This study was a longitudinal summative evaluation of repeat visitors’ experiences in four Math Moves! exhibitions that were developed as part of a large collaborative exhibition development project called Math Core for Museums, and mounted at four museums around the country: Museum of Science (Boston); Museum of Life & Science (Durham, NC); Explora (Albuquerque); and Science Museum of Minnesota (St. Paul). The summative evaluation purposively selected four family groups at each institution and collected naturalistic data as the 16 groups engaged with the exhibits from 4-6 times over a two
The Touch the Sun exhibition showcases the stunning state-of-the-art imagery of the Sun captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and streamed to Chabot in near-real-time. Central to the exhibit is a fully interactive, 90-inch display presenting animations of the Sun's atmosphere in astounding detail. Additional exhibits give visitors hands-on experience with the forces of nature that shape the Sun's behavior. A Ferrofluid exhibit lets visitors explore the interaction between magnetic fields and magnetic material, as with the solar magnetic fields that affect plasma to form features like
Life on Earth is interactive software installed as a museum touchtable exhibit that uses data about over seventy thousand (70,000) species from several databases to help visitors explore and deepen their understanding of biodiversity, evolution and common ancestry, and the history of life on earth (DeepTree/ FloTree). Some installations also include a smaller exhibit that poses puzzle challenges about evolutionary relationships among species (Build-a-Tree (BAT)). The exhibit was installed at four natural history museums across the U.S. – the Harvard Museum of Natural History (Cambridge, MA)
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Harvard UnivesityJim HammermanAmy SpiegelJonathan Christiansen