The Roads Taken Conference Report provides information and results from the virtual conference held in October and November 2016.
Representatives from ten long-standing youth programs, experts in out-of-school time (OST) youth programming, and researchers participated in the Roads Taken virtual conference in October and November 2016, funded by the National Science Foundation (DRL-1644479). Participants collaboratively developed a Program Profile template with dual purposes: a tool for practitioners and a tool for researchers. As the first phase the three-part plan, Program Profiles will
This professional development event was held on November 6 and 7, 2005 at the Museum of Science, Boston, under the direction of the Museum’s Director for Strategic Projects, Carol Lynn Alpert. This event was sponsored by the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) headquartered at Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts – Lowell, and by the “Science of Nanoscale Systems and their Device Applications” NSF NSEC headquartered at Harvard University. The Symposium was intended to provide educators from middle schools, high schools
Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (CDM) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to study the professional development component of Mammoth Discovery!, a NSF-funded project. The professional development part of the project convened a group of museum professionals (cohort participants) from select children’s museums to participate in several workshops, developed and conducted by CDM staff, and gatherings at a number of Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) conferences. RK&A conducted the evaluation to measure the impact of these experiences on the professional practice of cohort
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose
The Language of Conservation was a collaborative project between libraries, zoos, and poets nationwide to replicate a project originally undertaken by the Central Park Zoo. The project model built zoo, library, and poet-in-residence partnerships in five host cities: Brookfield, Illinois; Jacksonville, Florida; Little Rock, Arkansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and New Orleans, Louisiana. It was anticipated that the zoo exhibits would result in positive outcomes for zoo visitors who encountered the poetry, including increasing the conservation thinking and language used after a visit and creating a
Illuminated Verses explored issues of traditional culture and modernity, as well as differences and diversity within the Islamic world, and offers an interpretive bridge to these content areas for both scholarly and general audiences. Through a symposium and a series of pre-events leading up to that program, Poets House and CityLore explored ways of using poetry, discussion and interpretation of poetry to create bridges for intercultural understanding. The symposium and pre-symposium events also served as a springboard to explore the potential for a broader, potentially national, program. This
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (GRG) conducted a summative national field test study of the PEEP Explorer's Guide in early childhood education (ECE) classrooms. Participating teachers used four-to-six Explorer's Guide Units with their students over the course of one school year. GRG assessed changes in teachers' science-teaching practices after using the PEEP Explorer's Guide over an extended period of time and examined potential barriers to using the PEEP Explorer's Guide throughout the course of a school year. The evaluation sought to measure the following professional audience impacts and
Nanoscience is an emerging scientific field, and therefore an increasing amount of funding is flowing into nanoscience and nanotechnology research, including money from the federal government. Several studies of public understanding and public attitudes toward nanoscience have shown that most of the public is generally uninterested in and unmotivated to learn about nanoscale science and technology3. Because this emerging interdisciplinary field of science offers so much promise, and because it will have an increasing presence in everyday life, the NSF is committed to increasing public
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mark St. JohnJenifer V. HelmsNanoscale Informal Science Education (NISE) NetworkPam CastoriJudy HirabayashiLaurie LopezMichelle Phillips
From April 19 to June 15, 2009, volunteers had the opportunity to provide feedback on their volunteer experience and offer suggestions for improvement. The survey was initially only available as a web-based survey. Volunteers with email accounts were sent a link to the survey. Those volunteers without an email address were asked to contact Volunteer Services for a paper copy of the survey. Volunteers received an hour of volunteer time for completing the survey. Of the 369 active volunteers, a total of 144 filled out the survey for a 39% response rate (compared to 46% in 2008 and 41% in 2007)
From May 1 to July 7 of 2008, volunteers had the opportunity to provide feedback on their volunteer experience and offer suggestions for improvement. The survey was a follow up to the May 2007 volunteer survey. The 2008 survey was initially only available as a web-based survey. Volunteers with email accounts were sent a link to the survey. A kiosk was also available in the volunteer check-in area for volunteers to complete the survey while at the museum. After the first month, the survey was made available in paper format in the volunteer break room to help increase the response rate. Paper
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Sarah CohnScience Museum of Minnesota
In May 2007, self-administered surveys about their volunteer experience and training were sent to 552 Science Museum of Minnesota volunteers, and 224 volunteers filled it out and returned it for a 41% response rate. The responses from volunteers to many questions were lengthy and detailed; a separate appendix is attached containing all of the commentary provided by volunteer respondents to open-ended questions on the survey. The survey is also included in the appendix. In this summative report, selections of sample responses were included after open-ended questions. Principal Findings 1. A
Tornado Alley is a giant screen adventure that follows renegade filmmaker Sean Casey and the scientists of VORTEX2, the largest tornado research project ever assembled, on their epic missions to encounter one of Earth’s most awe-inspiring events: the birth of a tornado. Program components included the giant screen film; a Web site; educators’ guides and resources for classroom and informal learning; and professional development sessions utilizing cyberinfrastructure to facilitate remote interactions between educators and researchers performing actual data manipulations. In addition, an
Overview of Sustainability Professional Development and Evaluation: As part of the National Science Foundation funded "Sustainability: Promoting Sustainable Decision Making in Informal Education" project, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and its partners developed a professional development website and workshop. The goal of this and other project deliverables was to promote sustainable decision making by building skills that allow participants to weigh their choices and choose more sustainable practices. ExhibitSEED (Exhibit Social Environmental and Economic Development) refers
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Oregon Museum of Science and IndustryRenee B. Curtis