The Seattle Aquarium seeks to discover how toddler families experience its exhibits and how to best incorporate toddler family needs in future exhibit developments. The goal of this study is to begin to document toddler-exhibit interactions in order to better understand the Aquarium experience for that audience. The specific research goal was to determine which exhibit elements are attracting and holding the attention of the toddler family audience. A total of 47 caregiver interviews and 297 toddler observations across three exhibit areas were collected from January-March 2011 at the Seattle
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Andrea BarberKaleen PovisSeattle Aquarium
Science + You, an 11-component, immersive traveling exhibit developed by Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago (KCM) in conjunction with scientists at Abbott, a global health care company, with support from the Abbott Fund, opened to the public on July 19, 2011. Aimed at children ages 3 through 8 and the adults who accompany them, Science + You offers visitors opportunities to investigate, experiment, and understand how science and scientists approach and solve problems related to human health and nutrition. Blue Scarf Consulting, LLC, has conducted two phases of evaluation: a post
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Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater ChicagoCheryl Kessler
In this paper the author proposes a theory of development that integrates society, institutional practice and the child's activity. The goal is to inform efforts to create more developmentally supportive settings and opportunities for children. The proposed theory focuses on the everyday practices of children that take place in specific institutional settings (e.g., schools, afterschools, families) reflecting dominant cultural-societal views and arrangements. The paper provides a theoretical lens that could be of interest to educators who are seeking to understand how the particular
The authors of this paper were interested in knowing how parents can support exploratory behaviors of their preschool-aged children at museum exhibits. They developed a quantitative instrument based on psychological literature on exploration and play in order to describe and quantify young children's increasing levels of exploration of their environment. They then tested the measurement tool with parents and their preschool-aged children to investigate what types of adult coaching would achieve high-level exploratory behavior at various exhibits.
In this paper the analysis of science lessons in early-years classrooms shows that the lessons did not promote scientific investigation or make connections between the ideas involved and the material world. Teacher directed scientific activities observed had limited value in terms of scientific inquiry and consequently did not foster the development of ideas or support the formation of hypotheses. The paper raises questions about how to best promote scientific practices, including through continuing professional development.
One World, One Sky: Big Bird's Adventure (OWOS) is a bi-national, China-US cooperative project to produce and distribute a planetarium show based on popular characters from Sesame Workshop's television productions in each country for preschool- and kindergarten-aged children, as well as accompanying outreach materials for children, parents and teachers to further enhance learning. The project aims to: (1) provide young Chinese and American children aged four to six with an age-appropriate introduction to astronomy; (2) promote positive attitudes toward science among young children in both
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) conducted a summative national field test study of the PEEP Explorer's Guide in early childhood education (ECE) classrooms. Participating teachers used four-to-six Explorer's Guide Units with their students over the course of one school year. GRG assessed changes in teachers' science-teaching practices after using the PEEP Explorer's Guide over an extended period of time and examined potential barriers to using the PEEP Explorer's Guide throughout the course of a school year. The evaluation sought to measure the following professional audience impacts and
The Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to conduct a summative evaluation of the California Condor Rescue Zone (CCRZ), an immersive, facilitated play space designed for elementary school-age children. The summative evaluation explored how well CCRZ achieved its goals for children and adults. How did we approach this study? RK&A conducted naturalistic observations and exit interviews over a six-day period in February and March, 2011. Naturalistic observations documented the behavior of visitors and Zoo staff/volunteers in California Condor
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Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens
The New York Hall of Science (NYSCI), in collaboration with O\'Reilly Media will host a two-day workshop to explore the potential for the kinds of making, designing, and engineering practices celebrated at Maker Faire to enrich science and math learning. The purpose of this workshop is to identify and aggregate successful programming strategies that increase student engagement and proficiency in STEM, with a focus on students underrepresented in STEM careers. The meeting will be organized around three main ideas: catalyzing a national Maker movement; dissemination and scaling of design principles; and assessment of impacts on STEM learning and attitudes. The convening highlights the capacity of making activities to impact student motivation, attitudes, and conceptual understanding in STEM in both informal and formal learning environments. The workshop will be held in conjunction with the World Maker Faire at NYSCI on September 18-19, 2011. The World Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-it-Yourself or DIY movement and brings together a broad community of professionals and laypersons with a common interest in technology-based creativity, tinkering, and the reuse of materials and technology. The proposed workshop extends the work of the previous Maker Faire workshop (DRL 10-46459) by identifying initiatives that bridge the Maker and STEM communities while building students' foundational STEM knowledge and engaging audiences underrepresented in STEM careers. This workshop will accommodate approximately 50 local and national scientists, engineers, learning science researchers, educators, policymakers, and philanthropists. Select participants will present detailed case studies of maker programs, design principles, assessments, and measured outcomes in STEM attitudes and learning. Key elements of successful programs and assessment strategies will be identified across the case studies in brainstorming sessions and roundtable discussions. Following the workshop, a subset of the case studies will be compiled into an edited volume, indexed by the dimensions of student learning in the National Research Council publication, "A Framework for K-12 STEM Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas." This project uses the momentum of the popular Maker Faire movement, based in design, engineering and technology concepts, to connect to STEM education while capitalizing on the strengths of informal learning environments. The workshop provides researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with an aggregated collection of program design principles and reliable metrics for documenting changes in preK-20 STEM attitudes and learning. The edited volume has the potential to advance the understanding of how to bridge formal and informal learning environments, while also fostering research on the affective dimensions of making in diverse audiences.
