Public Spaces for Earth Science Education: Augmenting the Discovery Labs at PRI's Museum of the Earth

该奖项旨在扩大PRI地球博物馆发现实验室提供的动手编程，以增加公众对地球科学的参与和兴趣。这些实验室提供了两年的时间，用来提高公众对化石记录的认识、兴趣和理解，如何利用收藏来解决科学问题，如何创建和照顾自然历史收藏，以及如何亲自参与古生物学研究的过程。最大的探索实验室，化石实验室，正在首先进行扩建，以便游客有更多的机会发现化石，识别和说明这些发现，并作为公民科学家参与正在进行的研究收集数据。根据对修订后的化石实验室影响的评估，冰和恐龙实验室随后正在扩大。对于这三个实验室，正在开发新的程序，包括频繁的演示、用户友好的显微镜和照相机、美术用品、参考资料收藏、教师讲习班、信息小册子和网站。教师研习班将培训教师开发开放式的基于探究的课堂研究经验，并将博物馆的真实研究结合起来。预计该项目将成为将实践地球科学活动纳入其他地方非正式科学教育环境的典范。

Public Spaces for Earth Science Education: Augmenting the Discovery Labs at PRI's Museum of the Earth This award is expanding the hands-on programming offered in the Discovery Labs of PRI's Museum of the Earth in order to increase public involvement and interest in Earth science. These labs, offered for two years, have been used to increase public awareness, interest, and understanding related to fossil records, how collections are used in scientific problem solving, how natural history collections are created and cared for, and, how to be personally involved in the process of paleontological research. The largest of the Discovery Labs, the Fossil Lab, is being augmented first so that visitors have greater opportunities to find fossils, identify and illustrate those finds, and participate as citizen-scientists who collect data for ongoing research. The Ice and Dino Labs are being expanded subsequently, based on evaluation of the revised Fossil Lab's impact. For all three labs, new programming is being developed that involves frequent presentations, user-friendly microscopes and cameras, art supplies, reference collections, teacher workshops, informational booklets and websites. Teacher workshops will train teachers to develop open-ended inquiry based classroom research experiences that incorporate real research from the Museum. This project is expected to serve as a model for incorporating hands-on geoscience activities into informal science education settings elsewhere.