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Interested in social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in informal science engagement? Join colleagues and peers from across the world in the free Diversci “Community of Practice” regularly meeting to share ideas, resources and challenge with each other. The community of practice meets every two months online which involves a peer-led spotlight talk exploring a specific theme.  The ... Read more

This study makes the case for the ways in which children's everyday experiences are foundational to learning science. The authors argue for the importance of instruction that capitalizes on the...

This paper lays out a theory of (re-)generative learning to explain how families and communities socialize young learners into thinking like scientists and mathematicians. Cultural communities and their families orient...

Tools to support diverse museum board trustees

Join an interactive presentation by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) within the National Science Foundation (NSF) on the report, Diversity and STEM: Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities, which will be released on January 30. As an official federal statistical agency, NCSES is the nation’s leading provider of data on the ... Read more

The Decapoda - shrimp, lobsters, and crabs - are an economically important, diverse group of animals whose geologic history extends back 400 million years. Living representatives, numbering over 15,000 species,...

At the entryway to Chicago Children’s Museum (CCM), a vibrant collection of nearly 400 self-portraits greets visitors, proclaiming, “We are Chicago Children’s Museum.” The faces of children, teachers, community leaders,...

The representation of self and the nature of our identities often converge through technological forms. This study investigates the promotional techniques of seven companies selling DNA portraits, the objective being...

This study explored whether adding a haptic interface (that provides users with somatosensory information about virtual objects by force and tactile feedback) to a three-dimensional (3D) chemical model enhanced students'...

The objective of this youth media project is to provide 14-24 year olds with training and hands-on experience in engineering, and the physical and biological sciences. The project is designed...

This article takes a critical look at three pervasive urban legends in education about the nature of learners, learning, and teaching and looks at what educational and psychological research has...

In this article, Wilcomb E. Washburn, Director of the Smithsonian's Office of American Studies, discusses museum directors' lack of confidence, fear, and "sheer ignorance" of the value of evaluation. Washburn...

Although cooperative, interorganizational networks have become a common mechanism for delivery of public services, evaluating their effectiveness is extremely complex and has generally been neglected. To help resolve this problem,...

Although cooperative, interorganizational networks have become a common mechanism for delivery of public services, evaluating their effectiveness is extremely complex and has generally been neglected. To help resolve this problem,...

The current state of data around gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation

This study is based upon a body of work that characterizes individuals as primarily empathizers, systemizers, or an equal balance of both. Systemizing describes the ability to understand the world...

This is an extended discussion of the question that appeared in the Viewpoints department of the May/June 2016 issue of Dimensions magazine. It discusses whether smartphones benefit or detract from...

In this paper the analysis of science lessons in early-years classrooms shows that the lessons did not promote scientific investigation or make connections between the ideas involved and the material...

The demand for evaluation of science communication practices and the number and variety of such evaluations are all growing. But it is not clear what evaluation tells us - or...

In this article, Harris H. Shettel, museum consultant, questions why so few museums evaluate educational program and evaluations. Shettel provides six factors that she that explain why this is the...

The Amistad Research Center will hire a project archivist to process 15 archival collections highlighting the accomplishments of African Americans in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) professions. An inventory...

Today educational activities take place not only in school but also in after-school programs, community centers, museums, and online communities and forums. The success and expansion of these out-of-school initiatives...

This report summarizes an extensive review of the literature on assessment of learning in such informal settings as after-school programs, museums and science centers, community-based organizations, and online communities. In...

Informal STEM education (ISE) and science communication are two overlapping fields in which practitioners and researchers design and study activities to promote lifelong engagement with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in a variety of settings. Although fluid boundaries and fuzzy definitions make it difficult to draw a clear distinction between ISE and science communication, ... Read more

A survey was conducted during the University of Manchester’s 2014 ‘Science Extravaganza’, which saw the participation of over 900 Key Stage 3 (ages 11–14) students in a range of interactive...