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\"Purposeful Museum Programming Using Visitor Response Pedagogies offers museums of all sizes and genres practical, accessible, and inclusive programming ideas\"-- Provided by publisher.

Informal science is a burgeoning field that operates across a broad range of venues and envisages learning outcomes for individuals, schools, families, and society. The evidence base that describes informal science, its promise, and effects is informed by a range of disciplines and perspectives, including field-based research, visitor studies, and psychological and anthropological studies of learning. Learning Science in Informal Environments draws together disparate literatures, synthesizes the state of knowledge, and articulates a common framework for the next generation of research on learning science in informal environments across a life span. Contributors include recognized experts in a range of disciplines-research and evaluation, exhibit designers, program developers, and educators. They also have experience in a range of settings-museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, aquariums, zoos, state parks, and botanical gardens. Learning Science in Informal Environments is an invaluable guide for program and exhibit designers, evaluators, staff of science-rich informal learning institutions and community-based organizations, scientists interested in educational outreach, federal science agency education staff, and K-12 science educators.

Background Encouraging healthy eating and physical activity in children has long-term benefits for their health and development, however many do not meet the requirements for fruit and vegetable consumption, or physical activity. Experiential learning (EL) has been shown to improve children’s healthy eating and physical activity-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour. Children’s museums provide opportunities for hands-on EL activities that can engage families. This study examined stakeholder perspectives on the perceived feasibility, acceptability, fidelity and impact of an EL health-promoting program in a children’s museum. Methods A qualitative case study was conducted at the Early Start Discovery Space, a university-based children’s museum, in Australia. The study involved implementing a 4-week Healthy Living program comprising EL activities related to food and movement for children aged 0–10 years. Perceived feasibility, acceptability, fidelity and impact were assessed through focus groups and observations. Focus groups (23 participants, 17 caregivers and 6 museum staff) were conducted post-implementation. Focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. 15 HL sessions were observed throughout implementation. Results Stakeholders perceived that the HL program was feasible and acceptable. As a result of consultation between researchers and museum staff, the HL program was easily implemented in the museum. Stakeholders suggested that children and their carers enjoyed the HL activities and were engaged in the HL activities. Aspects of fidelity were explored and showed that most sessions were delivered as intended, however, the delivery of the key messages was suboptimal. Perceived changes in children’s knowledge, attitudes behaviour relating to healthy eating and physical activity were minimal. Conclusions Key stakeholders (museum staff and caregivers) provided insights regarding perceived feasibility and acceptability of the HL program delivered in the children’s museum. Preliminary findings highlight the potential of children’s museums as a setting for EL health eating and physical activity programs. Further, this study highlights the significance of stakeholder engagement, collaboration, and incorporation of hands-on and enjoyable activities to promote healthy habits in children. Future studies, with larger sample sizes, should be conducted to extend the results from this study.

This paper describes an interactive museum exhibit featuring an avatar of Alan Turing that informs museum visitors about artificial intelligence and Turing’s seminal Turing Test for machine intelligence. The objective of the exhibit is to engage and motivate visiting children in the hope of sparking an interest in them about computer science and artificial intelligence, and cause them to consider pursuing future studies and/or careers in these fields. The exhibit interacts with the visitors, allowing them to participate in a simplified version of Turing’s test that is brief and informal to suit the limitations of a five-minute exhibit. In this exhibit, the visitor (targeted towards middle school age children) invokes an avatar of his/her own choice, and acts to endow it with human-like qualities (voice, brain, eyesight and hearing). Then, the visitor engages the avatar in a (brief) question-and-answer session to determine whether the visitor thinks that he/she is interacting with a real human on a video conference or with an avatar. We consider this interaction to be an extension of the original Turing Test because, unlike Turing’s original that used text via a teletype, this version features a graphical embodiment of an agent with which one can converse in spoken natural language. This extension serves to make passing the Turing Test more difficult, as now the avatar must not only communicate like a human, but also look, sound and act the part. It also makes the exhibit visual, dynamic and interesting to the visitors. Evaluations were performed with museum visitors, both in backrooms with prototypes as well as on the museum floor with the final version. The formative and summative evaluations performed indicated overall success in engaging the museum visitors and increasing their interest in computer science. More specifically, the formative testing, mostly done in quiet back rooms with selected test subjects, indicated that on the important questions about enjoyment of exhibit and increased interest in computer science by the test subjects, their self-reported Likert scale responses (1 being negative and 5 being positive) increased from 3.16 in the first evaluation to 4.38 in the third one for increased interest in CS. Likewise for the question about exhibit enjoyment (from 3.92 to 4.56). The summative evaluation, done through unobtrusive observation of exhibit use on museum floor, indicated that almost 74% of the parties that initiated the exhibit were either highly or moderately engaged by the exhibit. However, there was one major negative finding, namely the overly long duration of the exhibit, which may have caused premature abandonment of the exhibit in several cases during the summative evaluation. These tests and their results are presented and discussed in detail in this paper. The exhibit has been on permanent display at the Orlando (FL) Science Center since June 2014 and has received a strongly positive response from visitors since that time.

