Search Resource Library (Repository)

The Roads Taken Project utilized fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving STEM involvement of alumnae(i) of six intensive STEM-based youth programs 15 to 25 years after participation. Outcomes included overall STEM involvement (including STEM academics and careers, personal STEM involvement, community STEM involvement, and long-term STEM identity), and post- program and program...

This paper, a product of Roads Taken describes the components needing consideration for conducting a long-term follow-up study of Intensive youth STEM programs such as those that serve high school students in informal learning spaces such as museums and community centers. These programs engage participants over weeks, months, or years, focusing on long-term STEM out- comes, especially for populations...

Library Makers (LM) is an initiative designed to share resources and learnings about how library makerspaces have and will continue to shift their services and programming in the coming years. Supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), this project prioritizes diverse and inclusive community building, both within the professional Community itself and for the...

As engineering becomes more common in museums and other informal learning spaces, educators are often expected to support young people in the moment—especially when designs fail or don’t work as planned. Yet there are few resources that focus on how educators can plan for and respond to these real-time challenges. In this study, we worked with museums across the United...

In this project, we partnered with six informal learning organizations across the United States to explore how adults can better support children when things don’t go as planned. Rather than starting with predetermined research questions, we worked together to develop questions that reflected each organization’s goals, capacities, and ways of working. This paper shares what that collaborative process looked like,...

When visitors encounter challenges during hands-on engineering activities in museums, educators play a key role in shaping how those moments unfold. In this study, we explored how museum educators and visitors work together during moments of failure and use those experiences to improve designs through iteration. By closely examining video recordings and reflective conversations with five museum educators, we saw...

Museums can be powerful places for young people to explore, experiment, and take risks—especially when things don’t go as planned. In this study, we looked at how museum educators think about and talk about failure within STEAM-focused making programs, such as exhibits, workshops, and camps. Drawing on about nine hours of video conversations with educators from six partner museums, we...

In this work, we explored how educators’ views on failure shape their teaching—and how those views can change over time. In the first part of the study, we talked with educators in schools and museums to better understand how they think about failure and how it shows up in their day-to-day practice. We found that many educators held narrow or...

When families visit science museums, adult caregivers play an important role in how children learn—especially during hands-on STEM activities. Yet many caregivers feel unsure about engineering and aren’t always sure how to jump in. This study, developed and led by our partners at the Museum of Science in Boston, explored whether making the engineering design process more visible could help...

Professional development for informal educators is often short, lecture-based, and focused on familiar teaching approaches. But this kind of training doesn’t always prepare educators for the real, messy moments of learning—especially when young people struggle or experience failure. Over four years, we partnered with 27 informal learning organizations to develop a more meaningful, long-term approach to professional development. Together, we...

We often think of failure as something to avoid, but in learning—especially in science, technology, engineering, and math—it can actually be a powerful tool. When educators allow learners to struggle, try again, and work through mistakes, they create space for creativity and real problem-solving to happen. In this study, we looked at how these moments play out in informal learning...

This project seeks to create a coalition of geospatial innovation organizations across all sectors of society (public, private, and governmental) to explore how spatial science can be more fully represented in offerings of informal STEM education in the Greater St. Louis region. The coalition seeks to identify gaps, remove silos, and enable better collaboration, knowledge- and resource-sharing. By establishing shared...

Serendipity, or insight coupled with chance, has been identified as an essential element of scientific discovery and played a key role in the work of countless scholars and researchers. For instance, examples of serendipitous discoveries include penicillin, radioactivity, and the adhesive for Post-it Notes. Yet serendipitous moments are neither rare nor solely the domain of magnificent discoveries; they happen regularly...

Opportunities to learn about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are all around. Yet, people often assume that formal school settings are the only places to learn about the STEM disciplines. A consensus report from The National Academies, Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places and Pursuits (NRC, 2009), helped to upend this assumption and galvanized over a decade of...

In Fall 2023, the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS) received a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) titled AIM: Alliance for Immersion in Museums. This project built the foundation for a coalition of museums and media producers from across the United States, all working together to address current topics of relevance to our communities...

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest study (N = 108) evaluated K-2 children’s learning from three engineering-based Team Hamster! digital games and six accompanying videos. Pairs of children were assigned to one of three groups: Games Only (playing each game twice over two weeks), Games + Videos (playing the games twice and watching short, related videos), or Control (no exposure). Interviews...

Through the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership (CRSP), Carnegie Museum of Natural History partnered with a rural conservation district and learning researchers at University of Pittsburgh to build a learning network with two regional hubs. Each hub invited community organizations to join and work together to develop strategies to support productive, science- and community-based dialogue among network members and with...

Through the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership (CRSP), Carnegie Museum of Natural History partnered with a rural conservation district and learning researchers at University of Pittsburgh to build a learning network with two regional hubs. Each hub invited community organizations to join and work together to develop strategies to support productive, science- and community-based dialogue among network members and with...

Through the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership (CRSP), Carnegie Museum of Natural History partnered with a rural conservation district and learning researchers at University of Pittsburgh to build a learning network with two regional hubs. Each hub invited community organizations to join and work together to develop strategies to support productive, science- and community-based dialogue among network members and with...

Through the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership (CRSP), Carnegie Museum of Natural History partnered with a rural conservation district and learning researchers at University of Pittsburgh to build a learning network with two regional hubs. Each hub invited community organizations to join and work together to develop strategies to support productive, science- and community-based dialogue among network members and with...

Through the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership (CRSP), Carnegie Museum of Natural History partnered with a rural conservation district and learning researchers at University of Pittsburgh to build a learning network with two regional hubs. Each hub invited community organizations to join and work together to develop strategies to support productive, science- and community-based dialogue among network members and with...

Through the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership (CRSP), Carnegie Museum of Natural History partnered with a rural conservation district and learning researchers at University of Pittsburgh to build a learning network with two regional hubs. Each hub invited community organizations to join and work together to develop strategies to support productive, science- and community-based dialogue among network members and with...

Voces de Esperanza Exhibit Development Preliminary Framework: A synthesis of ambitions, theory, and evidence The goal of this study was to create an evidence-based framework of exhibit characteristics that support the logic model outcomes (see Exhibit Outcomes section of this report pages 9-10 and Appendix A). Given the project ambitions identified in the proposal, of particular interest is evidence of exhibit...

Voces de Esperanza Front-end evaluation findings The evaluation plan for Voces included a front-end study to inform project content by better understanding ways in which the topic of climate change is perceived in local (Portland Metro Area) Latine communities. To create exhibit activity content that would be perceived as relevant by local audiences, the front-end evaluation aimed to better understand how...

Voces de Esperanza Practices evaluation report for the period of March - December 2024 The objective of this evaluation is to inform and monitor the ways and extent the project practices realize intended and unanticipated outcomes as described in the project logic model that was presented in the project proposal (see Appendix A). The present report provides insight and tracks the...