This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC. STAR Library Education Network (STAR_Net) is a national program led by the Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL). STAR stands for Science-Technology Activities and Resources (www.starnetlibraries.org). Core partners include the American Library Association, Lunar and Planetary Institute, and the National Girls Collaborative Project. Other partners include the National Academy of Engineering, Engineers Without Borders-USA, IEEE-USA, the National Renewable Energy Lab, American Geophysical
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TEAM MEMBERS:
SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE/National Center for Interactive LearningPaul Dusenbery
At the Maryland Science Center, a new permanent exhibition with a companion mobile game is focused on electricity. Multimedia Research, an independent evaluation firm, implemented a summative evaluation to assess how using the PowerUp! game in the exhibition influences engagement and knowledge acquisition. The evaluation collected timing and tracking observations and pre- and post-interview data from 18 ten-year-olds who used the game within the Power Up! exhibition area and 16 ten-year-olds who did not use the game. Game players experienced the Power Up! exhibition area differently from non
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Maryland Science CenterBarbara FlaggIlona Holland
This study investigated the effectiveness of a combined museum and classroom intervention project on science learning in low-income children. The focus of the program was on children's content knowledge and concept complexity. Thirty children were in the experimental group. A control group of 18 children visited literacy and social studies exhibits at the museum. Results indicate that children in the experimental group learned content knowledge about the components of bubbles and the definition of a current. Although children in the experimental group exhibited more complex concepts about
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Harriet TenenbaumGabrielle Rappolt-SchlichtmannVirginia Vogel Zanger
In this paper, I address some of the unique challenges of studies of learning in museums through a microanalytic case study of meaning-making among a group of youth and a curator. Through an examination of youths' forms of participation in one exhibit, I illustrate local meaning making achieved through multiple modalities - by doing, talking, and the manipulation of the exhibit. In turn, I show how multiple on-going dialogues come to interact and constitute talk and action at the science exhibit underlining the idiosyncratic nature of meaning-making. While the dialogue examined in this paper
The authors describe a study of programs to deepen families' scientific inquiry practices in a science museum setting. The programs incorporated research-based learning principles from formal and informal educational environments. In a randomized experimental design, two versions of the programs, called inquiry games, were compared to two control conditions. Inquiry behaviors were videotaped and compared at pretest and posttest exhibits. Family members were also interviewed about their perceptions and use of the inquiry games. Results indicated that visitors who learned the inquiry games
This is a study of the opportunities currently provided by interactive science and technology centres for visitors’ engagement in the field of acoustics. E-mails, requesting a description of exhibits on acoustics (sound and hearing) in use, were sent to members of staff of interactive science and technology centres around the world as well as to companies that design and sell exhibits. Eighty-seven descriptions of distinctive interactive exhibits were received and analysed. Results show that: there are few analogy-based exhibits concerning the more complex aspects of acoustics; narratives
The Iowa Children’s Museum designed and built a new aviation exhibit, Take Flight: The Science of Aviation, that delivers NASA’s Informal Education Program to the public by providing high-quality active learning experiences for children and their families outside the formal school classroom setting. This exhibit is a vehicle through which NASA and the Museum build public understanding of the key science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines that make it possible for humans to safely fly through the atmosphere.
The Museum has developed the following products/deliverables to support our project goals.
1. Created a comprehensive Take Flight! Exhibit Guide will be developed for three different types of users: Adult and Child Museum Visitors, Educators, and Museum Staff
2. Created revised curriculum for a week-long Summer Day Camp Aeronautics program and girl and boy scout programs
3. Created additional “Fun-tivities” themed around aviation for general public
Partners include University of Iowa Science Education Center, University of Iowa Delta Center for Brain Development , University of Iowa Women in Engineering, University of Iowa Engineering School, Iowa State University Extension, Grantwood Area Education Agency, 21st Century After School Program, Iowa After School Alliance, Mississippi Valley Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts of America, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Community School Districts, and STEM Regional Networks of Iowa.
Stennis Space Center (SSC) Office of Education and Visitors Center provided relevant education activities and experiences for teachers, students, and the general public. Activities included partnerships with INFINITY Science Center, 4-H of Mississippi, the Boys & Girls Club of America, development and delivery of educator professional development workshops that meet national curriculum standards; inquiry-based activities that emphasized the International Space Station, robotics, aeronautics, and propulsion testing; and development and installation of an interactive exhibit at the Infinity Science Center. The opening of the Infinity Science Center at Stennis Space Center in April 2012 allowed a new opportunity for SSC to partner and expand NASA’s outreach. A commercial-grade playground was professionally installed at the Infinity Science Center, along with OSHA-approved safety matting. The goal of the project was to utilize a commercially available playground and add graphics and quiz-based activities modifications enabling young visitors to INFINITY at NASA Stennis Space Center, the official visitor center for Stennis Space Center, to have an interactive, yet educational, experience.
Explore the Galaxy involved teens from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in planning for an upcoming exhibition and its interpretation. The Adler Planetarium worked with teens from several CPS high schools, with a special focus on the CPS Air Force Academy High School (AFAHS). The goals were to develop institutional partnerships and capacity for a teen docent program as well as to do formative evaluation for an upcoming exhibition. All goals were met. The Adler is now in year 4 of a comprehensive partnership with the AFAHS involving students from all four grades in field trips, activities, after-school clubs and Adler internships. The AFAHS students are now participants in an active teen internship program that places students in different Adler professional departments every summer. As well the Adler employs volunteer and paid teen interpreters on school year weekends. These relationships and programs depend on the foundations laid through the work of this grant. In the realm of exhibition design, teens also interviewed visitors about prior conceptions and interest in several areas related to cosmology including how gravity works and the size and age of the universe. Their comments influenced design of, The Universe a Walk through Space and Time, which opened in summer of 2012.
Curious Scientific Investigators (CSI): Flight Adventures immerses children and families in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. Launched in February 2012, the project supports NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD), focusing on “innovative ideas to convey the fundamentals of flight, flight technology, and NASA’s role in aeronautics.” The project’s audience includes youth ages 6-18 and the Museum’s more than 1 million annual visitors of all ages. The project’s lead agency, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (Museum), developed and implemented the project in Indianapolis in partnership with the Academy of Model Aeronautics and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The project’s goals focus on inspiring children and families to develop an interest in STEM concepts and learn about NASA’s role in science and aeronautics research and the evolution of flight, and on engaging and educating them through inquiry-based programs that facilitate understanding of STEM concepts and knowledge and NASA’s contributions to flight. Centered on an original Multimedia Planetarium Show on flight, Flight Adventures, the Museum designed several components, all of which complement the show and the messages it conveys. Among these components are an exhibit area composed of a movable wind tunnel, a display of models, low- and high-tech interactives; a Unit of Study; a TV show, Wings Over Indiana; a website; and a variety of educational and family programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jennifer Pace-RobinsonGordon Schimmel
This article reports on part of a larger study of how 11- and 12-year-old students construct knowledge about electricity and magnetism by drawing on aspects of their experiences during the course of a school visit to an interactive science museum and subsequent classroom activities linked to the science museum exhibits. The significance of this study is that it focuses on an aspect of school visits to informal learning centers that has been neglected by researchers in the past, namely the influence of post-visit activities in the classroom on subsequent learning and knowledge construction
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David AndersonKeith LucasIan GinnsLynn Dierking