Barbara Streicher is the executive manager of the Austrian Science Center Netzwerk, a network grouping over ninety Austrian institutions committed to science communication activities. Barbara used discussion games on many different occasions, all of which were outside a museum, and took place in places such as cafés, libraries, schools, but also shelters for homeless people and prisons. The communication exchange among participants always proved to be very open and respectful at the same time, even when the topics dealt with were especially sensitive and in social distress conditions. The game
In this paper, David A. Ucko, President of Museums + more LLC, discusses the impact of NSF's Public Understanding of Science (PUOS) and Informal Science Education (ISE) programs on the field of informal science education. Ucko discusses recent efforts to develop the field through advancing knowledge and practice and building capacity. This paper is based on a paper presented at the 83rd Annual International Conference of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Philadelphia, PA, March 22, 2010.
In this article, Alan Jacobson, President of ex;it and BAJdesign, shares the lessons he learned in Rwanda, while building a memorial to the 1994 Genocide, in which 1,000,000 people died in 100 days. Jacobson recounts his personal journey in Rwanda as well as how this experience reshaped his core design principles.
This white paper is the product of the CAISE Formal-Informal Partnerships Inquiry Group, which began work during a July 2008 ISE Summit organized by CAISE. Their examination of what the authors call "the hybrid nature of formal-informal collaborations" draws on relevant theoretical perspectives and a series of case studies to highlight ways in which the affordances of formal and informal settings can be combined and leveraged to create rich, compelling, authentic, and engaging science that can be systematically developed over time and settings.