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resource research Exhibitions
In this project, we asked whether storytelling during tinkering might support children’s engagement in STEM and how that may differ across boys and girls. According to Bruner (1996), stories can help children to organize experiences by adding coherence, increasing understanding, and facilitating learning. We observed associations between story and STEM in two contexts: home and museum exhibit.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Bianca Aldrich Grace Ocular Catherine Haden
resource research Exhibitions
Given the important role of autonomy support in children’s motivation and learning, this study asked whether parents’ use of autonomy supportive language (vs. controlling language) was associated with children’s engagement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in a bi-directional manner during an at-home tinkering activity.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Bianca Aldrich Catherine Haden
resource research Exhibitions
This poster from the 2023 ASTC conference provides and overview of research from the NSF funded Designing Our Tomorrow project.  This research study examined  storytelling approaches used by caregivers and educators to communicate to other caregiver and educators that the engineering practices exercised at DOT exhibits are usefully relevant to problem-solving in their day-to-day lives and within their communities. 
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TEAM MEMBERS: Carla Herran
resource evaluation Exhibitions
This paper presents synthesized research on where XR is most effective within a museum setting and what impact XR might have on the visitor experience.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Madeleine Pope Kate Haley Goldman William Swartout Dr. Emily Lindsey Dr. Benjamin Nye Dr. Gale Sinatra
resource research Exhibitions
The open-access proceedings from this conference are available in both English and Spanish.
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TEAM MEMBERS: John Voiklis Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein Uduak Grace Thomas Bennett Attaway Lisa Chalik Jason Corwin Kevin Crowley Michelle Ciurria Colleen Cotter Martina Efeyini Ronnie Janoff-Bulman Jacklyn Grace Lacey Reyhaneh Maktoufi Bertram Malle Jo-Elle Mogerman Laura Niemi Laura Santhanam
resource research Media and Technology
Through desk-based research and expert interviews, this study set out to investigate how funders and policy makers could drive coordination and improvements in the evaluation of youth engagement with STEM. The study explored the current landscape of evaluating youth engagement with STEM, gaps and challenges and key learnings from the evaluation practice in other sectors and key initiatives. Between February and March 2022, 18 project and programme evaluation reports and papers were reviewed, approximately 40 academic papers were analysed and synthesised, and 14 experts were interviewed.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Asimina Vergou
resource research Exhibitions
The poster shares work conducted as part of the Modeling Zoos and Aquariums as Inclusive Communities of Science for Autistic Individuals (MoZAICS) project and specifically sharing details of the MoZAICS access and inclusion framework (e.g., definitions, structure/levels of the framework).
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TEAM MEMBERS: Kelly Riedinger Victoria Bonebrake Kari Hart Lauren Weaver Blaire Donnelly-Mason Zach Williams
resource research Media and Technology
The COVID-19 pandemic tested many fundamental connections between science and society. A growing field working to strengthen those connections exists within the informal STEM learning (ISL) community which provides diverse learning and engagement environments outside the formal classroom. One of the largest funders of ISL initiatives is the National Science Foundation (NSF) which runs the Advanced Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program in the United States. The AISL program supports initiatives through six categories that include pilots and feasibility studies, research in service to practice
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TEAM MEMBERS: Heidi Houzenga Fanuel Muindi
resource research Exhibitions
This book includes accounts going back to the 1970s of efforts to engage visitors as contributors to exhibitions and active participants in museum conversations. Included are 27 essays by practioners from children’s museums and science centers, natural history museums and art galleries, history museums and living collections. The book offers practical guidance and concludes with reflections on the value and meaning of visitor contributions to exhibitions. Co-editor Pollock poses a question that in retrospect seems prescient: "Finally, have we considered carefully enough the possible downsides
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TEAM MEMBERS: Kathleen McLean Wendy Pollock
resource research Media and Technology
Through its traveling exhibition program, the Association of Science-Technology Centers worked for many years to advance the culture and practice of hands-on science learning, with support from the National Science Foundation. This article describes workshops, staff exchanges, and apprenticeships that accompanied a number of exhibitions, beginning in 1973. The community website ExhibitFiles, which opened in 2007, served the same purpose, as an archive of community-contrbuted case studies and reviews of science exhibitions.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Wendy Pollock
resource research Public Programs
The science center movement that gained momentum in the 1970s — and ASTC, the first organization to represent the field — were in many ways the creation of the scientific community. This article, published in the September/October 2007 issue of ASTC Dimensions, recalls key people and events that laid the groundwork for what was to become the informal science education field. Quoting longtime NSF program officer George Tressel, it expresses concern about the diminished role of scientists in science centers as many became "more a business."
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TEAM MEMBERS: Wendy Pollock
resource research Media and Technology
Hands-on tinkering experiences can help promote more equitable STEM learning opportunities for children from diverse backgrounds (Bevan, 2017; Vossoughi & Bevan, 2014). Latine heritage families naturally engage in and talk about engineering practices during and after tinkering in a children’s museum (Acosta & Haden, in press). We asked how the everyday practice of oral stories and storytelling could be leveraged during an athome tinkering activity to support children’s informal engineering and spatial learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Diana Acosta Catherine Haden Kim Coin