The Developing Guidelines for Designing Challenging and Rewarding Interactive Science Exhibits project is a Research in Service to Practice grant running from 10/1/2016-9/30/2021. We have used a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach to refine a framework about exhibit design practices that support learners through the emotional aspects of “productive struggle” as we built three science museum exhibits.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
‘Escape rooms’ are a recent cultural phenomena, whereby a group of ‘players’, often friends or colleagues, are ‘locked’ in a room and must solve a series of clues, puzzles, or mysteries in order to ‘escape’. Escape rooms are increasingly appearing in a range of settings, including science centres and museums, libraries and university programmes, but what role can an escape room play in science communication? In this commentary, we explore the emerging literature on escape rooms as well as thoughts from a small number of escape room creators in the U.S. and U.K.
Sense-making with data through the process of visualization—recognizing and constructing meaning with these data—has been of interest to learning researchers for many years. Results of a variety of data visualization projects in museums and science centers suggest that visitors have a rudimentary understanding of and ability to interpret the data that appear in even simple data visualizations. This project supports the need for data visualization experiences to be appealing, accommodate short and long-term exploration, and address a range of visitors’ prior knowledge. Front-end evaluation
How does focusing on “community science literacy” change the role of an informal science learning center?
This poster was presented at the 2019 NSF AISL Principal Investigators meeting.
U!Scientist is an in-gallery touch table adaptation of the popular online citizen science project Galaxy Zoo. Taking advantage of the social opportunities in a museum setting, the project aims not only to enhance visitors’ science self-efficacy but also to encourage visitors to discuss their choices with friends and family.
This poster was presented at the 2019 NSF AISL Principal Investigators Meeting.
This poster shares an example of how the project team for the Developing Guidelines for Designing Challenging and Rewarding Interactive Science Exhibits has been applied design principles to support the emotional state of productive struggle in an interactive science museum exhibit. It discusses the three stages of productive struggle (emotional disequilibrium, persistence, and productivity), puts those in an applied context, and discusses the team's research methods which include a combination of self-report and biometric measures.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The theme of this conference project by the New York Hall of Science will be exploring how to better design exhibits to promote "public engagement with science." Here, "public engagement with science" refers to opportunities that go beyond traditional approaches to the public understanding of science. The event will invite professionals to consider how to shift exhibit designs toward engaging visitors with STEM in ways that emphasize the intersection of STEM innovation with visitors' daily lives, their personal agency, and their interdependence with their personal social networks and the institutions that advance STEM knowledge and innovation. The conference and its pre- and post-conference activities will bring together curators, exhibition developers, community outreach professionals, museum administrators, and learning scientists from the United States and Canada. They will work together to identify design principles and key obstacles to designing exhibits that can better help science museums achieve two goals: 1) making visitors' diverse and personal questions, concerns, and perspectives central to their experience of the exhibits; and 2) engaging visitors as contributors to the exhibit experience in ways that make their contributions visible and consequential. During this two-day event attendees will consider how exhibits can support broader and more diverse public participation in critical debates about the roles of STEM discovery and innovation in society. The effort is grounded in recent work on public engagement with science; on reorganizing museums to become sites for participation and contribution by visitors, and particularly by institutions' local communities; and on making and engineering design programming within museums. The goal is to chart a course toward a vision of the future of science museums in which they maintain their status as sources of trusted information, while also fulfilling their potential as sites of genuine participation and social interaction, in which visitors make meaningful contributions to the substance and workings of the museum floor while also engaging with, learning about and holding themselves accountable to the core concepts and practices of the STEM disciplines. The conference will build the capacity and collaborative engagement of a network of science centers whose work is central to achieving the museum field's ultimate goal of engaging the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments. The conference and associated activities will be evaluated by staff at the New York Hall of Science, with oversight by an external advisory committee of research and development professionals. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The Museum of Science, Boston (MOS) and Boston University (BU) will conduct a Pilot and Feasibility Study project that leverages the current Living Laboratory (LL) model and expand it to engage high school students (teens) in experimental psychology research, science communication and science education activities. In LL, which is now an extensive network of museums and university researchers across the country, scientists and museum staff collaborate to engage children in studies on the museum floor and educate caregivers about the research. Multi-site implementation and evaluation of LL has also documented positive impacts for undergraduate researchers. Many sites are eager to extend these benefits to high school students by engaging them as practitioners within the model and by providing them with opportunities to engage in current research, education and communication, thereby helping to foster stronger youth identities with science and its applications in society. This project expands a ten-year LL partnership between MOS and BU to: 1) pilot a program in which high school students both conduct scientific research and engage the public in learning about science; 2) explore strategies for museums and universities to collaboratively engage, support and mentor high school students in science research, communication and education activities; 3) document curricular, other programmatic, and evaluation materials; and 4) convene professional participants to provide feedback on pilot materials, and assess the viability of implementing similar programs at additional sites. Guided by developmental evaluation, these activities will generate knowledge for the field, and act to increase professional capacity to integrate experiences for teens at multiple LL sites in future projects. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
The Space and Earth Informal STEM Education (SEISE) project, led by the Arizona State University with partners Science Museum of Minnesota, Museum of Science, Boston, and the University of California Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and Space Sciences Laboratory, is raising the capacity of museums and informal science educators to engage the public in Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics, and their social dimensions through the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net). SEISE will also partner on a network-to-network basis with other existing coalitions and professional associations dedicated to informal and lifelong STEM learning, including the Afterschool Alliance, National Girls Collaborative Project, NASA Museum Alliance, STAR_Net, and members of the Association of Children’s Museums and Association of Science-Technology Centers. The goals for this project include engaging multiple and diverse public audiences in STEM, improving the knowledge and skills of informal educators, and encouraging local partnerships.
