include planning for field trips to the museum. All participants will be given age-specific, supplemental STEAM materials to continue their learning activities at home, and families can attend more than one week of library programs, or more than three Saturdays of family center programs. The goal will be to help urban Hartford youths find new pathways toward responsible citizenry and fiscal stability.
The making and tinkering movement has become increasingly mainstream over the past decade, pioneered in part through the popularity of magazines like `Make', events such as Maker Faire and DIY websites including `Instructables'. Science centres and museums have been developing their own ideas, notably the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium. In this commentary piece, we reflect on why this movement has a strong appeal for the Life Science Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne and why we are in the process of developing a new making and tinkering space to help us enact our centre's vision to `Enrich
Many of the Hispanic children and families who live in the Rio Grande Valley lack opportunities to engage in inspirational and educational experiences introducing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) concepts and related careers. The University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) will adapt and research the "Energy and U Show," which will introduce thousands of children and families to an exciting and dramatic that shows interconverting different forms of energy. The show will meld the excitement of chemical demonstrations and the natural connection between energy and STEM education in a fully produced, on-stage science extravaganza. A foundational philosophy of the show is that there is additional real value in getting children and youth onto a college campus. For many of its participants, this is their first time sitting in a seat at a university, the first opportunity for them to envision themselves in this environment. In partnership with the University of Minnesota, which originally developed the show, UTRGV will adapt the show, now presented in English, to a bilingual, culturally accessible format that is designed to Hispanic family audiences and student groups in learning about energy and related careers. Evaluation results demonstrate that the show has effectively engaged thousands of Minnesota students. The target audience will be upper elementary (4th-5th grade), middle school students, and their parents. This project will be led by UTRGV, nation's second-largest Hispanic Serving Institution, with a student enrollment of 28,000, of which over 90% are Hispanic and more than 60% are first-generation college students). In addition to the show, the project will include: (1) a manual to guide implementation of the program and related resources at different national or international venues; (2) educational resources for parents, teachers and school counselors introducing STEM careers and specific STEM college majors; (3) mentoring of UTRGV faculty in outreach activities; and (4) dissemination of the show to other campuses and venues.
The project will conduct ongoing research and evaluation guiding the adaptation of the show and investigation of factors contributing to positive educational impacts of the project, which will be carried out by a bilingual/bicultural researcher. Project research instruments will measure student level of engagement, interest and learning, as well as college interest, in surveys and analysis of data pre and post demonstration. The project will specifically investigate the impact of language on student impacts. Each component of this project will be studied to determine program intervention effectiveness (the scientific demonstration and language of the demonstration). To determine program effectiveness, a baseline of data before program implementation will be established concerning Hispanic students, their persistence, and perceptions of the environment. The project will measure parent perceptions of STEM careers for their children through pre and post demonstration surveys and focus groups. Student and parent research participants will be able to use surveys or respond to other research activities in the language of their choice. Project findings will contribute to the knowledge base concerning how linguistically and culturally adapted science shows and related resources adapted into can have positive impacts regarding the STEM knowledge and careers of students and parents from low-income and Hispanic communities.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Karen LozanoArturo FuentesAaron MassariBrian Warren
This poster was created for the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program Primary Investigator (PI) meeting. The research presented here is a summary of the various informal STEM learning opportunities offered as part of the collaboration between university researchers and museum practionners. We were interested in how museums can advance parent-child engagment in STEM-rich tinkering and reflection. The participants were able to take part of a few different activities that allowed for informal reflection and tinkering at the Tinkering Lab, a musuem exhibit that invites families to take
The Katonah Museum of Art (KMA) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to evaluate its early childhood program, ArteJuntos/ArtTogether (ArteJuntos), ArteJuntos is a bilingual art and culture-based family literacy program that introduces low-income, educationally at-risk preschool children and their families to the KMA. Using works of art in KMA’s exhibitions, the program connects parents and their children (ages 3-5) to activities that support children’s emergent literacies—observation, oral and receptive language, and critical thinking skills.
How did we approach this study?
RK
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The project will provide much needed empirical results on how to promote children’s STEM engagement and learning in informal science education settings. The project will yield useful information and resources for informal science learning practitioners, parents, and other educators who look to advance STEM learning opportunities for children.
This report summarizes the evaluation results from the NSF funded Eight-Legged Encounters family event that uses arachnids as a hook to draw public interests towards science. The event involves informative and hands-on activities that bridge the gap between academia and the public, extending knowledge about arachnids to children and their parents. The Bureau of Sociological Research (BOSR) at UNL was contracted to evaluate Eight-Legged Encounters. The data collection for this report involves five events and three audiences: adults, children, and the volunteers of the event. Two events were
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TEAM MEMBERS:
University of Nebraska LincolnEileen Hebets
The data collection for this project involved three audiences: (1) a post-event survey completed by participants at the 'Eight-Legged Encounters' event, (2) a club experience survey completed by middle school students in an after-school club, and (3) focus groups, observations, and end-of-course evaluations conducted with students in the BIOS 497/897 'Communicating Science through Outreach' seminar class at the University of Lincoln, Nebraska. Year two data collection was completed from September 2013 - March 2014. Appendix includes survey.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
University of Nebraska-LincolnEileen Hebets
The data collection for this project involves three audiences: (1) a post-event survey completed by participants at the 'Eight-Legged Encounters' event, (2) a club experience survey completed by middle school students in an after school club, and (3) focus groups, observations, and end-of-course evaluations conducted with students in the BIOS 497/897 'Communicating Science through Outreach' seminar class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Data was collected from February to April, 2013 and the evaluation was conducted by the Bureau of Sociological Research (BOSR). Appendix contains surveys
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TEAM MEMBERS:
University of Nebraska-LincolnEileen Hebets
Parents and children are rapidly adopting mobile technologies, yet designs for mobile devices that serve a communication function to connect parents to children's out-of-school time activities are limited. As a result, our team designed the Digital Postcard Maker so that children attending summer camps can create digital photographs to send home to their parents. These digital postcards help to connect children's home life with out-of-school learning experiences and also support 21st Century Skills' media literacy practices. The research design included two iterations of a design-based
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Heather ZimmermanChristopher GamratSimon Hooper
This article highlights findings from a study conducted by researchers at Jacksonville State University that assessed group visitor behavior at four exhibits at the Anniston Museum of Natural History. Researchers studied if male and female adults behave differently at exhibits when they are with a child than when they are with another adult as well as whether or not adult behavior was consistent across different types of exhibits.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Stephen BitgoodChifumi KitazawaAndrea CavenderKaren Nettles