Background Child obesity is a major public health challenge, increasing the risk of chronic medical conditions such as type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and hypertension. Among U.S. states, Tennessee has one of the highest rates of child obesity. Emerging communication technologies can help to deliver highly disseminable population-level interventions to improve health behavior. The aim of this paper is to report the implementation and the evaluation of the reach of Memphis FitKids, a web-based application, intended to promote healthy behaviors for families and children. Methods A community-level demonstration project, Memphis FitKids, was developed and implemented in Tennessee’s Greater Memphis Area. This application ( www.memphisfitkids.org ) was designed for parents to assess their children’s obesity risk through determinants such as weight, diet, physical activity, screen time, and sleep adequacy. A built-in “FitCheck” tool used this collected information to create a report with tailored recommendations on how to make healthy changes. A Geographic Information Systems component was implemented to suggest low-cost neighborhood resources that support a healthy lifestyle. A social marketing framework was used to develop and implement FitKids, and a Community Advisory Board with representatives from community partners (e.g., the YMCA of Memphis, the Pink Palace Family of Museums, and the Memphis Public Library) supported the implementation of the project. Five kiosks distributed in the community served as public access points to provide a broad reach across socioeconomic strata. Presentations at community events and the use of Facebook facilitated the promotion of FitKids. Website traffic and Facebook usage were evaluated with Google Analytics and Facebook Insights, respectively. Results In Tennessee, 33,505 users completed 38,429 FitCheck sessions between July 2014 and December 2016. Among these, 6763 sessions were completed at the five kiosks in the community. FitKids was presented at 112 community events and the social media posts reached 23,767 unique Facebook users. Conclusions The Memphis FitKids demonstration project showed that web-based health tools may be a viable strategy to increase access to information about healthy weight and lifestyle options for families. Mobile-friendly web-based applications like Memphis FitKids may also serve health professionals in their efforts to support their clients in adopting healthy behaviors.

Public library makerspaces intend to contribute to the development of children from marginalized communities through the education of digital technology and creativity and by stimulating young people to experience new social roles and develop their identity. Learning in these informal settings puts demands on the organization of the makerspace, the activities, and the support of the children. The present study investigates how children evaluate their activities and experiences in a public library makerspace both in the after-school programs and during school visits. Furthermore, it examines the effectiveness of the training program for the makerspace coaches. The study covers self-evaluations by children ( n = 307), and interviews with children ( n = 27) and makerspace coaches ( n = 11). Children report a lot of experiences concerning creating (maker skills, creativity) and maker mindset (motivation, persistence, confidence). Experiences with collaboration (helping each other) were mentioned to a lesser extent. Critical features of the training program for makerspace coaches were (i) adaptation to the prior knowledge, skills and needs of makerspace coaches, (ii) input of expert maker educators, (iii) emphasis on learning by doing, (iv) room for self-employed learning, and (v) collaboration with colleagues.

During the last decade, museums and galleries worldwide have developed special learning activities for people living with dementia (PWD) in response to over fifty million people suffering from this disease. Following guidelines established by the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), which has more than ten years of experience delivering art activities for people in this condition, some museums and galleries have taken steps to create a multisensory environment while viewing and discussing art, which has enjoyed great success. However, there is still very little literature concerning exactly how and why such an approach is beneficial in onsite art learning activities in museums without specific therapeutic purposes nor has it concluded with any specific technical guidance. This article presents a careful evaluation of the InMind program for the early-mid stage of dementia at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (RA), informed by reference to the relevant theories in this field, and takes that as an example to assess the benefits and discuss the methods of creating a multisensory environment. At the same time, important suggestions are provided for museums and galleries in China that might aspire to provide more help to that portion of the public either suffering from dementia or caring for those who do so. The largest number of PWD are residents of China, but hardly any such efforts have so far been made there.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand how learners describe their experiences with short-term, introductory maker experiences and to test a method for assessing learners’ experiences authentic to short-term learning. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected written responses from participants at a two-day event, STEM Center Learning Days. Through an analysis of 707 unique instances of learner responses to participation in drop-in maker activities, they examined how participants describe their short-term learning experiences. Findings The authors found that although some activities appear to onlookers to create passive experiences for learners, these seemingly passive moments have a significant impact on learners. In addition, some learners described themselves as working in tandem with tools to make something work and other learners viewed the tools as working autonomously. They found that the assessment method allowed them to gain an understanding of how learners describe their experiences offering important implications for understanding short-term learning events. Originality/value The findings provide researchers studying short-term learning in its natural setting a new method to understand how learners make sense of their individual experience. Further, designers of short-term learning experiences may gain insights into their unique activities and indications of where additional guidance and scaffolds will improve small learning moments.

This article focuses on the implementation and evaluation of Art in the Moment, a collaborative program between the Art Institute of Chicago and CJE SeniorLife, a non-profit eldercare organization and service provider for the Chicago area. We joined together to develop and offer Art in the Moment as an arts-based therapeutic and wellness program for older adults living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Anecdotal evidence led us to believe that the program was effectively serving participants, including caregivers, in ways that were positive and self-affirming. However, we also realized that more formal evaluation could help us better assess the efficacy and impact of our efforts. We discovered that the evaluation process presented various opportunities as well as challenges, which we will explore in this article.

The pilot program, Morning at the Museum (MAM), was offered to children (ages 3-5) and their caregivers weekly for six weeks at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art (RHMAA). Both children and adults explored RHMAA through hands-on activities that encouraged play, movement, observation, music, and art-making. Each session explored a theme (shapes, color, farm, etc.), woven into sensory play, the featured artwork of the day, story time, spaces in the historic house, and an art-making experience. Through MAM, RHMAA used educationally defined ingredients to create a developmentally appropriate learning experience spanning two age groups, young children and adults, with the goal of fostering a lifelong interest in museum learning and attendance.