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
The Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo offers a satisfying mix of interactive exhibit experiences, close-up animal viewing, and a warm, welcoming staff in a small-scale setting which makes it easily manageable for families with special needs. In recent years the JMZ has attracted and embraced this audience of often close-knit friends and organizations. In addition to an ongoing dialog with visitors at the institution, on multiple occasions JMZ has invited families to participate in community conversations to share their perspectives, experiences and suggestions.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Wendy MeluchPalo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo
Lincoln Park Zoo will upgrade and make freely available ZooMonitor, a scientific data collection tool, which currently exists in a pilot version, for monitoring the behavior of animals in zoos and aquariums, . ZooMonitor will contain modules for tracking animal behavior and body condition and for conducting data analysis. The zoo will also integrate a platform for securely storing an institution's data. With these modifications, ZooMonitor will be rigorously tested by industry partners, translated for both Apple and Android devices, and made available for free public download. ZooMonitor will enable any zoo or aquarium, regardless of collection size, budget, or number of staff, to develop a routine monitoring program—improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of animals across the country and around the world.
Based on the number of visitors annually, zoos and aquariums are among the most popular venues for informal STEM learning in the United States and the United Kingdom. Most research into the impacts of informal STEM learning experiences at zoos and aquariums has focused on short-term changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. This Science Learning+ project will identify the opportunities for and barriers to researching the long-term impacts of informal STEM learning experiences at zoos and aquariums. The project will address the following overarching research question: What are and how do we measure the long-term impacts of an informal STEM learning experience at a zoo and aquarium? While previous research has documented notable results, understanding the long-term impacts of zoo and aquarium learning experiences will provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the impact of these programs on STEM knowledge, skills and application. This study will use a participatory process to identify: (1) the range of potential long-term impacts of informal science learning experiences at zoos and aquariums; (2) particular activities that foster these impacts; and (3) opportunities for and barriers to measuring those impacts. First, an in-depth literature review will document previous research efforts to date within the zoo and aquarium community. Second, a series of consultative workshops (both in-person and online) will gather ideas and input from practitioners, researchers, and other stakeholders in zoo and aquarium education. The consultative workshops will focus on two questions in particular: (1) What are the different types and characteristics of informal science learning experiences that take place at zoos and aquariums? and (2) What are the long-term impacts zoos and aquariums are aiming to have on visitors in relation to knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviors/actions? Finally, visitor surveys at zoos and aquariums in the US and UK will be conducted to gather input on what visitors believe are the long-term impacts of an informal STEM learning opportunity at a zoo or aquarium. The data gathered through all of these activities will inform the design of a five-year, mixed-methods study to investigate long-term impacts and associated indicators of an informal STEM learning experience at a zoo or aquarium. One of the aims of the five-year study will be to test instruments that could eventually be used by the global zoo and aquarium community to measure the long-term impacts of informal STEM learning programs. Designing tools to better understand the long-term impacts of informal STEM learning at zoos and aquariums will contribute to our ability to measure STEM learning outcomes. Additional benefits include improved science literacy and STEM skills amongst visitors over time and an understanding of how education programs contribute to wildlife conservation worldwide.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brian JohnsonStanford UniversityLancaster UniversitySarah ThomasNicole ArdoinMurray Saunders
This Communicating Research to Public Audiences (CRPA) project is for promoting public understanding of and engagement with STEM by developing and implementing technology and formats for interactive exhibitions at the interface of underwater robotics and marine science. This program envisions the use of BRUCE (Bioinspired Robotic Underwater Carangiform Exhibit) featuring a shoal of ROSAs (Remotely Operated Swimming Avatars) at the River Project to engage the local New York City community and echo to the broader U.S. non-technical audience in marine science and technology. More specifically, this program is expected to put kids and adults behind the wheel of miniature robotic fish that can swim alone, school in groups, and compete against each other under the remote control of the audience. To further attract youngsters to the exhibit, an application for an iDevice, that is, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, for controlling the robotic fish while seeing through its eyes will be developed. This is a cooperative venture between New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering, New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and the River Project.
In this full-scale research and development project, Oregon State University (OSU), Oregon Sea Grant (OSG) and the Hatfield Marine Science Center Visitors Center (HMSCVC) is designing, developing, implementing, researching and evaluating a cyberlaboratory in a museum setting. The cyberlaboratory will provide three earth and marine science learning experiences with research and evaluation interwoven with visitor experiences. The research platform will focus on: 1) a climate change exhibit that will enable research on identity, values and opinion; 2) a wave tank exhibit that will enable research on group dynamics and problem solving in interactive engineering challenges; and 3) remote sensing exhibits that will enable research on visitor interactions through the use of real data and simulations. This project will provide the informal science educaton community with a suite of tools to evaluate learning experiences with emerging technologies using an iterative process. The team will also make available to the informal science community their answers to the following research questions: For the climate change exhibit, "To what extent does customizing content delivery based on real-time visitor input promote learning?" For the wave tank exhibit, "To what extent do opportunities to reflect on and share experiences promote STEM reasoning processes at a build-and-test exhibit?" For the data-sensing exhibit, "Can visitors' abilities to explain or use visualizations be improved by shaping their visual searches of images?" Mixed-methods using interviews, surveys, behavioral instruments, and participant observations will be used to evaluate the overall program. Approximately 60-100 informal science education professionals will discuss and test the viability of the exhibit's evaluation tools. More than 150,000 visitors, along with community members and local middle and high school students, will have the opportunity to participate in the learning experiences at the HMSCVC. This work contributes to the fields of cyberlearning and informal science education. This project provides the informal science education field with important knowledge about learning, customized content delivery and evaluation tools that are used in informal science settings.
The United Nations Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 is a key initiative within global efforts to halt and eventually reverse the loss of biodiversity. The very first target of this plan states that "by 2020, at the latest, people are aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably." Zoos and aquariums worldwide, attracting more than 700 million visits every year, could potentially make a positive contribution to this target. However, a global evaluation of the educational impacts of visits to zoos and aquariums is entirely lacking in
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) contracted RK&A to conduct audience research for the Central Park Zoo (Zoo), located in the heart of New York City. As part of the study, RK&A explored the value visitors’ place on their Zoo experiences and the ways in which visitors use the Zoo and surrounding area. Findings from the study provide the WCS with a preliminary understanding of their visitors and lay the groundwork for a second phase of audience research. How did we approach this study? RK&A conducted in-depth interviews to explore visitors’ thoughts and perceptions of the Zoo, as well as
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Wildlife Conservation SocietyStephanie DowneyRandi Korn
The four New England museums of the Environmental Exhibit Lab (EEC) set out in the Fall of 2011 to create a replicable model of collaborative professional development for small museums. The project, Exhibit Lab (sometimes called “EEC 2”), was funded by a 3-year grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services [2011 21st Century Museum Professionals Program; IMLS Log Number: MP-00-11-0049-11]. At small institutions, impending deadlines, budget and staffing limitations, and professional isolation all too often get in the way of true innovation. The goal of Exhibit Lab was to help staff
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Betsy LoringAlexander GoldowskyDenise LeBlancJulie SilvermanLucia StancioffChris Sullivan