The goal of this evaluation was to determine how museum visitors responded to the museum's existing live animal exhibits and identify recommendations for their new Live Animal Garden exhibit.
Overview
In 2021, we worked with the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative (AWHI) to design and implement a baseline study that would measure the long-term impacts of the Because of Her Story (BOHS) internship program on participants. The program is a cross-Smithsonian initiative that matches interns with museum projects meant to amplify women's stories to tell a more complete American history, reach a diverse audience, and empower and inspire people from all walks of life.
Together, we articulated clear and measurable mid- and long-term outcomes for internship
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), in partnership with scholars from Utah State University and educators from the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), has developed the Spatial Ability and Blind Engineering Research (SABER) project to assess and improve the spatial ability of blind teens in order to broaden their participation in STEM fields. The goals of the project include: 1. Develop and investigate the reliability of a tactile instrument to test blind and low vision youths’ spatial ability levels. 2. Contribute to the knowledge base of effective practices regarding informal STEM
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gary TimkoTheresa GreenDaniel KaneWade GoodridgeLaura Weiss
NSF generously funded the Science Museum of Minnesota's exploration of whether or not the "theatrical gaming" technique could improve visitors' understanding of complex topics requiring conceptual shifts--topics like evolution. COVID disrupted our formal evaluation plans, but this report offers finding and guidance/best practices for other informal education institutions interested in developing this type of experience. Individual sections discuss our particular, three-phased project, theatrical gaming as a technique, storytelling, gaming, technology, and evaluation.
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
This report summarizes the project work and research findings for a project designed to address racial justice through a STEM lens, in Minnesota communities, in the wake of George Floyd's murder. The project was rooted in principles of power sharing and co-creation. Though ultimately challenging, and not entirely successful according to the original goals, this report provides an overview of research findings and lessons learned.
Appendices include instruments.
“Not a place for me” is often one of the main reasons people choose not to visit art museums.
Such perceptions of art museums call for institutions to create wider and more diverse entry points for visitors. At the Art Institute of Chicago—envisioned by our first president as a “museum of living thought”—we seek to continually expand art historical narratives by bringing together a plurality of perspectives and voices to processes of research, scientific and creative inquiry, and to increasingly varied modes of public engagement with art. To achieve these goals we developed a multifaceted
The purpose of the Science Center Public Forums project was to engage citizens with NOAA data about climate-related hazards, resilience strategies, and related policies. Forum modules about four climate-related hazards were created, and used as a part of forum programs at eight museums around the US. Evaluation findings are structured around three themes: 1) learning, 2) interest, engagement, and attitudes, and 3) educator outcomes. Data showed high levels of prior knowledge about environmental hazards and interactions between human and natural systems; resilience efforts; and the ways science
With funding from a Smithsonian Institution Youth Access Grant the National Museum of Natural History offered a program pipeline that would engage underserved Washington D.C. students in programming designed to encourage academic and career STEM interest. Beginning with collaboration with community educators, the pipeline funneled students into a Teen Night Out Science Night to interest them in science workshop series offered after school and on weekend and ultimately into volunteer and internship opportunities. This report provides detailed view of methods, analyses, results, and conclusions
The Collaboration for Ongoing Visitor Experience Studies (COVES) aims to help science centers gather and share data to better understand visitors’ experiences. For the summative evaluation of COVES, the Museum of Science’s Research and Evaluation Department studied the program’s impacts on participating museums and museum professionals. Specifically, this evaluation was designed to:
Examine participants’ overall satisfaction with the collaboration and their likelihood to recommend it to others;
Understand the impact that COVES is having on Participating Institutions;
Assess whether
As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is conducting regional STEM workshops in partnership with local science museums, entitled NFB STEM2U, for blind youth [youth], grades 3 – 6 and 9-12 [apprentices]. During the sixth and final regional workshop in Minneapolis, MN, the NFB operated two different programs simultaneously: one program for youth and a second program for their parents/caregivers. A third program, for the Science Museum of Minnesota staff, was conducted earlier to prepare the museum staff to assist with the youth program
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), in partnership with scholars from Utah State University and educators from the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), has developed the Spatial Ability and Blind Engineering Research (SABER) project to assess and improve the spatial ability of blind teens in order to broaden the participation of blind students in STEM fields.
Activities began this summer (2018) with a week-long, residential engineering design program for thirty blind high school students at NFB headquarters in Baltimore. The evaluation focused on perceptions of process and measures of