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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TEAM MEMBERS:
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
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Murphy PizzaStacie Rademacher
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Nanoscale Informal Science Education (NISE) Network held Regional Workshops workshops around the country during the summer of 2008. Formative evaluation was carried out to measure the workshop's success and related improvements in 1) integrating new and existing partners into the NISE Network, 2) providing valuable networking opportunities among workshop attendees, 3) creating a foundation for strong and lasting regional partnerships within the NISE Network, 4) presenting NISE Net's catalog of existing products, and 5) providing professional development resources including knowledge, tools
As part of community building efforts, the Nanoscale Informal Science Education (NISE) Network undertook regional site visits during Year 5 of the project. The purpose of the site visits was to deepen relationships with a small group of partners. The Network Community Group saw the site visits as an opportunity to create a stronger sense of community within the Network and build institutions' capacity to engage their local public in nano. Partners with the highest potential to infuse nano into their institution and/or become actively involved with the Network were chosen for a site visit. A
The Nanoscale Informal Science Education (NISE) Network held an online workshop in February 2010 focused on NanoDays and activities in the NanoDays kit. A formative evaluation was designed to measure workshop outcomes and identify necessary improvements for future NanoDays workshops and inform other NISE Net online workshops. The outcomes stated that workshop participants would 1) become more familiar with the NISE Network, 2) become familiar with what NanoDays resources are available on nisenet.org and how to find them, 3) increase their comfort level using NanoDays activities with their
User Experience Research Consulting (UXR) conducted a summative evaluation of the NSF-ISE funded project, STEPS (Science Theater Education Programming System). The STEPS project brought together a network of informal science educators and contractors to create an interactive museum theater authoring and presentation system to increase educational capacity for small and large museums across the country. The software package includes an authoring tool for the creation of multimedia science theater productions; a presentation player for displaying the shows to audiences in museum theaters
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jes A. KoepflerUniversity of Colorado, Denver
In October 2009, the Tennessee Aquarium began an ambitious program, Connecting Tennessee to the World Ocean (CTWO), funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. CTWO consists of several individual projects, all intended to increase the ocean literacy of Aquarium audiences and to promote their adoption of an ocean stewardship ethic. This formative evaluation report summarizes the extent to which the Aquarium has made progress toward these goals in the first year of the project and provides an information base for identifying opportunities to strengthen
The 2010 Delivery and Reach study documented the delivery of nano education activities at NISE Network partner institutions and estimated the public reach of those activities. Surveys used in this study are included in the appendix of this report.
As teachers respond to the demands of educational reform and strive to meet increasing pressures of educational benchmarks and standards, there is less and less time to utilize innovative teaching techniques. Education reform expectations, coupled with increasing class size and shrinking budgets has significantly impacted the way that science education is delivered in schools. 4-H Wildlife Stewards, a Master Science Educator's Program was developed in response to these emerging concerns in science education. The program is based on the premise that trained volunteer Master Science Educators
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mary ArnoldMichael DaltonMaggie LivesayRobin Galloway
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Museum of Science partnered with the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing to create a sequence of professional development experiences in science communication and hands-on learning for graduate students and post-docs. The Sharing Science Workshops were intended to help graduate students who work with the CHN program to improve their abilities to present their research to a variety of scientific and nonscientific audiences. The sequence included a half-day "Sharing Science" workshop, a half-day guided "Practicum" with museum visitors, and optional participation in NanoDays events at MOS
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Donahue Institute Research and Evaluation Group
As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is conducting regional STEM workshops, entitled NFB STEM2U, for blind youth [youth], grades 3 – 6. During this first regional workshop in Baltimore, the NFB operated three different programs simultaneously: one program for youth, a second program for their parents/caregivers, and a third program for a group of teachers who work with visually impaired students. A fourth program, for Port Discovery museum staff, was conducted earlier to prepare the museum staff to assist with the youth program
Fusion Science Theater (FST) uses elements of playwriting to make informal science education more engaging as well as educational. FST shows incorporate an overarching scientific question that is asked and then answered by a series of participatory exercises and demonstrations. The shows also use “embedded assessment” of learning, which asks children to “vote their prediction” both before and after these activities. The FST National Training and Dissemination Program had three major goals: (1) To develop and implement a Performance Training Program to train professional audiences to perform
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Madison Area Technical CollegeJoanne Cantor