The goal of this evaluation was to determine how museum visitors responded to the museum's existing live animal exhibits and identify recommendations for their new Live Animal Garden exhibit.
Millions of children visit zoos every year with parents or schools to encounter wildlife firsthand. Public conservation education is a requirement for membership in professional zoo associations. However, in recent years zoos have been criticized for failing to educate the public on conservation issues and related biological concepts, such as animal adaptation to habitats. I used matched pre- and postvisit mixed methods questionnaires to investigate the educational value of zoo visits for children aged 7–15 years. The questionnaires gathered qualitative data from these individuals, including
National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded an Informal Science Education (ISE) grant, since renamed Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) to a group of institutions led by two of the University of California, Davis’s centers: the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) and the W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES). Additional partner institutions were the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center (ECHO), Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) at the University of California, Berkeley, and Audience Viewpoints Consulting (AVC). The summative evaluation study was
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium has been a strong and active partner in education for over 40 years, educating 1.7 million visitors annually. The zoo has become a leader in both informal and formal education by pioneering many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives. In 1996 the zoo moved from being a partner with others to becoming a true collaborator with a diverse group of education institutions. The zoo discovered that a successful partnership requires multiple organizations to come together and share resources for a cause. In partnering with school
This is the final evaluation report on the Laurel Clark Earth Camp Experience, a multi-component program to incorporate NASA satellite data into summer field programs for teens, environmental and water education for teachers, environmental after-school clubs and Earth Science exhibits at the Arizona- Sonora Desert Museum.
The University of California, Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC), UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES), ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center (ECHO), UC Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS), and the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI) will study how 3-D visualizations can most effectively be used to improve general public understanding of freshwater lake ecosystems and Earth science processes through the use of immersive three-dimensional (3-D) visualizations of lake and watershed processes, supplemented by tabletop science activity stations. Two iconic lakes will be the focus of this study: Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada, and Lake Champlain in Vermont and New York, with products readily transferable to other freshwater systems and education venues. The PI will aggregate and share knowledge about how to effectively utilize 3-D technologies and scientific data to support learning from immersive 3-D visualizations, and how other hands-on materials can be combined to most effectively support visitor learning about physical, biological and geochemical processes and systems. The project will be structured to iteratively test, design, and implement 3-D visualizations in both concurrent and staggered development. The public will be engaged in the science behind water quality and ecosystem health; lake formation; lake foodwebs; weather and climate; and the role and impact of people on the ecosystem. A suite of publicly available learning resources will be designed and developed on freshwater ecosystems, including immersive 3-D visualizations; portable science stations with multimedia; a facilitator's guide for docent training; and a Developer's Manual to allow future informal science education venues. Project partners are organized into five teams: 1) Content Preparation and Review: prepare and author content including writing of storyboards, narratives, and activities; 2) 3-D Scientific Visualizations: create visualization products using spatial data; 3) Science Station: plan, design, and produce hands-on materials; 4) Website and Multimedia: produce a dissemination strategy for professional and public audiences; 4) Evaluation: conduct front-end, formative, and summative evaluation of both the 3-D visualizations and science activity stations. The summative evaluation will utilize a mixed methods approach, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, and will include focus groups, semi-structured interviews, web surveys, and in-depth interviews. Leveraging 3-D tools, high-quality visual displays, hands-on activities, and multimedia resources, university-based scientists will work collaboratively with informal science education professionals to extend the project's reach and impact to an audience of 400,000 visitors, including families, youth, school field trip groups, and tourists. The project will implement, evaluate, and disseminate knowledge of how 3-D visualizations and technologies can be designed and configured to effectively support visitor engagement and learning about physical, biological and geochemical processes and systems, and will evaluate how these technologies can be transferred more broadly to other informal science venues and schools for future career and workforce development in these critical STEM areas.
A two stage summative evaluation was conducted following the launch of the Mystic Seaport for Educators website, the final output resulting from the IMLS National Leadership grant entitled Mystic E-Port Digital Classroom project. The results of four focus groups, conducted in two phases, found consistent results suggesting that the project was successful at achieving all four goals as outlined in the original grant proposal. Appendix includes focus group protocol.
