The Lineage project was a collaboration between Twin Cities Public Television and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The project included creation of a feature-length video program, a Virtual Reality game, and a set of hands-on activities designed for use by multigenerational audiences—all of which were incorporated as part of a series of seven Fossil Festival events at museums and other sites around the United States. This report presents findings from a set of external evaluation studies that examined impacts on families who participated in Fossil Festival events as well
Roots of Wisdom (also known as Generations of Knowledge) is a 5-year project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF-DRL #1010559) in support of a cross-cultural reciprocal collaboration to develop a traveling exhibit, banner exhibit, and education resources that bring together Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and western science. The summative evaluation for public audience impacts was conducted by the Lifelong Learning Group (COSI, Columbus, OH), in collaboration with Native Pathways (Laguna, NM).
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
This report was completed by the Program Evaluation Research Group at Endicott College in October 2013. It describes the outcomes and impacts of a four-year, NSF-funded project called Go Botany: Integrated Tools to Advance Botanical Learning (grant number 0840186). Go Botany focuses on fostering increased interest in and knowledge of botany among youth and adults in New England. This was being done through the creation of an online flora for the region, along with the development of related tools, including PlantShare, and a user-friendly interface for ‘smartphones’. In January 2012, the PI
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Judah LeblangNew England Wild Flower Society
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) conducted summative evaluation of the Journey to Planet Earth: The State of the Ocean's Animals project. GRG has served as external evaluator for Journey to Planet Earth since 1999. Journey to Planet Earth is a PBS series that explores the fragile relationship between people and the world they inhabit. The most recent evaluation included two components: 1) a viewer study of the Ocean's Animals episode in the series (hosted and narrated by Matt Damon), and 2) an evaluation of the outreach initiative that complemented the series. The broad goal of the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marianne McPhersonElizabeth BachrachIrene F GoodmanScreenscope, Inc.American Association for the Advancement of Science
Our Year 3 formative evaluation of Go Botany, a four-year NSF-funded project focused on botanical learning, centered on tracking the continued development and the launch of the Go Botany Simple Key, which contains botanical data on more than 1200 native plants in the New England region. The project is a collaboration between the New England Wild Flower Society and three partnering institutions: The Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, VT; The Chewonki Foundation in Wiscasset, Maine; and the Yale Peabody Museum on Natural History in New Haven, CT. During Year 3, the Go Botany Simple Key was
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Judah LeblangNew England Wild Flower Society
In 2009, the Monterey Bay Aquarium began looking at new ways to interpret its Seafood Watch program. This nationwide conservation program strives to educate the public about the importance of buying sustainable seafood. As part of the program, the Aquarium publishes a printed pocket guide that lists the types of seafood consumers should buy and the types they should avoid. (For more information, visit www.seafoodwatch.org.) Over the years, several zoos, aquariums and museums that partner with the Aquarium have expressed interest in displaying an exhibit to encourage more of their visitors to
CEG (formerly Veridian inSight, LLC) performed a formative study, including six focus groups, in October 2009 on behalf of WGBH. The focus groups took place in Boston, MA, Nashville, TN, and Phoenix, AZ. In each city, we conducted two focus groups. We divided the groups with respect to age (e.g., 6-7 year olds were recruited for one group in each city, 8-9 year olds were recruited for the second focus group in each city). A total of 41 children participated in the study. The goal of the formative study was to gather kids' feedback on the animated LOOP Six-Minute Sample. The focus group
The YardMap Network (see www.yardmap.org) is an NSF-funded citizen science project at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which will allow participants to map their habitat management and carbon neutral practices in backyards and parks, interact socially within the network, and display their activities and carbon footprints in an online platform such as Google maps. In 2010, the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI), in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, conducted a front-end evaluation to assess the following evaluation questions: 1. What are gardeners', and birders', citizen
From January - August 2010, the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center's (KAYSC) Podcast Crew worked to develop five video podcasts to supplement the Disease Detectives exhibition. Four of these podcasts focused broadly on infectious diseases and one podcast was an overview of the KAYSC. Funded through a SEPA grant from the National Institute of Health, the podcasts were meant to enhance the Disease Detective exhibition experience and make it accessible to youth ages 12-18 by adding a teen voice Evaluation activities associated with the Podcast Crew began January 2010 and were completed September
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Amy Grack NelsonGayra OstgaardScience Museum of Minnesota
User Experience Research Consulting (UXR) conducted a summative evaluation of the NSF-ISE funded project, STEPS (Science Theater Education Programming System). The STEPS project brought together a network of informal science educators and contractors to create an interactive museum theater authoring and presentation system to increase educational capacity for small and large museums across the country. The software package includes an authoring tool for the creation of multimedia science theater productions; a presentation player for displaying the shows to audiences in museum theaters
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jes A. KoepflerUniversity of Colorado, Denver
The Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI) conducted a summative evaluation of the NSF-ISE funded project, WolfQuest. WolfQuest is an educational video game, downloadable free of charge, developed by Eduweb (Educational Web Adventures, Inc.) and the Minnesota Zoo. WolfQuest intends to increase the knowledge of, interest in, and attitudes towards wolves and wolf habitats in children ages 9 to 15. This evaluation report synthesizes key analysis and findings from data based on a web survey of players, in-depth phone interviews of players, and content analysis of the game conversation forums