This article discusses the goals, methods, and findings of a research study conducted by staff at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to evaluate their revised sea otter feeding program. The study evaluated the success of the volunteer training and peer coaching program as well as the effectiveness of the new program format in promoting the aquarium's mission.
This article discusses the development of the "New Heart of the Zoo" exhibit project at the San Diego Zoo. Old monkey cages and a bird yard from the 1930's will be replaced with multispecies habitats representing both Asian and African rainforests. This article outlines goals, methods and findings of a three-week formative evaluation for the new exhibit.
In this article, Christine L. Brandenburg, of Rice University's Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning, discusses her research of the use of computer technology in children's museums. Bradenburg focuses on the research methods used to address how and why visitors use computer technology in children's museums. The first section of the article presents the research methods, placing them in the context of the naturalistic inquiry design of the research. The second section discusses the research methods with respect to visitor studies and to studies of computer technology in museums.
This article discusses one of many studies conducted at Colonial Williamsburg for the purpose of strengthening the learning experience for families. The study was conducted in 1993-1996 and continues to match what current audiences tell staff year after year. The article includes a brief description of the methodology used a discussion of what researchers learned and how interpreters can apply these lessons to their daily interpretations.
Current accounts of the development of scientific reasoning focus on individual children's ability to coordinate the collection and evaluation of evidence with the creation of theories to explain the evidence. This observational study of parent–child interactions in a children's museum demonstrated that parents shape and support children's scientific thinking in everyday, nonobligatory activity. When children engaged an exhibit with parents, their exploration of evidence was observed to be longer, broader, and more focused on relevant comparisons than children who engaged the exhibit without
The Minnesota Children's Museum, in collaboration with the American Library Association will develop a project to engage children ages two through seven years old and their parents in exploring mathematics through hands-on, book-based math activities in libraries and children's museums across the country. The main elements of the project are: 1. A 1200 square foot exhibit at the Minnesota Children's Museum; 2. A traveling exhibit to ten children's museums over a six month period; 3. Five smaller versions of the exhibit will travel to 75 libraries sponsored by the American Library Association. Each library that apply for the exhibit must present a plan in which 50 percent of their exhibit audience will be children and families of the under-represented, lower income groups, and racial and/or ethnic groups. 4. Programs and materials will be designed to provide parents with the means to actively participate in their children's math education. The collaboration of the Minnesota Children's Museum and the American Library Association draws together two organizations whose natural constituencies are parents with young children. Project 1,2,3 is designed to be national in scope and creates multiple formats within which families can enjoy exploring math. Its goals and objectives reflect four messages: start early, math is everywhere, parental involvement and get into books. The project Principal Investigator (PI) Ms. Jeanne W. Vergeront received her Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Science in Child and Family Studies and Environmental Design, respectively from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Currently, she serves as the Vice President, Educational Projects at the Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Austin Children's Museum will develop Sixteen Candles: Growing Up from 0 - 16. a 1500 sq. ft. interactive traveling exhibition the topic of human development. Visitors will be given the opportunity to learn about the physical, intellectual, and social/emotional changes that are connected with human growth and the branches of science that study human development. Guided by the museum's maxim of exhibit and program development that experience should "build on the familiar and be personally meaningful to varied audiences" this exhibit will have components and activities that highlight similarities and differences between families and children of different cultural and economic backgrounds and family life styles. The exhibit text material will be bilingual, Spanish and English. Complementary educational material will include teacher orientation materials, educator's guide book with pre-and post-visit activities, and various parent -child activities. Museum staff will cooperate with a PBS affiliate and various other community organizations in the development of this exhibit. The exhibit will travel to an additional eight to twelve sites around the country during a three-year period. It will open at the Austin Children's Museum in the spring of 1999.
The Sciencenter will develop Tech City Exhibition, a 2500 sq. ft. traveling exhibit that will promote awareness of engineering as a process and a career. The exhibit will consist of a set of twelve interactive exhibit stations presenting design tasks from various fields of engineering related to the human needs of a hypothetical community called "Tech City." The tasks will use engineering as an iterative process to meet design goals (e.g. building a structure strong enough to withstand an earthquake) while faced with constraints (e.g. a limited budget.) The primary audience will be youth in their late elementary and middle school years with a specific emphasis on women and other groups traditionally underrepresented in engineering. A broad menu of complementary activities will be developed that includes a hands-on program for visiting school groups, a teacher training technology unit, career speakers' bureau, "Engineering Day at the Mall" program, and activities especially created for families. The Association of Science and Technology Centers will manage the national tour of the exhibit. It is schedule to circulate for three years and reach an estimated one million individuals.
