Techbridge Girls’ mission is to help girls discover a passion for science, engineering, and technology (SET). In August 2013, Techbridge Girls was awarded a five-year National Science Foundation grant to scale up its after-school program from the San Francisco Bay Area to multiple new locations around the United States. In the fall of 2014, Techbridge Girls began offering after-school programming at five elementary and two middle schools in the Highline Public School district, located near Seattle, WA.
Education Development Center is conducting the formative and summative evaluation of the
The evaluation study supports the project Distance Learning Education Programs at the Saint Louis Zoo. To better understand what teachers want and need, and the characteristics of the settings in which their students learn, the Zoo conducted an online survey of the teachers of students with special needs in May 2014. The purpose of this evaluation was to clarify and expand the survey findings to support the design, development, and implementation of the Zoo distance learning curriculum so that it works effectively across a variety of school settings for K12 students with special needs and
In its program, “Maximizing Lifelong Learning Opportunities: Innovative Strategies for Science Museums,” the American Museum of Natural History sought to develop, implement and assess a series of online and face-to-face adult learning courses, that shared the name “Our Earth’s Future” and focused on the topic of climate change. An external evaluation of this effort was conducted by Rockman et al, an independent evaluation firm that specializes in the evaluation of informal science learning programs. This research effort builds on prior knowledge gained from studies of adult learning programs
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jennifer BorlandRuth CohenDebra TillingerMaria Janelli
My Sky is a NASA funded project, which developed a traveling exhibition on astronomy. Boston Children’s Museum (BCM) created the exhibition in collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). Formative and remedial evaluations were conducted at BCM while the summative evaluation took place at the first two venues following BCM: Stepping Stones Museum for Children (Stepping Stones) in Norwalk, CT and The Providence Children’s Museum (PCM) in Providence, RI. Formative evaluation of the My Sky exhibit was conducted between April 2013 and June 2014 to ensure that the components
With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Wild Center (TWC) engaged Insight Evaluation Services (IES) to assess the impact of specific outreach activities of the Northern New York Maple Project between September 2013 and September 2015. Data for this two-year evaluation study were collected via in-depth telephone interviews conducted with a total of 25 participants, including 16 Tupper Tappers (Tupper Lake area residents who engaged in backyard tapping to provide sap for syrup production at the museum through the Community Maple Project), four local school teachers
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 guide is to provide staff mentors and trainers the professional development framework to recruit non-traditional informal science educators and then begin to build skills, competencies and knowledge for those individuals to serve their diverse communities as mentors, facilitators, and role models. It is also meant to illuminate lessons learned while developing the training framework for the CLUES project.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Science of Sharing project (SoS) was a collaboration between the Exploratorium, the Museum of Life and Science, Dialogue Social Enterprise and The Heroic Imagination Project. SoS included two major components for members of the public to engage with: a permanent collection of interactive, multi-user exhibits at the Exploratorium, and a series of social-media based activities called Experimonths. SoS exhibits and Experimonths were designed to allow visitors to experiment with cooperation, trust, and social dilemmas, connect those experiences to
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is one of the world's largest experimental facilities, where thousands of scientists and engineers from over 100 countries collaborate to shed new light on the workings of our universe. As LHC research, such as the discovery of the Higgs boson, continues to hit the news in future years, it will be important for educators in informal science institutions to understand how to engage their visiting public's interests and curiosities and shape their understanding regarding this leading edge research. Funded by
This evaluation reports on the Mission: Solar System project, a 2-year project funded by NASA. The goal of the Mission: Solar System was to create a collection of resources that integrates digital media with hands-on science and engineering activities to support kids’ exploration in formal and informal education settings. Our goal in creating the resources were: For youth: (1) Provide opportunities to use science, technology, engineering, and math to solve challenges related to exploring our solar system, (2) Build and hone critical thinking, problem-solving, and design process skills, (3)
With this 3-year project, TERC and the Museum of Science (MoS) Boston are studying how family and school visitors integrate iPod Touch versions of the Signing Science Pictionary (SSP), Signing Science Dictionary (SSD), and Signing Math Dictionary (SMD) into their museum experience and the impact of dictionary use. This report focuses on family visitors. Each dictionary includes more than 700 standards-based science or mathematics terms. The SSP (funded in part by grants from the Shapiro Family Foundation and the U. S. Department of Education, Grant #H327A080040) is intended for children ages 5
With this project, TERC and the Museum of Science (MoS) Boston are studying how family and school visitors integrate iPod Touch versions of the Signing Science Pictionary (SSP), Signing Science Dictionary (SSD), and Signing Math Dictionary (SMD) into their museum experience and the impact of dictionary use. This report focuses on a sub-study involving family visitors to the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH). Prior to this sub-study, TERC and the MoS conducted a primary study that examined use of the dictionaries at the MoS. Findings from this study showed the following: (1) Visitors