This paper discusses recent efforts of zoos and museums to develop exhibits that place a greater emphasis on the uniqueness of natural areas and on what visitors can do to preserve these ecosystems. Specifically, this paper focuses on a recent project at the Brookfield Zoo to create an outdoor adventure game called Quest to Save the Earth and includes details of the design process and findings from a formative evaluation process.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kate IrvineCarol SaundersJohn Scott Foster
In this article, Annette Noschka-Roos discusses a study of a computer-supported information system (CIS) touch-screen interactive in the "New Energy Techniques" gallery at the Deutsches Museum. The objective of the study was to gather systematic data on how the medium is used by visitors. Noschka-Roos provides key findings from the study.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Annette Noschka-RoosVisitor Studies Association
Green City Data is an after-school community service project. Teams of secondary students are trained to inventory urban natural areas selected by regional resource planning agencies to supplement their own data collection efforts. Representatives from seven agencies and educational institutions initiated this project to support development of a system of greenspaces within the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington metropolitan area. This consortium includes expertise in resource management, geography, biology, computer telecommunications, science education and community coordination. These and other community professionals tech students and volunteer team leaders (teachers or other adults) the basics of habitat identification and mapping in the context of regional planning. ***
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gail WhitneyMichael HouckJames GillenJoseph PoracskyEllen Lanier-Phelps
Five small science museums will form "TEAMS (Traveling Exhibits at Museums of Science) Collaborative". The partners include the Montshire Museum of Science, Norwich, VT; The Catawba Science Center, Hickory, NC; Sciencenter, Ithaca, NY; Discovery Center Museum, Rockford, IL; and the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, Ann Arbor, MI. Each museum partner will develop a 1500 sq. ft. (140 m2) traveling exhibit that will include ten to fifteen interactive units and supporting graphics and will circulate to all members of the partnership. The exhibition topics are: AirPlay (Montshire Museum of Science, Dirt (Catawba Science Center), You Can Count On It (Sciencenter), Amusement Park Science (Discovery Center Museum), and Eureka Labs: Science from Head to Toe (Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum). Following the circulation among the consortium members, it is anticipated that the exhibits will circulate more broadly via the Association of Science-Technology Centers Traveling Exhibit's Program. In addition to developing these exhibits, the collaboration has an additional goals 1) focusing on the family audiences by working together to enhance the family science learning through the development of resources that can be used by families that are related to exhibition topics, 2) building institutional expertise in exhibit design, family programming, and evaluation; and 3) conducting research on family learning and sharing results with the field. Complementary materials and activities for teachers will also be developed for each exhibit.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David GoudyCharles TrautmannSarah WolfMike SinclairJames FrenzaCynthia Yao
The Franklin Institute and the Girl Scouts of the USA will develop, implement, and evaluate "Girls at the Center," a family outreach program that will foster girl-centered, learning within the context of the family. Partnerships will be promoted between local science and technology centers and Girl Scout Councils. It is a multi- component program that will increase girls' and their families' understanding of and interest in basic science principles and processes. Consisting of a series of family-oriented activities that coincide with the school year, science/technology centers will serve as the hosts. These museum-based activities will be supplemented by home-based activities. The activities will follow the constructivist theory of education and will cover a broad menu of scientific disciplines including ecology, energy, and human physiology as well as science careers opportunities. They will be linked to the requirements for the Girl Scout recognition (badges) program. It is building on the success of a previously NSF funded project "National Science Partnerships for Girls Scout Councils and Museum" and is expected to reach 75,050 girls and 112,575 adults in 25 sites across the US during the funding period. It will be institutionalized and will continue to operate in those sites as well as expand to other sites after the NSF-funded period.
The Desert Botanical Garden will utilize its extensive collection to create a science learning center focusing on deserts and presenting fundamental science concepts applicable to all environments. The comprehensive desert exhibit created by this proposal will feature six thematic trails through 25 acres of the Garden, with the trails' themes ranging from basic characteristics of deserts to adaptions of plants, animals, and people to the desert. Emphasizing ecology and conversation, the trails will include conceptual signs, investigation stations for hands-on, interactive learning, and innovative written exploration guides. The proposal also includes educational programming which will extend the exhibit and encourage use of the Garden as an outdoor laboratory. An exhibit-based curriculum will be developed for use across the state, and an institute will be created to prepare teachers to use the exhibit and curriculum. A newspaper series focusing on key exhibit concepts will be disseminated across the state to reach out-of-school adults. The products of the proposal and the model created will be shred through various networks with a national audience. The local and worldwide population explosion in arid lands mandates an increased understanding of deserts. With this proposal, the Garden will be a catalyst for greater awareness and change.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kathleen SocolofskyRobert BreunigJoseph McAuliffeRuth Greenhouse
The Brooklyn Children's Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden aim to cooperatively and cost-effectively develop, evaluate, and produce three permanent exhibits (2600 sf at BCM, 1200 sf at BBG, and a 3600 sf outdoor Discovery Garden at BBG) and two copies of an 800 sf traveling exhibit in a project called Breaking Ground: Plants and People. When complete in 1996, these exhibits will teach 1.5 million annual public visitors about basics in botany, ethnobotany, and urban to ecology, promote an understanding of plants' importance to human life, and foster positive environmental ethics among children 6-12 years old. This project is important because collaboration with professional botanists will teach a leading children's museum how to effectively present in-depth science content, and allow a major public garden to experiment with interactive exhibits in a natural setting. Joint promotions using NSF-funded program materials will encourage children in culturally and economically diverse areas around New York City to return again and again to two important community resources for informal science education. This strategy will reinforce learning and promote lifelong appreciation for experiential exhibits in botanical gardens and for a meaningful depth of science in children's museums.