In collaboration with the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD), SEISE is leveraging NASA subject matter experts (SMEs), SMD assets and data, and existing educational products and online portals to create compelling learning experiences that will be widely use to share the story, science, and adventure of NASA’s scientific explorations of planet Earth, our solar system, and the universe beyond. Collaborative goals include enabling STEM education, improving U.S. scientific literacy, advancing national educational goals, and leveraging science activities through partnerships. Efforts will focus on providing opportunities for learners explore and build skills in the core science and engineering content, skills, and processes related to Earth and space sciences. SEISE is creating hands-on activity toolkits (250-350 toolkits per year over four years), small footprint exhibitions (50 identical copies), and professional development opportunities (including online workshops).
Evaluation for the project will include front-end and formative data to inform the development of products and help with project decision gates, as well as summative data that will allow stakeholders to understand the project’s reach and outcomes.
Educational approaches that provide meaningful, relevant opportunities for place-based learning have been shown to be effective models for engaging indigenous students in science. The Laulima A ‘Ike Pono (LAIP) collaboration was developed to create a place-based inclusive learning environment for engaging local community members, especially Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, in scientific research at a historically significant ancient Hawaiian fishpond. The LAIP internship focused on problem-solving activities that were culturally relevant to provide a holistic STEM research experience
Designing Our World (DOW) was a four-year NSF-funded initiative in which the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) sought to promote girls’ pursuit of engineering careers through community-based programming, exhibition development, and identity research. The overarching aim of DOW was to engage girls ages 9–14 with experiences that illuminate the social, personally relevant, and altruistic nature of engineering. In addition to programming for girls, the project also included workshops for parents/caregivers, professional development for staff from community partners; and an exhibition
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. The proposed project broadens the utility of Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) approaches, which include citizen science, to support new angles in informal learning. It also extends previous work on interactive data visualizations in museums to encompass an element of active contribution to scientific data. To achieve these goals, this project will develop and research U!Scientist (pronounced `You, Scientist!')--a novel approach to using citizen science and learning research-based technology to engage museum visitors in learning about the process of science, shaping attitudes towards science, and science identity development. Through the U!Scientist multi-touch tabletop exhibit, visitors will: (1) interact with scientific data, (2) provide interpretations of data for direct use by scientists, (3) make statements based on evidence, and (4) visualize how their data classifications contribute to globe-spanning research projects. Visitors will also get to experience the process of science, gaining efficacy and confidence through these carefully designed interactions. This project brings together Zooniverse, experts in interactive design and learning based on large data visualizations in museums, and leaders in visitor experience and learning in science museums. Over fifty thousand museum visitors are expected to interact annually with U!Scientist through this effort. This impact will be multiplied by packaging the open-source platform so that others can easily instantiate U!Scientist at their institution.
The U!Scientist exhibit development process will follow rapid iterations of design, implementation, and revision driven by evaluation of experiences with museum visitors. It will involve close collaboration between specialists in computer science, human-computer interaction and educational design, informal science learning experts, and museum practitioners. The summative evaluation will be based on shadowing observations, U!Scientist and Zooniverse.org logfiles (i.e., automated collection of user behavior metrics), and surveys. Three key questions will be addressed through this effort: Q1) Will visitors participate in PPSR activities (via the U!Scientist touch table exhibit) on the museum floor, despite all the distractions and other learning opportunities competing for their attention? If so, who engages, for how long, and in what group configurations? Q2) If visitors do participate, will they re-engage with the content after the museum visit (i.e., continue on to Zooniverse.org)? Q3) Does engaging in PPSR via the touch table exhibit--with or without continued engagement in Zooniverse.org after the museum visit--lead to learning gains, improved understanding of the nature of science, improved attitudes towards science, and/or science identity development?