Overview
In 2022, we worked with The Wild Center to evaluate its new IMLS-funded climate change exhibition, which used an innovative approach focused on presenting climate solutions through place-based examples and storytelling. Our evaluation came at a time when many museums were wrestling with how to effectively empower visitors to take climate action.
In the early stages of exhibition development, we also conducted audience research using Yale’s Six Americas Short Survey (SASSY) to help The Wild Center understand their audience’s dispositions toward climate change, which they used to
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
The Northwest Passage Project explored the changing Arctic through an innovative expedition aboard the Swedish Icebreaker Oden to conduct groundbreaking ocean science research, while it actively engaged 22 undergraduate and graduate students from the project’s five Minority Serving Institution (MSI) partners and 2 early career Inuit researchers in the research at sea. Over 35 hours of training in Arctic research techniques, polar science, and science communication was provided to these participants, who were engaged in the Northwest Passage expedition and worked with the onboard science team
Through the T523: Formative Evaluation for Educational Product Development course, our team conducted a semester-long formative evaluation for the Museum of Science, Boston (MoS) Gaia Exhibit. The Gaia Exhibit (Gaia) is a new, temporary art installation located in the MoS’s Blue Wing exhibition hall. Gaia that strives to inspire appreciation for the earth and climate change awareness. The exhibit displays imagery of the Earth’s surface on a twenty feet diameter, three-dimensional globe. Additional exhibit elements include projected questions on the floor to prompt reflection and exhibit-