The University of Cincinnati Arlitt Child and Family Research and Education will conduct a two-year research investigation to document and understand young children's scientific dialog, interactions, behaviors, and thinking within expressly designed natural play environments called playscapes. Two existing environmental science-focused playscapes will serve as the informal context for the study. Pre-school children and their teachers at early childhood centers, Head Start programs and informal learning institutions such as zoos, nature centers, and museums will participate in the study. The Cincinnati Nature Center and the Cincinnati Playscape Initiative will partner with the University of Cincinnati for this research endeavor. The results of the study are expected to not only address a significant gap in the literature base related to self-directed play and young children\'s scientific thinking within playscapes environments, but the study also has the potential to inform the field more broadly about scientific learning and teaching across informal and formal contexts at the early childhood levels. Nine research questions will frame the study and seek to investigate: (a) children\'s behaviors in intentionally designed playscapes, (b) children\'s scientific thinking in intentionally designed playscapes, and the relationship between access to the playscape environment and children's attitudes about science and their own scientist identities. The study sample includes over 200 children (ages 3-5) will be recruited from local university, child care centers and head start programs. Each child will participate in research activities at one of two test sites, with sixty children participating in research activities at both test sites. As part of the study, the children will visit the test sites at least three different times and will be asked to explore the playscape environments on their own, with other children, and with their teachers. Lavalier microphones will capture the students' self-talk and dialogs with others, as they explore the specially designed playscape environments. Other data collection methods include: behavior mapping, direct observation, dialog analysis, surveys, focus groups, and curriculum-based assessments. A team of researchers, including university faculty and graduate assistants, will employ inductive, deductive, and abductive analytical methods and reasoning to analyze and synthesize the data. Concurrently, an external evaluator at the Evaluation Services Center will employ a mixed-methods approach for the formative, remedial, and summative project evaluations. An ultimate goal of the project is to use the research findings to provide a scientific base for the development of an early childhood approach that promotes scientific thinking and learning within self-directed, informal contexts.
TERC, in partnership with the Boston Museum of Science, will investigate deaf and hard-of-hearing museum visitors' use of App-based signing math and science dictionaries delivered on the iPod Touch. The project is employing a mixed-methods design to study how and the extent to which family visitors, ages 5-12+, and classroom visitors in grades K-12 use the dictionaries to access and communicate about exhibit content and engage in activities. Study participants will visit one of two preselected exhibit areas and do several activities that have Word Lists posted on the activity panels. The Word Lists include key terms for the activity that are also included in at least one of the dictionaries. They will then do several activities that do not have Word Lists posted. A coin toss will be used to randomly assign the first group of visitors to a starting Word List condition. The second group will then begin with the alternate Word List condition. From this point on, subsequent groups will continue to alternate the starting point. Data collection will include observation, videotaping, interviews, and surveys. Results of the study will be disseminated through a report of findings, presentations and publications.
The Museum of Science (Boston) Discovery Center, MIT Early Childhood Cognition Lab, Boston Children's Museum, Indianapolis Children's Museum, Children's Museum of Richmond, and Maryland Science Center will help develop and evaluate a variety of methods to engage adults in activities that help the adults understand and apply current cognitive science research on children's exploratory play and causal reasoning development. The primary audience is adults with young children; secondary audiences are informal science education professionals who operate early childhood exhibit areas and cognitive science researchers.