This professional development event was held on November 6 and 7, 2005 at the Museum of Science, Boston, under the direction of the Museum’s Director for Strategic Projects, Carol Lynn Alpert. This event was sponsored by the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) headquartered at Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts – Lowell, and by the “Science of Nanoscale Systems and their Device Applications” NSF NSEC headquartered at Harvard University. The Symposium was intended to provide educators from middle schools, high schools
The Science Museum of Minnesota prototyped interpretive approaches to using an innovative scientific visualization system developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) called Science On a Sphere (SOS). SOS is composed of a wide variety of visualizations projected onto a six-foot sphere creating animated, whole-planet views of the Earth, other planets in our solar system, and their moons. Visualizations of the Earth cover topics such as weather, climate, topography, earth system dynamics, and geophysical processes. A challenge of SOS is making the content accessible
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) MinnAqua program educates the state's youth about angling and aquatic resources. In 2001, MinnAqua developed a Leaders' Guide so educators could carryout MinnAqua activities in their own setting. As part of the development process, a formative evaluation was undertaken to answer the questions: (a) To what extent are MinnAqua's rewrite guidelines addressed in individual lessons and the Leaders' Guide as a whole?, and (b) To what extent does the Leaders' Guide meet the educational needs of intended users in both formal and informal
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Amy Grack NelsonMinnesota Department of Natural Resources
In 2006, the Science Museum of Minnesota carried out a formative evaluation of the traveling exhibition, Disease Detectives. Disease Detectives features an immersive environment where visitors investigate a case by meeting a patient (an interactive mannequin), interpreting lab tests, and exploring specific environments to learn more about disease transmission and prevention. Each case highlights a different mode of disease transmission and the relevant illnesses. The purpose of this evaluation was to look at the usability and learning outcomes of one of the three proposed scenarios for the
In May of 2006, Science on a Sphere (SOS) was set up in a permanent exhibit space at the Science Museum of Minnesota. With the new installation of the Sphere, came the addition of a variety of features that were not included in the initial front-end study. These new features included an expanded playlist, new audio for some of the visualizations, accompanying labels projected on the wall describing the visualization, indication on the labels of what image will be playing next, and seating for visitors so they can sit and view the sphere. The new master playlist was composed of three smaller
To prepare for future summative research on the synergy among multiple educational media, the present pilot research explored real-life use of Cyberchase outreach materials. The present pilot study included: a Web survey of 48 outreach providers (representing over 3000 children in 19 states), follow-up phone interviews with 26 of these providers, and in-person observations at two outreach sites, one in New York and one in Massachusetts. With an eye toward future summative research, the resulting data yield conclusions and implications in two broadly defined areas: providers' use of Cyberchase
In 2005, the Exhibit Operations Department at the Museum of Science, Boston became concerned by the number of visitor comment cards that cited frustration with broken exhibits. As a result, they approached the Research Department to carry out a study to determine the visitors' perspectives of maintenance issues. The Research Department addressed this matter by seeking answers to the following questions: 1. Where is the discrepancy between what visitors and maintenance workers call broken 2. What factors related to broken exhibits frustrate visitors most? 3. What counts as broken in the eyes of
On two Saturday mornings, December 3 and December 10, 2005, two groups of Deaf adults were invited to participate in a focus group to try out the Multimedia Tour in the Star Wars exhibition and provide feedback on both its effectiveness and how it could be improved. The purpose of the focus group was to gain rich in-depth feedback from many people at once, particularly because it is so difficult to capture Deaf users in our exit interviews due to language barriers. Focus groups followed a topical framework surrounding what visitors enjoyed about the handheld, improvements they might make to
This is the summative evaluation of Sharks: Myth and Mystery, a temporary exhibition at the aquarium from 2004 to 2006, which explored how cultures from around the world incorporate sharks into their customs, stories and rituals. The evaluation included timing and tracking, structured interviews and post-visit web surveys, which can be found in the appendix of this report.
Yale Peabody Museum is developing an exhibition for the general public to introduce and interpret the Tree of Life online project that involves many universities and museums and is being supported by the National Science Foundation. This front-end visitor study was conducted to inform exhibition development about the potential audience's understanding of Trees. Interview forms and images are included in the appendix of this report.
As part of the Summative Evaluation of the DragonflyTV GPS: Going Places in Science series, between July 2005 and November 2006, RMC Research conducted a study of the collaboration between the DragonflyTV (DFTV) production staff and its science center and museum partners. Central to the innovative DFTV series, the collaboration involved museum professionals in the production process and presented science museums and centers as sites of learning and of fun on national television. It also offered professionals in the two industries a ground-breaking opportunity to learn about another format for
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alice ApleyTwin Cities Public Television
As teachers respond to the demands of educational reform and strive to meet increasing pressures of educational benchmarks and standards, there is less and less time to utilize innovative teaching techniques. Education reform expectations, coupled with increasing class size and shrinking budgets has significantly impacted the way that science education is delivered in schools. 4-H Wildlife Stewards, a Master Science Educator's Program was developed in response to these emerging concerns in science education. The program is based on the premise that trained volunteer Master Science Educators
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mary ArnoldMichael DaltonMaggie LivesayRobin Galloway