Escape rooms are an engaging and increasingly popular game format in which a team of players is “locked” in a room and challenged to solve a series of narrative-embedded puzzles encoded in the room’s artifacts in order to “escape” within a set period of time. The University of California Museum of Paleontology, with partners University of Kansas Natural History Museum and the California Academy of Sciences, aim to develop, evaluate, and disseminate a “serious game” (i.e., a game designed for a purpose other than entertainment) based on the escape room model. Our traveling/loanable pop-up escape room and associated extension activities will engage diverse families (ages 8 and up) in museums and libraries in solving a biomedical mystery that teaches fundamental concepts in biology, engages critical-thinking and collaboration skills, and stimulates interest in biomedical careers. STEM Escape will address NGSS-aligned content central to medical research – in particular, it will communicate basic concepts regarding evolutionary relationships, a topic with relevance to a wide variety of medical applications, such as determining the source of emerging infectious diseases, tracking the progression of disease within a host, and identifying new medicines. The project is designed to lay the groundwork for extended family interactions surrounding scientific content and biomedical careers. The immersive game will be supplemented by a set of solo and docent-led follow-up activities that reinforce key concepts and emphasize connections between players’ experience in the game and biomedical research careers. Learners will also receive takeaway media (e.g., activity book) that highlights a diverse set of NIH-funded researchers whose work directly relies on evolutionary patterns/processes. Caregivers will have the option of receiving a follow-up email with free at-home activities. The themed inflatable pop-up room will be wheelchair-accessible and all materials will be bilingual in English and Spanish. The STEM Escape experience will be developed with and for the diverse audiences visiting urban/suburban natural history museums and libraries, as well as with and for rural families, whom we will reach through rural libraries. The project will also produce and evaluate a suite of support materials to facilitate institutional adoption and deployment of the experience. Nine host sites across the country have committed to hosting the room (with an additional two sites in the planning stages), and after the life of the grant, the room will continue to make an impact as a rentable traveling exhibit. Long term, this project will improve the public’s understanding of medically relevant evolutionary content, increase interest in biomedical careers, particularly among underserved groups targeted, and improve our understanding of how immersive games can be used to serve educational objectives.
This CRPA award will address the science behind solar energy, its capture, measurements, and uses. It is a collaborative effort between scientists at Portland State University (PSU) and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). Materials for the OMSI staff will be prepared by the scientists and the OMSI staff will work with the scientists on making presentations to the public. OMSI will translate information from the exhibits, displays, and presentations into Spanish to engage the Hispanic population. Scientific café?s will be part of this engagement. The PI and OMSI museum have had a working relationship for some time adding to the potential success of the project. The PI and his colleagues at PSU have a major effort going in research on photonic science suggesting that this engagement can continue to be updated as the time goes on. The project will be evaluated by the well established evaluation group at OMSI. Further, Spanish speaking public will be embraced with this material as will rural residents from traveling exhibits and displays.
The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History will partner with The Exploratorium and with three smaller science museums that have strong connections to rural and Spanish-speaking populations in Texas: Discovery Science Place, Loredo Children's Museum, and Science Spectrum to develop TexNET, a four-year project modeled on the Exploratorium Network for Exhibit-based Teaching (ExNET). TexNET builds on lessons learned from past exhibit outreach models and addresses the needs of small, rural partners for exhibits and capacity-building workshops. Each small museum partner will host a set of ten exhibits for one year. Exhibit topics are 1) motion, 2) weather and 3) sound. Workshops focus on inquiry learning techniques, science content, programming and workshop design, as well as the institutional needs of each partner. Based on feedback from formative evaluation, the project added three additional partners in its final year, the Children's Museum of Houston, the Austin Children's Museum, and the Don Herrington Discovery Center, and focused its remaining year on building institutional capacity around tinkering. Inverness Research Associates will conduct the project evaluation. They will examine the success of this project by looking at the effectiveness of the TexNET model, the success of the individual exhibit elements to engage rural communities, the effectiveness with which this project has enhanced the abilities of local rural communities to sustain their own educational improvements and the effectiveness of the training components in increasing the capabilities of the local museums to serve their rural audiences.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Charlie WalterSamuel DeanJoe HastingsRobert Lindsey
The Children's Museum of Houston seeks to develop a 1,500 sq ft bilingual traveling exhibition based on their bilingual "Magnificent Math Moments" activities. This project simultaneously addresses two very important needs: the relative lack of mathematics exhibits for young children and for Spanish-speaking audiences. The exhibition is based on Patron (Pattern) Point where the visitor meets math superheroes, Subtracta, Capt. Mas in the settings of Subtracta's Puzzle Parlor; Capt. Mas's Marina; and Formas (Shapes) Family Shipping Yard. It will provide an inviting setting for introducing the target audiences to mathematics through the use of characters, environments and puzzles. BROADER IMPACT: Fabrication of a second version of the traveling exhibition will extend the number of institutions reached through two national tours. These exhibitions, which target children ages 5-10 and adults, are projected to reach some 1.4 million visitors in 24 museums over five years; sites will be selected to reach Hispanic audiences in smaller, low-income urban and rural areas. For further impact CMH is forming another network of museums that will benefit from this project, even though the institutions will not be able to host the traveling exhibition. CMH also is developing ancillary materials and services to accompany the exhibition that include activity kits and cart, character costumes, training guides, parent materials and other resources.
