Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Access from the Ground Up project at the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo (JMZ) seeks to better serve children with disabilities through a combination of partnerships with community, staff professional development and training, and the development of accessible STEM-focused exhibits and resources at the new JMZ facility, which opened in November 2021. This summative evaluation report seeks to answer the following evaluation questions:
To what extent does the Access from the Ground Up project build or strengthen relationships with
The Detroit Zoo will partner with community-based organizations serving youth in metropolitan Detroit to implement a program to develop and present remote STEM programming for students in this area, targeting low- to moderate-income students of color. Staff from the zoo and three afterschool programs (American Institutional Management Services, Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, and Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeast Michigan) will participate in professional development workshops on virtual, inquiry-based, humane STEM education. They will then utilize skills developed in the workshops to develop and lead virtual education programming for a total of 24 groups of 20 middle school youth.
The New England Aquarium will create Conservation STEM — an online curriculum that features engaging videos and hands-on activities aligned with state and national standards that are easily accessible for teachers to use in the classroom. The project responds to a need that the aquarium’s Teacher Advisory Council — composed of Pre-K through 12 teachers from the greater Boston area — identified, which was to help students develop critical and systems thinking skills. It also will provide a means for teachers to engage students with authentic experiences to address real-world problems and build an understanding of the need for a balanced use of the ocean.
Woodland Park Zoo will conduct a pilot partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound (BBBSPS) to provide science and conservation education, personal connections to peers and mentors, and opportunities to practice environmentalism among diverse King County youth. BBBSPS will promote the program and recruit mentor and youth participants. The zoo will facilitate three Conservation Challenges each year for mentors and youth and will host an annual Big Night Out on zoo grounds to express gratitude to mentors. The project will allow youth ages 9 to 14 to learn about science and conservation outside of school, and to see themselves as contributing to conservation and their local community as future scientists, stewards, and policymakers.
Zoo New England will bring a turtle conservation education program into 14 fifth grade classrooms in the Boston public schools and the Perkins School for the Blind. The Hatchling and Turtle Conservation Headstarting Program is designed to expose students from a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds to the importance of wildlife in their community, giving them an opportunity to participate in a hands-on conservation project. Each classroom will receive three indoor sessions and one field trip at the end of the year, as well as two turtle hatchlings to raise in the classroom. Teachers will be trained to raise and care for the turtles. Presentations will be tailored to the age group of the students and will include opportunities for hands-on STEM-inquiry-based learning in alignment with the Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Frameworks. Pre and post classroom and field trip evaluation will be conducted to assess the cognitive and attitudinal changes among participating students and teachers.
The Brookfield Zoo will launch the Zoo Explorers Club to provide underserved middle school students with free informal STEM education in public libraries and community centers in majority African American and Latino neighborhoods in Chicago, Cicero, and Melrose Park, Illinois. The program will consist of two four-week units per year, themed around STEM topics of interest to sixth-eighth graders. Students will participate in informal sessions that include hands-on science experiments, outdoor observations, craft projects, or animal experiences designed with the varied learning styles of middle school students in mind. Students will also participate in a free field trip to a zoo, nature center, museum, or other destination related to the unit topic. The curriculum will be designed to facilitate science learning through inquiry for up to 180 students per year, and empower young people to see themselves as agents of conservation solutions.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium will use an iterative program development process to strengthen and expand its teen programming to inspire youth to conserve the ocean and its vast resources. The Teen Pathways: Inspiring Future Ocean Stewards project will increase the number of teens the aquarium engages in ocean science, environmental research, service learning, and conservation action. The project will create opportunities for middle and high school teens to strengthen their knowledge, skills, and commitment to conservation that will continue into and beyond college. The project team will complete an ongoing development process by implementing new project-based science and conservation programs for 7th-9th grade students that provide a pathway to the aquarium's high school programs. The team will also revamp its existing leadership program for high school students and refine its other teen offerings. The programs will align with Next Generation Science Standards and the Ocean Literacy Framework.
Poet’s House, a preeminent poetry library in New York City, will collaborate with ten public libraries and zoos across the United States to support library-zoo partnerships in five cities. The project teams will install exhibitions that use poetry as an interpretive tool to deepen visitor thinking about wildlife and conservation in each zoo. This project follows a year-long planning grant funded by IMLS and extends the success of an IMLS-funded partnership in New York City between Poets House and the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Central Park Zoo, which pioneered the installation of poetry in the zoo. The new project will create a set of models and tools for developing strong collaborations and exhibits by carefully documenting the process of building these partnerships and evaluating their impact on visitors, the community, and professional audiences.
NatureStart Network brought together early childhood educators and environmental educators to support nature play, exploration, and inquiry for young children and their families within urban environments. Project partners included the Forest Preserves of Cook County and two established Head Start programs in the Chicago area, Mary Crane Center and El Valor. The foundation of the project was a series of three two-day professional learning sessions that took place over an eighteen month period. Through hands-on, collaborative learning and reflection activities, the participating educators
Lincoln Park Zoo will upgrade and make freely available ZooMonitor, a scientific data collection tool, which currently exists in a pilot version, for monitoring the behavior of animals in zoos and aquariums, . ZooMonitor will contain modules for tracking animal behavior and body condition and for conducting data analysis. The zoo will also integrate a platform for securely storing an institution's data. With these modifications, ZooMonitor will be rigorously tested by industry partners, translated for both Apple and Android devices, and made available for free public download. ZooMonitor will enable any zoo or aquarium, regardless of collection size, budget, or number of staff, to develop a routine monitoring program—improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of animals across the country and around the world.
The Florida Aquarium will create a Gulf-focused seafood education program that will deliver current information on seafood choices that help ensure abundant future populations of fish. The aquarium will form an advisory council to provide ongoing Gulf seafood recommendations, produce a pocket-sized "Gulf Seafood Guide," refine and expand its Restaurant Partner Program, create a Commercial Partner Program for non-restaurant businesses, increase the sustainable seafood educational content on its website, and host World Oceans Day/Seafood Now Awareness Days to reach an even broader audience. The combination of educational products and events will enable the aquarium to reach the public with current information and allow consumers to take a positive role in helping preserve the Gulf through their purchases.
Brookfield Zoo will expand its "Zoo Adventure Passport" (ZAP!) program for urban families with children ages 3-12 to serve additional families and increase informal science learning opportunities in the two Chicago suburbs of Cicero/Berwyn and Melrose Park. The program will serve as a gateway to new family experiences, teaching families and children about their local and world environments, and providing an opportunity for family enrichment in a community-centered learning environment. The zoo will use presentations and activities to enhance science learning, offer field trips that reconnect urban families with wildlife and nature, and provide STEM content through multigenerational science learning. Through this project, the zoo will increase family participation by 25%; improve student performance in school; increase family interest in and enthusiasm about science, nature, and the environment, and increase family participation in their children's education.