In the Fall of 1994 The New York Botanical Garden will begin its second 100 years of commitment to science education with the opening of the Children's Adventure Garden and the Children's Adventure Trails. As two components of the Children's Adventure Project , these informal science education facilities will use participatory discovery to engage urban children and their families in learning botanical science, inquiry skills, positive attitudes towards science, and the methods of scientists. In the 1.5 acre Adventure Garden children will interact with living plants and fabricated exhibits to discover fundamental principles of plant biology; and in the one mile of Adventure Trails they will closely observe interdependencies of complex ecosystems using the framework of these fundamental principles. To expand visitor understanding of plant biology and the ways that scientists study it, Investigation Stations, integral components of each facility, will be placed so that visitors will handle, sense, and observe living plants in situ and interact with fabricated exhibits and scientific tools. The Project will be developed by NYBG staff educators and scientists with on-going participation of a broad spectrum of advisors and consultants, including exhibition designers, evaluators, community school teachers, and environmental education specialists.
The Milwaukee Public Museum will develop two test stations: A Wetland/Wood Station and a Mobile Testing Station that will be used to evaluation how hands-on activities that incorporate scientific tools and methods can be applied to supplement the educational experience of traditional natural history museum dioramas. As a result of the MPM's work, visitors will become engaged in a "field experience" by means of techniques to encourage observing, recording of data, and hypothesizing using tools that a scientists might use to study the natural environment such as a hand lens, radio telemetry receiver, scales, rulers, and/or calipers. Visitors will also have the opportunity to investigate further in the "lab". Here visitors will use such tools as a computer, microscope, measuring grid, and they will be encouraged to experiment, infer, predict, and classify. The intent is to have the visitor discover how scientific information is used to support decisions in every day life. The development of these stations will be accompanied by considerable formative and summative evaluation studies. The results will be disseminated in order that other natural history museums with dioramas may replicate these ideas in order that visitors might move beyond the primary "animal identification" phase in their examination and enjoyment of dioramas.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
William HackbarthW. Carl TaylorJames KellyAllen YoungMary Korenic
The SOUNDPRINT Media Center is producing a series of radio documentaries entitled 'Science and Technology on SOUNDPRINT,' a set of related educational and outreach materials, and multimedia non-broadcast applications. The project will include 16 original science documentaries and 21 programs repackaged as special broadcasts distributed to over 200 public radio stations in the United States, reaching over 750,000 listeners, and ten countries around the world. The programs also will be distributed on Internet Talk Radio. The 16 new Programs will be grouped around three themes: 'The Butterfly Effect' which will bring large scientific concepts describing global change to a more human level, 'Technology and Culture' which will consider the implications of technology, and 'The Consequences of Science' which will look at the broad implications of scientific research. The Executive Producer for the project is Moira Rankin. Neenah Ellis will serve as Senior Producer and will work directly with independent producers in story and script development. The Science Editors will be Ann Finkbeiner, a freelance science writer, and Barbara Culliton, Deputy Editor of 'Nature.'
The Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary requests $58,414 from the Informal Science Education Program of the National Science Foundation to infuse an environmental education message with innovative approaches to visitor self-instruction, through the two elements which comprise our Communities and Connections in the World of Nature project. This $364,097 project is an ambitious attempt to introduce and involve BBWS visitors with the fascinating interactions of life which hold all living communities together. Fine and coarse grain examination of 11 ecological concepts (e.g., habitat, human impacts, energy flow, etc.) central to these interactions is achieved through a creative blend of innovative public programs, museum-style interactive exhibits, engaging graphics and habitat-oriented live animal displays. Specifically, NSF funding will allow BBWS to: 1) Develop and conduct participatory educational programs (Jr. Naturalist/ages 5-8, Jr. Ecologist/ages 9-12) that introduce ecological themes and concepts to families and school groups. 2) Develop and produce a 180 sq. ft. computer-based interact exhibit (Habitat Puzzle) that encourages visitors to explore ecological concepts of habitat composition in depth.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Tyrus William BaumannKimberly KasterMichael Reed
SOUNDPRINT is requesting $901,273 over 16 months to produce a series of radio documentaries entitled Making Connections: SOUNDPRINT Explores Science and Technology, related educational outreach materials, multimedia non-broadcast applications, and an aggressive distribution plan. Sixteen half-hour original science documentaries, distributed through national Public radio will address three broad areas of science and technology. These include: the limitations and possibilities of scientific achievement; the requirements of sustainability (surviving); and the explanation science offers for human behavior. An additional 21 programs will be repackaged as special broadcasts to be distributed to over 200 public radio stations. Target audiences include middle school and secondary school students, and adults.