Overview
In 2020, RK&A (now Kera Collective) partnered with the National Museum of Natural History to conduct a summative evaluation of the David H. Koch Hall of Fossils: Deep Time, a 31,000 square foot exhibition that explores how Earth’s distant past shapes our future.
Our evaluation explored how visitors process complex scientific topics, such as climate change, mass extinctions, the evolution of life on Earth, and humans’ role in positively impacting Earth’s future.
Approach
We designed a large-scale evaluation study with four distinct but interrelated parts:
A
Antarctic Dinosaurs: A Giant Screen Film and Outreach Project aims to leverage the popularity and charisma of dinosaurs to draw museum audiences into a captivating educational journey, revealing the history and transformation of Antarctica and the planet’s polar ecosystems, and exploring the forces that continue to shape the continent. In addition to bringing to life a wealth of unfamiliar dinosaurs, amphibians and proto-mammals, this project will journey beyond the bones to reveal a more nuanced, multi-disciplinary interpretation of paleontology and Antarctica’s profound changes.
Centered
In a sustainable world, human needs would be met without chronic harm to the environment and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Addressing the grand challenge of sustainability, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has developed a coordinated research and education framework, called the Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) portfolio (http://www.nsf.gov/sees). The growing family of SEES activities, currently consisting of 11 programs, represents a major interdisciplinary investment by NSF that reflects the following topical
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Tim KilleenBen Van Der PluumMarge Cavanaugh
n June, the 23rd of last year, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its Draft Report on the Environment, a report on environmental quality. The EPA is an autonomous federal agency known for its reliability on environmental studies and safeguards. Its Draft Report is considered by Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the nation’s most scientifically reliable analysis on environmental quality. The latest Draft Report makes no reference whatsoever to the changes in global climate.
A public event series, “Ecohumanities for Cities in Crisis,” will bring humanities scholars and the public together in Miami, FL to discuss the tension between humans and nature over hundreds of years. Miami is on the verge of an environmental crisis from a warming planet and rising seas. As the region grapples with policy and science issues, humanities scholars have a unique role to play. The project will frame humanistic discussion about urban environments, risk, and resilience. The centerpiece is a public forum in March 2016 which includes a plenary of scholars from diverse humanities disciplines, a walking tour, and a panel on diversity and justice in environmental advocacy. There will be five subsequent public programs through the Fall 2016, an on online archive of all events, professional development activities for high school teachers, a graduate public environmental history course, and a curated museum exhibit.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. This collaborative research project, led by teams at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), will engage the public in the nature and prevalence of permafrost, its scale on the earth, and the important role it plays in the global climate. It builds on 50 years of informal education and outreach at the Alaskan Permafrost Tunnel, the Nation’s only underground facility for research related to permafrost and
The Science Museum of Minnesota, in collaboration with six NSF-funded Science and Technology Centers (STCs) around the country, is developing several deliverables around the theme of the Anthropocene; that is, the idea that Earth has entered a new geologic epoch in which humanity is the dominant agent of global change. Deliverables include: (1) a 3,500 square-foot exhibit with object theater at the museum; (2) an Earth Buzz Web site that focuses on global change topics equivalent in design intent to the museum's popular current science Science Buzz website; (3) kiosks with Earth Buzz experiences installed in selected public venues; (4) Public programs with decision makers and opinion leaders on the implications of a human-dominated planet; and (5) youth programs and activities that engage them with the exhibit, web site, and careers in STEM. The exhibits and Web site will feature scientific visualizations and computational models adapted to public learning environments from research work being conducted by STCs and other academic research partners. First-person narrative videos of scientists and their research produced by Twin Cities Public Television now are on display in the Future Earth exhibit and also have been packaged into a half-hour program for broadcast statewide. The intended strategic impact on the field of informal STEM education is twofold: (1) explore how to accelerate the dissemination of scientific research to public audiences; (2) investigate ways science centers/museums can serve as forums for public policy dialogues.
In collaboration with the libraries of Oklahoma State University (OSU) and Mount Holyoke College, the American Library Association proposes a traveling exhibit and public programs for 40 libraries examining the history and legacy of the Dust Bowl. The project spotlights Ken Burns' film "The Dust Bowl," and brings to public view two little known Dust Bowl archives: online oral history interviews of Dust Bowl survivors at OSU, and letters and essays of Caroline Henderson, a Mount Holyoke alumna who farmed in Oklahoma throughout the Dust Bowl. Libraries will display the exhibit for 6 weeks and present at least 3 public humanities programs from a list provided. The project humanities themes include the interaction between humans and nature; the different ways human beings respond to adversity; and how people living in the Dust Bowl tried to understand their social, economic, and ecological environment.
The Anchorage Museum, in partnership with the Washington State Historical Society and Cook Inlet Historical Society, will fabricate, and present a 7,500-square-foot exhibition on James Cook’s Third Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, titled Arctic Ambitions: Captain Cook and the Northwest Passage. The exhibition will open March 27, 2015 in Anchorage and run until September 11, at which time it will travel to the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma. The exhibition will be part of the Municipality of Anchorage’s Centennial Celebration. Although Cook spent time in southern seas en route to America, the prime focus of the exhibition will be the Northwest Coast, mainland Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, the Bering Sea, Siberia, Kamchatka, and the Arctic Ocean.
