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 Ka Makaiwa: Strengthening Digital Access for Native Hawaiian Futures project will develop an approach to producing online exhibits and related programming for the Bishop Museum. The project will address barriers to physical access to collections expected to continue beyond the pandemic by expanding access to information by developing a high-quality, thoughtfully designed, and user-friendly online exhibit platform. The museum will capture photographs, video footage, and other content from the (Re)Generations: Challenging Scientific Racism in Hawaii exhibition, which explores racism and bias in scientific research while celebrating Native Hawaiian voices and collaborative endeavors. The project team will test a beta version internally and conduct a thorough internal review before launching the online exhibit publicly.
DuPage Children’s Museum will conduct an in-depth, iterative evaluation of the museum’s Questioneers traveling exhibit and create a permanent 2,000 square-foot, bi-lingual Questioneers exhibit along with related programming that promotes inclusivity and ignites children’s interest in mathematics, science, engineering, and architecture. The exhibit and programming also will help reduce the impact of socioeconomic disparities that are known to discourage underrepresented and underserved populations from pursuing their interest in STEM fields. The exhibit and its related programming will feature characters, activities, and challenges from bestselling children’s books. The museum will coordinate exhibit design and fabrication with community partners.
To inspire more youth to seek careers in science, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is adding a new, permanent paleontology exhibition, “Dueling Dinosaurs,” and a public lab that will allow middle school students to explore a variety of fossils using hands-on tools and techniques. The exhibition, which will include the fossils of a Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops found intertwined and thought to have died in an apparent predator-prey battle, will demonstrate how fossils are key evidence used by scientists to understand life on a changing planet. Students will have the opportunity to participate in interactive exercises that replicate scientific processes and procedures, and as they learn, see possible career paths for themselves as scientists.
The Louisiana Children’s Museum is developing a comprehensive set of resources entitled “Water Dialogues–Living with Water,” designed around its new exhibits and landscape resources, to strengthen the community’s understanding of the challenges associated with water management. They are creating a new field trip series and water-based science curriculum, “Water Pathways” as well as an outreach program, “Steward’s Ship,” to bring the program’s environmental messages to schools and camps. The museum will also conduct a professional development training series on science education for local educators implementing the state’s new science standards, in addition to a series of literacy workshops where children ages four to eight will write “how-to” books and “water journals.” To further spread the associated environmental and sustainability messages, they will organize an annual “Water Fest” program for the community.
The Rochester Museum and Science Center and partners will plan, design, fabricate, and evaluate its new Water Worlds exhibition using a hybrid exhibition model that integrates hands-on science and interactive technology with authentic collections objects in immersive environments. Reimagining the gallery in this way will allow the museum’s professional staff to work with outside experts in the sciences—including environmental science, sustainability, water resources, and climate—to create a unified watershed-themed narrative for the gallery. Hands-on, inquiry-focused exhibits will inspire visitors to explore the Lake Ontario watershed and analyze critical local issues including water pollution, flooding, invasive species, and the impact of a changing climate on local waterways, as well as innovative solutions to these challenges.
The Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium will design, produce, and install Science Alive—a 1,500-square-foot astronomy and meteorology exhibit—as well as develop and implement supporting programs to promote lifelong learning through participation in scientific explorations. Science Alive will leverage the museum’s strengths in meteorology and astronomy by translating these core competencies into dynamic and relevant exhibits and programs. It also will address the community’s STEM educational deficiencies through science methodologies and content. The project’s exhibition and programming components will benefit students, visitors, and the community.
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis will redesign its popular Dinosphere exhibition to explore and test accessibility to ensure the discoveries from its “Jurassic Mile” dig site are accessible to all visitors. This will result in updated exhibition elements that promote accessible lifelong learning experiences for children and families of all abilities, as well as spark interest in STEM through hands-on engagement. Findings from the accessibility assessment also will inform development of industry standard guidelines for future exhibitions. The museum will disseminate the findings to arts, science, and cultural institutions.
The McWane Science Center (MWSC) will create a new exhibition experience entitled “Dropping Science: Hip-Hop Interactive” that will capture the elements of the popular music genre using interpretive experiences. Project activities include exhibit content development; development of a formal evaluation plan; exhibit prototyping; remedial evaluation, and a final exhibit design plan. An important project goal is to develop the process for creating lasting, reciprocal relationships with the local African American community and throughout the region, thus creating an exhibit space that connects underrepresented audiences to STEM and establishes MWSC as a true community partner. The outcome of this project will be a new interactive experience that was co-developed with and representative of MWSC’s local community that helps MWSC connect with and engage local visitors in science through a more culturally and personally relevant lens.
The Field Museum of Natural History will present “Changing Face of Science,” an exhibition series targeting pre-teens and teenagers and featuring Field Museum scientists and science educators who are women or people of color. Over three years, the museum will mount six exhibitions that highlight the experiences and work of museum scientists from diverse backgrounds in a range of disciplines. Programming will include on-site field trips and virtual events during which students and educators will interact with featured researchers. By presenting the stories of individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in scientific fields, the museum will provide role models who will show that science is accessible and inspire a diverse group of future scientists.
Creative Discovery Museum will create an indoor/outdoor, natural science gallery designed for children ages 2 to 12. Named “Unearthed,” the gallery will include exhibits on fossil layers, dinosaurs and paleontology, volcanos and volcanology, erosion and weathering, entomology, and insects. It will offer hands-on, exploratory experiences in natural science for children and their families. The new science gallery will align with state educational standards, provide more interactive learning experiences, and introduce children to real elements including dirt, water, and sand in an outdoor exhibit that reinforces the concepts presented inside the museum.
The Wyoming State Museum will implement an exhibit plan developed with content experts from across the state to produce a Prehistoric Wyoming exhibit. The exhibit will explore the prehistory of Wyoming, with a special focus on the age of dinosaurs, and will serve the needs of the museum’s three main visitor groups—local families, out-of-state tourists, and students on field trips—as determined through formative surveys and visitor feedback. Visitors will learn about the geological forces that shaped the Wyoming landscape visible today, examine the different plants and animals that have called Wyoming home through the ages, and discover the history of fossil hunters in Wyoming.