CRPA - Informal Education with Arachnids

这个连接研究人员和公众观众的项目将吸引不同的公众观众，特别是K-12学生，参与PI对蛛形动物进化的研究。这项研究跨越了进化生物学、生态学、动物学和神经生物学等不同领域。该项目的目标是阐明科学过程，并向目标受众传达具有挑战性的科学概念。该项目将在内布拉斯加大学林肯分校、林肯社区学习中心课后项目、林肯儿童动物园和内布拉斯加大学州立博物馆之间建立新的合作关系。项目的各个组成部分旨在实现项目的总体目标，包括：为课后项目开发的探究式活动，为动物园设计的以蛛形动物为重点的互动展览，以及为博物馆特别活动设计的以家庭为基础的多种活动。该项目的评价将研究这些活动对参与者的知识、态度和预期职业规划的影响。预计该项目将加强当地社区的非正式科学教育，并加强有关机构之间的关系。此外，本科生和研究生参加非正式教育与蛛形纲将获得重要的经验，与公众交流，使他们的研究可以理解为公众。在这项资助下开发的资源将通过加州大学伯克利分校的国家科学基金会资助的网站“理解进化”免费提供。总结性评估报告将发布在非正式科学网站上。

This Connecting Researchers and Public Audiences project will engage diverse public audiences, especially K-12 students, around the PI's research on arachnid evolution. This research spans disparate fields of evolutionary biology, ecology, zoology and neurobiology, among others. The goals of the project are to elucidate the scientific process and convey challenging scientific concepts to the target audiences. The project will forge new collaborations between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln Community Learning Centers' After School Program, the Lincoln Children's Zoo, and the University of Nebraska State Museum. The project's various components, designed to achieve the project's overall goals, include: inquiry-based activities developed for after school programs, an interactive exhibit focused on arachnids for the zoo, and family-based multiple activities for the Museum's special events. The evaluation of the project will study the impact that these activities have on the knowledge, attitudes, and intended career plans of participants. This project is expected to strengthen the informal science education of its local community and strengthen relationships between the institutions involved. In addition, undergraduate and graduate students participating in Informal Education with Arachnids will gain important experience in communicating with public audiences and making their research comprehensible to the lay public. Resources developed under this grant will be freely available through the University of California, Berkeley's NSF-funded website "Understanding Evolution." The summative evaluation report will be posted on informalscience.org.