The World Wildlife Fund will develop Windows on the Wild - Exploring Biodiversity. The components of this project include two editions of a 2000 sq. ft. traveling exhibit, mini-exhibition kits designed to reach small and medium-sized institutions, and complementary educational materials designed to reach the general public and families including traditionally underserved audiences, students, and educators. With this project WWF intends to raise awareness and interest in biodiversity - its importance and its decline; raise awareness of the nature and role of scientific research in investigating and protecting biodiversity; raise awareness of, interest in, and understanding of the impacts of personal choices on biodiversity; and motivate and empower individuals to get involved in biodiversity issues. The exhibits will include a centerpiece theater introduction surrounded by five sections presenting activities and information related to the themes: What is Biodiversity? How Do We Find Out? Why is it Important? Why Is It at Risk? and How Can We Get Involved? Ancillary materials form the general public will include A Family Biodiversity Discovery Notebook, a take-home booklet, a brochure format for host institutions to use highlighting local events, among others. Complementary materials linking the exhibit to formal education activities include Educator's Info, and Windows on the Wild Biodiversity Educational Materials, as well as information about workshop and institutes.
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) will develop Engineer It! Dissemination of a Successful Multiple Outcome Exhibition. This will be a 5000 sq. ft. traveling exhibit based on their NSF supported exhibit Engineer It! that opened as a permanent exhibit at OMSI in 1994. The exhibit presents visitors with an environment rich in opportunities to design, engineer, and test structures in three testing areas focusing on water, structures, and wind. Visitors will learn basic engineering principles through experimentation by designing boats, buildings, bridges, cranes, windmills, and paper airplanes among other things. Supporting components include training workshops for host museums on how to most effectively use the experimental environment of the exhibit, a Teacher's Guide, take-home activities, and a web page. The primary audience is the general museum visitor which includes many families, and elementary school students. Careful attention will be given to the development of family friendly exhibit text that will help adults understand how children learn from developmentally appropriate hands-on activities and how they can support that learning through adult-child interaction. The content of the exhibit is in synchrony with national science standards.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Raymond VandiverJan DabrowskiNancy Stueber
The New York Hall of Science will develop, test, and implement the "Biochemistry Discovery Lab," a 1000-sq.-ft. space designed to complement the content and design of "The Chemistry of Living Things," a 3000-sq.-ft. exhibition that will be opening in 1999. The Biochemistry Discovery Lab will engage visitors in four different types of activities: 1) guided experiments for scheduled groups, 2) self-guided experiments, 3) demonstrations, and 4) the prototyping of ancillary materials. These activities are intended to engage the target audiences -- families, students, and the general public -- in experiences leading to an understanding that chemical reactions are due to the interaction of molecules; that chemical reactions occur in both living and nonliving things; and that there are visible and measurable characteristics of chemical reactions in living and nonliving systems.
Under the direction of Kevin Crowley, the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh will investigate gender bias in parental explanations in informal learning settings. This project, Responding to the Gender Gap in Informal Science Education, will build on previous research at children's museums where the conversations of 338 families with children eight years and younger at sixteen different interactive exhibits were recorded and analyzed. They found that parents were almost three times more likely to use explanations when interacting with boys than girls. In this project they will conduct additional research to isolate the causes and outcomes associated with gender bias in these parental explanations and then they will develop, evaluate, and disseminate a range of low-cost methods to modify science exhibits to support parental explanation to both girls and boys. The latter will take the form of an Explanation Toolbox (XBox) which will be a set of resources to help museums construct and evaluate their own modifications to support non-biased parental explanations, with special attention paid to including explanations for the young girls, in addition to the usual conversations about manipulating the exhibits and about the visual, auditory, and tactile information produced by the exhibit. Results of the research and the toolbox will be broadly disseminated via the World Wide Web and published research reports.