The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will leverage its partnership with NASA Kennedy Space Center to design, equip, and operate an inclusive and interactive scientific research workspace. The new makerspace will provide visitors of all ages an opportunity to contribute to identifying solutions to food production issues. Preparation of the Growing Beyond Earth Innovation Studio will involve equipping the space with state-of-the-art tools and materials for designing and monitoring growing experiments, installing plant growing equipment, and furnishing the space to maximize experimentation, collaboration, and learning. The garden will invite K-12 students, families and casual visitors to collaborate on plant science experiments, allowing them to address questions relevant to current NASA research on food production aboard spacecraft, and within habitats on the surface of Mars.
The Pacific Science Center will develop new evaluation tools to assess the impact of Tinker Tank, a visitor-directed, hands-on design space in which participants are challenged to use their creativity, problem solving, and experience to understand the processes of design, engineering, and science. The project will allow the museum to determine which tools, adapted from both informal learning settings (such as timing and tracking studies, observations, surveys, and focus groups) and formal settings (such as design journals, digital portfolios, and badging),are most suitable for providing meaningful data about the learning and engagement occurring in its makerspace. By adjusting and refining the evaluation tools and methods, the museum will be able to measure learning in its makerspace, determine the extent to which it is achieving the goals and objectives of its Tinker Tank, and guide planning for expansion of making activities into different areas of its exhibition floor.
In partnership with early childhood service providers and elementary school systems, the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry will expand the reach of its programming to share its hands-on, play-based approach to STEM education with targeted children and educators. The museum will create a Power of Play curriculum with lesson plans that reflect best practices and focus on play-based activities to teach STEM concepts tied to grade level and state standards. The museum will train and support 40 teachers and educators from ten Head Start/First Steps early childhood centers and ten Title I elementary schools, and provide them with free Pop Up Tinker Shop (a museum on wheels) outreach visits. The trainings will build teacher confidence, promote best practices for play-based learning, support a community of practice, and enhance young learners' engagement, fascination, and attitude towards STEM. The Power of Play Curriculum will be published as a bound resource and shared with other children's museums and service providers.
The Lewis H. Latimer House Museum will develop a more cohesive education program that reflects both the museum's resources and the needs of local schools. The museum's deputy director and Tinkering Lab educator will work together to design a curriculum that meets current New York State and city standards, enabling the museum to more effectively serve schools in the community with object-based learning experiences. Packets of educational materials will be developed and made available for school teachers to download and use in their classrooms prior to and following visits to the museum. Target schools will be actively involved in the process of testing and utilizing the products. Project results will be shared with internal and external stakeholders to sustain long-term improvement and enhance institutional capacity.
The Hands On Children's Museum will build on two of its most distinctive features-an Outdoor Discovery Center and a Young Makers program-to create a Nature Makers program. The interdisciplinary project will link nature-based learning with maker activities that use natural materials. Partnerships with Native American tribes, scientists, maker groups, and others will enrich the staff-led offerings. Nature Makers addresses two of the most significant needs in early learning-inspiring early STEM education and connecting children with the outdoors. Nature Makers will increase children's exposure to outdoor tinkering to build the foundation for STEM success in school; educate parents, caregivers, and teachers about the important role outdoor exploration plays in STEM achievement; and stimulate children's curiosity about the natural world and increase the time they spend outside. Evaluation findings will be shared internally to inform continuous improvement of program offerings, and externally to serve as a model for outdoor making activities.
The Clubhouse Network: A Global Community for Creativity and Achievement, a program of Boston's Museum of Science, will develop, pilot, and evaluate Light it Up! Engaging Young People in Digital Making Activities. Digital making activities combine design, computational thinking, and engineering practices that are all fundamental learning skills for the 21st century. Over the course of six months, the project team will develop a one-day, hands-on workshop that will give museum educators strategies to inspire a more diverse population of middle and high school-aged youth to consider educational and career pathways in STEM fields through engagement with local science centers. The workshop will be implemented twice with a group of 12 educators from regional museums. The museum will use tested evaluation tools to improve the quality and outcomes of the workshops. A successful prototype and evaluation will result in practices that can be adapted by other museums and cultural institutions to better reach young people with digital making activities.