This summative evaluation was commissioned by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) to explore visitors’ perceptions of the exhibition, “Climate Change: ” – which was installed from October 2008 through August 2009. This report provides systematic information about visitors’ perceptions of the intended messages and about the different types of exhibitry used to create the educational and experiential value of the exhibition. The information can be used to reflect on the exhibit development and design process, to consider whether to rent the traveling exhibition, and to inform future
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) will partner with the City of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development, Metro Regional Government, Portland Community College, Verde, and the Coalition for a Livable Future, to create a series of informal science education experiences on the theme of Sustainability. For this project, sustainability is defined in terms of a triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental needs. The project responds to calls for broad environmental education of the public in response to environmental crises (such as climate change), and specific research suggesting that even museums that do provide information about such issues rarely help their visitors learn to make the comparisons necessary to make more sustainable choices. For the public audience, the project team will create a 1,500 sq. ft. bilingual (Spanish/English) exhibition to encourage the public to develop skills in making personal choices that affect the sustainability of their community. They will also create 25-40 bilingual cell phone tags that will provide listeners who dial the phone numbers with information, personal perspectives, current STEM research, invitations to contribute ideas or vote on issues, interactive phone-based activities, and links to websites, all in service of helping them make intentional and informed personal decisions on sustainability. The cell phone tags will be located at approximately 100 locations in the Portland area, including predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, public transit locations, public works, and community projects. The team will also create a bilingual website and will offer quarterly bilingual events at the museum on the topic of sustainable living. For the professional audience, the team will create a set of tools and indicators for assessing the sustainability of exhibit-development processes, using the triple bottom line of financial, environmental, and social impacts. For example, a Green Exhibit Guide will provide resources and a checklist for exhibit development projects, and will propose field-wide standards analogous to the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system for green buildings. Regional workshops will engage exhibit developers, designers, fabricators, and administrators in using the tools in their own institutions. The project will create a coordinated set of resources to inform the public about the science of sustainability and to engage them in making informed choices in their daily lives, both in the museum and beyond. The topic of sustainability is timely and important, and the use of cell phones as a mobile technology linked to web resources and an exhibition constitute an innovative synergy of media to create impacts on a city-wide scale. The project serves underrepresented Hispanic audiences through its creation of bilingual materials, placement of cell phone tags, and community involvement in the development process. Finally, the project advances the ISE field in proposing and broadly disseminating a set of standards for green exhibit design, along with developing resources and tools for assessing sustainability. Created in collaboration with other organizations, this work has the potential to reduce the environmental impact of museums while providing highly visible examples of sustainable practices for visitors.
"Saving Species" will engage large and diverse public audiences in inquiry-based learning and environmental stewardship through a system of exhibits at zoos and other informal science education institutions throughout the U.S. The exhibit system will include more than 70 touch screen interactives and related technological infrastructure being created by Project Dragonfly at Miami University (Ohio). Project partners include the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Brookfield Zoo, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Columbus Zoo & Aquarium, Denver Zoo, Liberty Science Center, Louisville Zoological Garden, New York State Zoo, Oregon Zoo, Pittsburgh Zoo, Riverbanks Zoo, Santa Barbara Zoo, Shedd Aquarium, Toledo Zoo, The Wilds, Woodland Park Zoo, and Zoo Atlanta. Touch screen exhibit components will be designed for specific programs at partner zoos. The partner institutions in this consortium are establishing exhibits nationwide linked to one of three Saving Species campaigns: 1) the Great Ape Campaign allows families to conduct research on captive ape populations and to help save wild apes by joining the work of experienced field researchers; 2) the Wild Cat Campaign focuses on endangered cat species and allows families to join in conservation efforts along with professionals; 3) the Sustaining Life Campaign builds on widespread interest and growing exhibitry in environmental stewardship, renewable energy, and climate change. The consortium includes a shared library of public inquiry and public-action tools (e.g., cell phone recycling), as well as remote monitoring capabilities that provide real-time measures of station success, facilitating the development of variations of exhibit interactives across the country. More than 500 staff from informal science institutions are participating in "Saving Species" professional development through workshops and graduate courses in major cities and conservation sites worldwide. The formal educational opportunities include two new Master\'s degree programs co-delivered by Miami University and informal science institutions: (1) the Advanced Inquiry Program, and (2) the Global Field Program. Strategic partners include the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, public television, Conservation International, and the Society of Conservation Biology. Project evaluation by the Institute for Learning Innovation includes specific assessment protocols that are identifying patterns of engagement by gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic class so that disparities can be addressed across these demographics. A planning study and front-end evaluation will inform the future development of personalized, post-visit engagement opportunities on social networking platforms. "Saving Species" will achieve broad impact nationally, reaching millions of visitors to the participating institutions annually during the funding period and beyond, fostering the relationship between science inquiry and public action, and building multi-institutional partnerships committed to sustaining life on our planet.