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TikTok, YouTube, Instagram… We can hardly image a world without social media, let alone video. These modern platforms create amazing opportunities to put stories out there, especially if you want to reach a young audience: you can literally show science, on tape, and all you need is a smartphone! In this webinar, Jacotte Brokken will ... Read more

Volunteers are an integral part of a small and mid-sized cultural institutions workforce and can be found across departments. In this webinar, Connecting to Collections Care will provide an overview of collections volunteers – how to create a volunteer program or align an existing program with best practices. The presentation will highlight: • The framework every ... Read more

Hi, I’m Amy Grack Nelson. I am an independent evaluation consultant and Evaluation & Research Manager at the Science Museum of Minnesota. I’m excited to talk to you about the new and improved evaluation pages on InformalScience.org. Rick Bonney, Director of Public Engagement in Science at Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and I worked with the ... Read more

This Knowledge Base article was written collaboratively with contributions from Amy Grack Nelson, Kevin Crowley, Scott Pattison, Elsa Bailey and CAISE Admin. This article was migrated from a previous version of the Knowledge Base. The date stamp does not reflect the original publication date. Overview  This article addresses science learning of early childhood and preschool children in informal and free-choice learning ... Read more

Human + is a 2,500-sq. ft. traveling engineering exhibition developed by the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) in collaboration with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and the Quality of Life Technology Research Center (QoLT) at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Human+ is funded by a National Science Foundation ... Read more

This article was migrated from a previous version of the Knowledge Base. The date stamp does not reflect the original publication date. Overview  Informal science education has the potential to help merge the everyday lives of youth with the world of science by creating hybrid, or third, spaces of learning. In these environments, educators pay ... Read more

The National Research Council’s (NRC) report on Identifying and Supporting Productive STEM Programs in Out of School Settings is now available in paperback form from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Press. Building on findings first identified in the NRC’s Learning Science in Informal Environments and Education for Life and Work reports and recent research, this report identifies ... Read more

This research brief has been made available by Relating Research to Practice (RR2P). RR2P provides short synopses of current peer-reviewed research relevant to informal science education (ISE). The original RR2P brief was written by Heather King of King’s College, London. This paper discusses a modification of the Delphi technique as a tool for bridging research ... Read more

Angela Johnson is a former physics teacher whose research examines the intersection between race, gender, culture and an individual’s recognition of and affiliation with the STEM community. She examines the ways in which “settings” sometimes reinforce equity disparities, particularly in higher education. Her work also seeks to provide solutions for changing the setting to support ... Read more

Dale McCreedy is a researcher and practitioner whose work has explored how out-of-school settings such as science museums can help adult learners and girls identify with science. In a joint interview with Lynn Dierking, she shares her perspectives on identity from their project Cascading Influences, which explores the long-term impacts of informal STEM experiences for ... Read more

Dan Kahan‘s identity-related work has focused on “identity protective cognition”, which refers to the tendency of individuals to unconsciously dismiss evidence that does not reflect the beliefs that predominate in their group. This is also sometimes called “motivated reasoning”. More broadly, he studies various topics related to risk perceptions and science communication in the context ... Read more

Edna Tan is a social science researcher in STEM education who uses qualitative approaches to explore issues of power and systemic injustices as they relate to identity. Her research uses the concepts of “identity work” and “identities in practice” (i.e. what youth do, say or perform) to understand how youth engage with STEM in ways ... Read more

As a political scientist who studies communication, Erik Nisbet looks at identity from the perspective of public debates around controversial science issues such as climate change or vaccinations. He frames identity along the lines of political identity or deeply rooted beliefs on collective versus individualistic approaches to decision-making and provides examples on how these broader ... Read more

Heidi Ballard is an environmental education researcher whose work focuses on how both youth and adults develop identities and learn through public participation in scientific research, and citizen science activities in particular. Watch the short video or download the full interview transcript below. “Identities are not fixed. They are not fixed in time and they ... Read more

Heidi Carlone is a learning researcher whose work examines identity in concert with the study of culture. She studies an individual’s “performance,” in relation to what is demanded, celebrated, and marginalized in the setting they are in. Her work assumes that the identity-related outcomes of any given set of practices, or local context, are often ... Read more

A scholar and leader in research on identity for 40 years, psychologist Jacque Eccles reflects on the various ways in which “identity” can be understood and measured. She provides a variety of vivid examples on how identity or self-concept play into decisions that young people make on whether to engage with STEM or not. Eccles ... Read more

Jennifer Adams’ research focuses on identity in teacher learning and youth agency. Taking critical and decolonizing stances towards science, and science teaching and learning, are key themes underlying her work. You can watch this short video or download the full interview transcript below. “My definition of identity is very contextual and has shifted even from ... Read more

Kevin Binning is a social psychologist whose research focuses on answering the (seemingly) simple question: Why people do the things that they do? Using formal methods of inquiry such as experimentation and longitudinal observation, he explores how identity influences people’s learning and behavior over time. He develops and tests social psychology interventions that “nudge” people ... Read more

Lynn Dierking’s research focuses on free-choice learning with an emphasis on engaging youth from backgrounds that are underrepresented in STEM in meaningful ways. In a joint interview with Dale McCreedy, she shares her perspectives on identity from their project Cascading Influences, which explores the long-term impacts of informal STEM experiences for girls. Watch the short ... Read more

Shelly Valdez owns and manages an educational consulting business, Native Pathways, located in central New Mexico. Native Pathways focuses on world views of science education, primarily indigenous science. Shelly’s interest and passion for indigenous science has influenced her approaches in the field of education and evaluation, as well as the partners she works with. Watch ... Read more

Zahra Hazari‘s research focuses on reforming physics learning environments in an effort to improve critical educational outcomes for under-represented groups in physics, especially women. In particular, her work centers on physics identity development, often through a recognition of belonging to the physics community, and the development of agency in physics (i.e. empowerment to take intentional ... Read more

A toolkit that helps institutions collect data on the representation of gender in museum content. IF/THEN® Gender Representation Toolkit

Explore a comic presenting key findings about science communication fellowships based off of interviews about their accessibility and inclusivity with fellowship directors.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the guidelines for the first round of FY 2018 National Leadership Grants for Libraries (NLG) and Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program (LB21). The NLG program invests in projects that address challenges faced by the library and archive fields and generate results such as new tools, research findings, or models ... Read more

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will release the results of its pilot National Museum Survey (NMS) during a webinar on January 23, 2024 at 2 p.m. ET. Speakers will highlight how the successful completion of the pilot serves as the foundation for the first-ever annual federal survey to gather and share data about the ... Read more