The Garfield Park Conservatory will launch a new initiative to expand and improve its offerings for local students and teachers with a focus on meeting the needs of Title I schools and under-served schools on Chicago's West Side. The new Student Engagement and Educational Development (SEED) program is designed to enhance the quality of fieldtrip experiences for PreK-8 students visiting the conservatory; support teachers in planning and connecting their conservatory fieldtrips to their classroom studies; align fieldtrip content to Next Generation Science Standards; provide increased access to STEM-based fieldtrips for the city's Title I schools; and connect under-resourced schools on Chicago's West Side more deeply to the conservatory. This program will build the organization's capacity to serve more students and teachers each year, and make the conservatory more appealing to teachers, more engaging for students, and easier to access for low-income schools that struggle to provide their students fieldtrip experiences.
The STEAM Para Todos project will transform a prominent exhibit in the Marbles Kids Museum into a vibrant space that fosters culturally relevant STEAM learning and exploration for all museum visitors, particularly the growing Hispanic, dual-language learner population in Wake County, N.C. The three-year project will involve research, testing, design, installation, and evaluation. The museum will work with the school system, STEM partners, the local arts community, and organizations engaged with the Hispanic community to develop the exhibit. Guiding the project will be a community of practice, comprised of museum professionals; researchers with expertise in STEAM education, dual language learners, and culturally responsive informal learning; partners from STEM businesses; creative arts organizations; the Wake County Public School System; and stakeholders from the exhibit's intended audience. Project partners include Wake County Public School System, Que Pasa, US2020, Visual Arts Exchange, North Carolina Society of Hispanic Professionals, and Google Fiber.
The Science Center of Iowa will update its 10-year-old gallery, "What on Earth," to tell the story of how Iowa's habitats and animals are connected to each other and to humans. New exhibition components will include touch specimens, interactive elements, and an integrated storyline that connects the living specimens to the broader context of a delicate and changing ecosystem. The project will support the final phase of exhibition update, including the further development of specific content and experiences through an evaluative process, and the fabrication and installation of exhibitions, labels, and graphics. The museum will partner with the Science Museum of Minnesota to conduct a summative evaluation of the new content and experiences geared to a core audience of students in grades 3-5 and their caregivers.
This report shares the results of a year-long study of the impact of IMLS grants (1998-2003) though programs that served youth aged 9-19. Nearly 400 museum and library programs were surveyed about their goals, strategies, content, audience, and structure, as well as about their impact, effectiveness, and outcomes.
Drawing on results from a recent national study, we draw attention to the importance of the experiential learning cycle for enhancing meaningful outcomes of interpretive and educational experiences. The experiential learning cycle involves participating in a concrete experience, reflecting on that experience, drawing out lessons learned and principles from that reflection, and putting that knowledge to work in a new situation. Recent studies reveal that attention to completing all four stages of the experiential learning cycle can enhance positive outcomes for participants in educational and
This report introduces a framework to support learning in library and museum makerspaces. The framework demonstrates how we can create the conditions for ambitious learning experiences to unfold within the making experience.
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Children's Museum of PittsburghInstitute of Museum and Library ServicesPeter Wardrip
From 2014-2016, Pacific Science Center continued and expanded the Science Technology Engineering and Math Out-of-School-Time (STEM-OST) program with the purpose of delivering programs to stem the summer learning loss. Specifically, the project expanded to new venues in the Puget Sound (Washington) region; modified the lessons and activities so they also served students in grades K-2; aligned the curriculum with the Next Generation Science Standards (recently adopted by the Washington State Legislature) and increased the number of Family Science Days and Family Science Workshops offered to
With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Wild Center (TWC) engaged Insight Evaluation Services (IES) to assess the impact of specific outreach activities of the Northern New York Maple Project between September 2013 and September 2015. Data for this two-year evaluation study were collected via in-depth telephone interviews conducted with a total of 25 participants, including 16 Tupper Tappers (Tupper Lake area residents who engaged in backyard tapping to provide sap for syrup production at the museum through the Community Maple Project), four local school teachers
WCS launched its electronic field trip program, Distance Learning Expeditions, in 2001 when there
was tremendous interest in the educational community in the potential of videoconferencing
technology for program delivery, as well as money available for the purchase of related broadcast
equipment. The program grew rapidly and was successful through 2009 -- serving 9,600 students
in 2006-07, its largest year. From 2010 to 2014, with school budget cuts, high equipment
maintenance costs, and shifts in staffing, participation in the program declined. In 2010, WCS
secured a grant from IMLS for
In partnership with Future Makers and several Maryland public libraries, the Maryland State Department of Education’s Division of Library Development and Services (DLDS) will teach children ages 4 to 7 the basic principles of programming through the use of Primo, an open-source robotics platform. With Primo, children use blocks to create algorithms that guide a robot through a maze. This will establish a foundation for learning more advanced programming skills later on, set early learners on the path to fluency in computer science, and establish a stronger mindset in computational thinking through play and experimentation. As Primo does not rely on a computer screen, the program will be replicable in a variety of environments; the curriculum will also be inclusive to young children with varying degrees of ability.
The Wild Center will develop, implement, and disseminate a model program, VTS in Science, for the science museum field adapted from the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) teaching method. In partnership with several museums, educators, and a consulting firm, the Wild Center will use current research to develop informal and formal learning programming; implement a model professional development program for science museum professionals and elementary teachers; provide educators resources and knowledge to develop VTS in Science programming relevant to daily teaching—including a VTS in science toolkit; facilitate a long-term collaborative process and model school-museum partnership among a diverse group of education providers; and evaluate the effectiveness of the VTS in Science program in order to promote replication by science museums nationally.
The New Children's Museum will launch the LAByrinth project to engage the community in the creation of a permanent art installation. The museum will convene a cross-disciplinary team to design and build the LAByrinth, a climbing structure that will serve 140,000 people annually. The museum will develop relationships with underserved families and current and future museum users, and also create an ongoing community-based exhibition development process to create sustainable mechanisms for continued community involvement. The project will introduce a new socially-engaged process for creating exhibitions, which will serve as a sustainable creative catalyst for San Diego families.