The overall goal of the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) Equity Audit has been to assess CAISE as an organization, and its operations and products through a racial equity lens. In this report, CAISE provides insights on how to better serve our audiences, identify potential resource gaps, and to expand the reach and value of our work to other communities and individuals.
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.
In collaboration with TERC and informal learning organizations across the United States, COSI’s Center for Research and Evaluation (CRE) is part of an NSF-funded project, Research to Understand and Inform the Impacts of Ambient and Designed Sound on Informal STEM Learning.
The National Academy of Sciences, in partnership with the Nobel Foundation will host the second Nobel Prize Summit: Truth, Trust and Hope on May 24-26, 2023.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Franklin Carrero-Martinez Emi Kameyama
This piece explores the politics and possibilities of video research on learning in educational settings. The authors (a research–practice team) argue that changing the stance of inquiry from surveillance to relationship is an ongoing and contingent practice that involves pedagogical, political, and ethical choices on the part of researchers and educators. This discussion is grounded in ethnographic data collected in an equity-oriented, after-school program organized around science, engineering, and arts education.
This special issue of the Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies (LJCS) highlights the consolidation of the “citizen science” movement, which stems from different forms of direct participation of citizens in scientific projects. This issue also features contributions to the debate on the “open science” movement.
This study explores the part that child-orientated exhibitions play in the child and family museum experience. Such exhibitions are characterised by their distinctive approaches to learning, interpretation, and design, being especially devised for children. The research was carried out in children's galleries from three types of museum (a maritime museum, a science museum, and a children's museum) in order to compare and contrast similarities and differences between them. Since most of the research in this area has been carried out in science centres or science museums, there is a need to
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Denise Studart
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Inverness Research and Oregon State University, with support and input from CAISE, conducted an evaluation of the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting which was held virtually October 19-21, 2021. The evaluation effort included observing the meeting, participating in debriefing the meeting with CAISE co-PIs, the CAISE equity audit committee, and NSF Program Officers; developing and administering a post-event survey; and analyzing data collected through both the survey and Pathable, the virtual platform.
The meeting specifically focused on inviting and including community partners, and on creating
This review examines how natural history museums (NHMs) can enhance learning and engagement in science, particularly for school-age students. First, we describe the learning potential of informal science learning institutions in general, then we focus on NHMs. We review the possible benefits of interactions between schools and NHMs, and the potential for NHMs to teach about challenging issues such as evolution and climate change and to use digital technologies to augment more traditional artefacts. We conclude that NHMs can provide students with new knowledge and perspectives, with impacts
The purpose of this study was to examine the exhibition developer role in the context of United States (U.S.) science centers, and more specifically, to investigate the way science center exhibition developers build their professional expertise. This research investigated how successfully practicing exhibition developers described their current practices, how they learned to be exhibition developers, and what factors were the most important to the developers in building their professional expertise. Qualitative data was gathered from 10 currently practicing exhibition developers from three
The Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) is mid-way through year five of a five-year cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The NSF funded CAISE in 2007 in order to serve as a resource center to the informal science education (ISE) program, its grantees, and the larger ISE field. Inverness Research has served as the external evaluator for the past five years, documenting the development of CAISE, and the quality and value of its work to key audiences and stakeholders.
This report is a reflection on the progress of CAISE that draws upon our
Individuals do not all come to tasks, activities, or assignments with the same readiness to engage. Differences in the ability to focus, comprehend, or problem-solve can lead to inequalities of outcome and make learners less likely to realize their potential. Given that interest development supports persistence, conscientiousness, and the ability to work with negative feedback, educators and policymakers could help to increase educational opportunity for all by promoting the development of interest. Interest is a cognitive and motivational variable that describes (a) engagement, or