The MyBEST (Mentoring Youth Building Employable Skills in Technology) project, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation's Informal Science Education program, concluded its three years of operation in 2006. This youth-based program was intended to provide participants with in-depth learning experiences involving information and design technologies. These experiences had a dual focus: enabling youth participants to gain fluency in using these technologies while showing them how adults apply them in work and academic endeavors. Appendix includes survey.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth Xue
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
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
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) MinnAqua program educates the state's youth about angling and aquatic resources. In 2001, MinnAqua developed a Leaders' Guide so educators could carryout MinnAqua activities in their own setting. As part of the development process, a formative evaluation was undertaken to answer the questions: (a) To what extent are MinnAqua's rewrite guidelines addressed in individual lessons and the Leaders' Guide as a whole?, and (b) To what extent does the Leaders' Guide meet the educational needs of intended users in both formal and informal
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Amy Grack NelsonMinnesota Department of Natural Resources
In May of 2006, Science on a Sphere (SOS) was set up in a permanent exhibit space at the Science Museum of Minnesota. With the new installation of the Sphere, came the addition of a variety of features that were not included in the initial front-end study. These new features included an expanded playlist, new audio for some of the visualizations, accompanying labels projected on the wall describing the visualization, indication on the labels of what image will be playing next, and seating for visitors so they can sit and view the sphere. The new master playlist was composed of three smaller
To prepare for future summative research on the synergy among multiple educational media, the present pilot research explored real-life use of Cyberchase outreach materials. The present pilot study included: a Web survey of 48 outreach providers (representing over 3000 children in 19 states), follow-up phone interviews with 26 of these providers, and in-person observations at two outreach sites, one in New York and one in Massachusetts. With an eye toward future summative research, the resulting data yield conclusions and implications in two broadly defined areas: providers' use of Cyberchase
The Listen exhibition at The Exploratorium, which opened in October 2006, deals with the production and physical characteristics of sound, the reception of sound in the ear and its perception in the brain, and the human capacity to interpret and act on the information transmitted by sounds. Summative evaluation of Listen consists of two parts: tracking and timing and exit interviews. Instruments for the studies were developed by Minda Borun. Data were collected by Exploratorium staff members Mary Kidwell, Emily Pinkowitz, Heather Posner, and Deborah Siegel, and were tabulated by Mary Kidwell
In 2005, the Exhibit Operations Department at the Museum of Science, Boston became concerned by the number of visitor comment cards that cited frustration with broken exhibits. As a result, they approached the Research Department to carry out a study to determine the visitors' perspectives of maintenance issues. The Research Department addressed this matter by seeking answers to the following questions: 1. Where is the discrepancy between what visitors and maintenance workers call broken 2. What factors related to broken exhibits frustrate visitors most? 3. What counts as broken in the eyes of
On two Saturday mornings, December 3 and December 10, 2005, two groups of Deaf adults were invited to participate in a focus group to try out the Multimedia Tour in the Star Wars exhibition and provide feedback on both its effectiveness and how it could be improved. The purpose of the focus group was to gain rich in-depth feedback from many people at once, particularly because it is so difficult to capture Deaf users in our exit interviews due to language barriers. Focus groups followed a topical framework surrounding what visitors enjoyed about the handheld, improvements they might make to
MinnAqua, a program of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resource's Division of Fish and Wildlife, strives to educate Minnesota's youth about angling and aquatics and increase their interest and participation in angling. A summative evaluation was carried out to examine the effectiveness of MinnAqua clinics in terms of two evaluation questions: (a) To what extent are MinnAqua clinics meeting their goals? and (b) To what extent does participation in MinnAqua clinics increase children's knowledge of angling and aquatic resources as identified by the MinnAqua key concepts? To answer these
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Amy Grack NelsonMinnesota Department of Natural Resources
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer received a three-year National Science Foundation grant from Fall 2003 to Spring 2006 to develop, produce and air science reports during the regularly televised news program. The Online NewsHour Web site extends the reach of the science reports by housing the broadcast transcripts of the science reports, as well as information, graphics, and links that enhance the televised segments. In addition, EXTRA, a feature within the Web site designed for teachers and students, provides lesson plans and resources to support the use of the science segments in the classroom
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Rockman et alMacNeil/Lehrer Productions
In 2005, Independent Broadcasting Associates (IBA) received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create a series of radio programs for National Public Radio that features the Ganges river basin in South Asia. The radio programs, which are in the process of being produced, will describe the 650 million people who are supported by the river, as well as its cultural and religious significance. The programs will also describe the political and/or economic environment of the river and its surrounding areas. Each of these topics will encourage listeners to divorce themselves from U
A three-pronged summative evaluation of the San Francisco Zoo's new African Savanna exhibit shows it to be very well received by visitors and successful at meeting key affective and cognitive goals. Visitors to this exhibit, especially those who attend a giraffe feeding, enthusiastically demonstrate admiration and wonder towards wildlife, emotional connections to the animals, and excitement at close and unusual viewing opportunities. Visitors care deeply about the quality of life for these animals and readily state that they feel the animals have a good home in this exhibit. Respondents are