To address a lack of informal science education opportunities and to increase community capacity to support STEM education for their children, Washington State University's Yakima Valley/Tri Cities MESA program, the Pacific Science Center, and KDNA Educational Radio have developed a set of informal science initiatives that offer complementary learning opportunities for rural Latino families. The goal of this four-year program is to create a sustainable informal science infrastructure in southeastern Washington State to serve families, increase parental awareness, support and involvement in science education and ultimately increase the numbers of rural Latino youth pursuing STEM-related under graduate studies. This program is presented in English and Spanish languages in all of its interconnected deliverables: Two mobile exhibits, beginning with one focused on agricultural and environmental science developed by The Pacific Science (PCS) Center; Curriculum and training in agriculture, life sciences and facilitating learning; Curriculum and training for community members to provide support to parents in encouraging the academic aspirations of their children developed by PSC and MESA; 420 Youth and parents from the MESA program trained to interpret exhibits and run workshops, community festivals, family science workshops and Saturday programs throughout the community; Four annual community festivals, quarterly Family Saturday events, and Family Science Workshops reaching 20,000 people over the four-year project; Take home activities, science assemblies, a website and CDs with music and science programming for community events; A large media initiative including monthly one hour call-in radio programs featuring science experts, teachers, professionals, students and parents, 60-second messages promoting science concepts and resources and a publicity campaign in print, radio and TV to promote community festivals. These venues reach 12,500-25,000 people each; A program manual that includes training, curriculum and collaborative strategies used by the project team. Overall Accesso la Ciencia connects parents and children through fun community activities to Pasco School District's current LASER science education reform effort. This project complements the school districts effort by providing a strong community support initiative in informal science education. Each activity done in the community combines topics of interest to rural Latinos (agriculture for instance) to concepts being taught in the schools, while also providing tools and support to parents that increases their awareness of opportunities for their children in STEM education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
James PrattD. Janae' LandisDonald LynchMichael Trevisan
The Space Science Institute (SSI) seeks to develop the "Stardust Project," designed to introduce the public to concepts related to the birth of stars, the search for planets beyond our solar system and the search for life beyond earth. The project's three components include a 2,500 square-foot travelling exhibition called "Stardust: Our Search for Origins;" a comprehensive education program for museum staff and grades 4-9 school teachers and a public Web site that incorporates and builds on the exhibit and education content. The project proposes to assemble standards-based educational materials for dissemination through workshops conducted at museums that host the exhibit. The educational programs -- particularly professional development workshops for teachers -- target, among other groups, underserved Native American and Hispanic teachers associated with a partnership between SSI and the NSF Rural Systematic Initiatives in the American West. The project is built around strong partnerships with two NASA Origins Program missions and with established informal education institutions including the New York Hall of Science, the Lawrence Hall of Science, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, TERC and the SETI Institute. Its goals are to make it possible for teachers, students and the public to learn about: The formation of stars, planets, and the solar system; The conditions necessary for life; The effect of life on Earth's environment; The methods used to detect planets orbiting distant stars and The scientific tools used in origin research -- from space-based telescopes to microscopes.