Free-choice learning and, derivatively, free-choice environmental learning emerges as a powerful vehicle for supporting diversity in learning styles (Falk & Dierking, 2002). In this article, I argue that free-choice environmental learning holds great potential for enabling us to understand what is at stake in environmental learning and thus help us build a sustainable future. I examine the different informal learning contexts for children, home (family and play), museums, zoos, nature parks and wilderness, among many others, and offer an explanation for how learning occurs in these settings
The purpose of this study was to investigate how situational interest of high school students was triggered during a field trip to an aquarium. Although the role of museums in stimulating interest among students has been acknowledged for some time, empirical evidence about how the specific variable of a museum setting might trigger situational interest is almost nonexistent. The present study was conducted as a case study to provide an inductive, explorative investigation of how situational interest emerged during the field trip. A situative approach to the study of interest was applied in the
This exhibition was created to attract and appeal to families with children based on a major strategic planning effort targeting a specific audience. Summative evaluation was commissioned to reflect on the original goals for the exhibition as well as to inform future decisions regarding institutional and exhibition planning for family audiences. Several complementary research methods were used to address a variety of questions about family experiences in Splash Zone: two methods of exit interviews (281 family interviews where parents were asked most of the questions, and 55 interviews with
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Jeff HaywardMonterey Bay AquariumJolene Hart
The Zoological Society of Philadelphia will develop Primate Reserve. This project will include the development of a two acre indoor/outdoor primate habitat for up to 60 primates and a variety of complementary programming including hands-on interpretative activities for visitors, a Discovery House/Conservation Action Center, live performances, school programs and teacher training activities that link with the formal education curriculum, and a World Wide Web site. The goal of this program is to communicate basic information about primate biology, behavior, social structure, and habitats, and the problems face by primates in the wild. Visitors are to learn that "Conservationists around the world work together to help primates and you can help too." Specifically visitors will learn details about conservation biology/population biology including a) a species' biology affects its vulnerability to extinction, b) small populations are vulnerable to inbreeding depression and loss of genetic diversity, c) small populations in small areas are vulnerable to stochastic events, and d) these concerns apply to both wild and zoo populations. To make the story more personal and to provide career role models, primatologists engaged in their research will be featured in the exhibit. The exhibit will open in June, 1999 and the school program will begin October, 1999.
The Wildlife Conservation Society will use this one year award to move forward their planning for the "Rain Forest Trail and the Living Treasures of the Congo Gallery." This is the first phase of an ambitious $29M, 6 acre outdoor exhibit area focusing on the Congo Rain Forest and an indoor Environmental Education Complex. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) conducts extensive field research in a number of central African sites and has an important living collection of tropical African wildlife in the New York facility. The Congo Rain Forest/Environmental Education Center will include three major interpretive areas and an educational resource area. NSF is being asked to support two components of the Congo Rain Forest complex which are the Rain Forest Trail and Living Treasures of the Congo Gallery. The Rain Forest Trail, with both indoor and outdoor elements, will be a total immersion exhibit where visitors will be surrounded by a replication of an African rain forest and will have the opportunity to encounter a variety of its living inhabitants, and experience how its ecosystem functions. They will have the experience of making scientific observations thus gaining insight into how scientists work. The goal of this design technique "is to move beyond the limited scope of traditional zoo exhibits (which simply portray the 'animal as object')", toward a presentation of animal and plant communities as they interact within an ecosystem. The Living Treasures Gallery will be a 4000 sq. ft. space which is dedicated to the introduction of the diversity of rain forest inhabitants, their environmental adaptations, and complex interrelationships. The gallery will be divided into four areas: Adaptations for Survival, The Forest of the Megavertebrates, The Interconnected Forest, and Seeing the Unseen. Numerous interactive devices will be developed to engage the visitor in hands-on activities and materials will be developed that link the themes of the exhibit with the agenda of formal education for both teacher and students.