RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
The Michigan Science Center will purchase a portable planetarium that will bring planetarium shows to more than 2,000 children through its Traveling Science Program. The museum plans to take the programs to 10 schools and 8 libraries in Metro Detroit and 6 libraries in northern Michigan. They will deliver the portable planetarium shows in coordination with the museum’s long-standing “Scopes in the City” program, which allows people to use telescopes to see the night sky. The program also will expose students to Michigan’s growing aerospace industry and help increase their interest in earth and space science.
The Virginia Air and Space Center will enhance its Space Gallery exhibit and increase its capacity to deliver high-quality, high-impact STEM programming. The museum will purchase, adapt, and install three interactive, digital exhibits that will complement existing displays and enhance visitors’ overall experiences. The digital exhibits will include a moon lander that users can pilot; a simulated Mars rover and micro-copter that will allow guests to navigate a Martian atmosphere and surface; and a stellar playground where users can build their own solar system through an intuitive touch-interface that incorporates planets, stars, violent supernovas, black holes, and other space oddities. The project team will develop new curricula related to the exhibits to use with school groups and summer camps.
Kidzeum of Health and Science will partner with Springfield, Illinois School District 186 to create a two-week STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) residency for approximately 1,000 second graders in the district. The residency will take place at Kidzeum during the 2021-2022 school year. The program will include a curriculum created by teachers, school administrators, and museum staff, featuring a collaborative STEAM project that builds on Kidzeum exhibit content. Literacy, physical education, music, social studies, and social-emotional wellness will also be included in the curriculum as the Kidzeum tests the hypothesis that museums can benefit young learners and their families by serving as a place for longer term, immersive education programs. Southern Illinois University School of Medicine will provide project evaluation and subsequent reporting.
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will design and fabricate the La Brea Tar Pits Mobile Museum to provide kindergarten to 2nd grade students with hands-on, immersive experiences based on its Ice Age fossil collections. The traveling exhibition will reach 20 underserved schools and 7,500 students annually. Programming will use early childhood play-based models. These models allow students time to explore and observe followed by periods of play that allow time to process, reflect, and retain. A museum educator will prepare classroom teachers for the school residency by providing a workshop and orientation to the Tar Pits, pre-visit classroom activities and lesson plans aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. The mobile museum will also be deployed at community parks, festivals, and special events on weekends and during the summer, reaching a total of 15,000 youth and families each year.
The L.C. Bates Museum will deliver STEAM programming to neighboring rural, mostly low-income second grade children and their families through the Observing Ornithology science project. Over a two-year period, the museum will work with 40 teachers in 12 schools to support student learning tied to Next Generation core science performance measures. The project activities will use museum collections and other resources to present a series of three ornithology programs designed to motivate curiosity and engage children in observation activities that support a new approach to thinking, analyzing and solving. The museum will loan a new pop-up display to each of the 12 school libraries and will present four family and four children's museum bird days at the museum for participating students and their families during each year of the project. An external evaluator will measure the project's success in achieving defined performance measures that include strengthening the children's knowledge, understanding, and attitude toward the regional environment.
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) and Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment (BASE) contracted RK&A to conduct an evaluation of their partnership’s progress and outcomes over three years. The goal of the summative evaluation is to explore students, families, and teachers’ perceptions of and relationship to BBG and the BBG-BASE partnership. The evaluation also explored attitudes and understandings of how to engage in nature exploration, scientific inquiry, and environmental stewardship in a meaningful way.
How did we approach this study?
RK&A developed questionnaires to be
The L.C. Bates Museum will provide 1,700 rural fourth grade students and their families museum-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) educational programming including integrated naturalist, astronomy, and art activities that explore Maine's environment and its solar and lunar interactions. The project will include a series of eight classroom programs, family field trips, TV programs, family and classroom self-guided educational materials, and exhibitions of project activities including student work. By bringing programs to schools and offering family activities and field trips, the museum will be able to engage an underserved, mostly low-income population that would otherwise not be able to visit the museum. The museum's programming will address teachers' needs for museum objects and interactive explorations that enhance student learning and new Common Core science curriculum objectives, while offering students engaging learning experiences and the opportunity to develop 21st century leadership skills.
Wilkerson Center for Colorado River Education will create "Texas Colorado River Mobile Learning Experience," a mobile learning exhibition that will teach middle school audiences about the Colorado River watershed and human interaction with water sources. The mobile interactive water science center and accompanying curriculum will build core science knowledge and skills relative to watersheds, and provide youth a complementary, interpretive educational experience. Through the exhibit, the center aims to increase participants' water-conserving behaviors, decrease water use, and decrease behaviors leading to negative impact on water quality.
A two stage summative evaluation was conducted following the launch of the Mystic Seaport for Educators website, the final output resulting from the IMLS National Leadership grant entitled Mystic E-Port Digital Classroom project. The results of four focus groups, conducted in two phases, found consistent results suggesting that the project was successful at achieving all four goals as outlined in the original grant proposal. Appendix includes focus group protocol.