Reconceiving Exhibit Design for Public Engagement with Science

作为加强非正式环境中学习的总体战略的一部分，推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，扩大STEM学习经验的获取和参与，推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及发展参与者对深度学习的理解。这次会议项目的主题是探索如何更好地设计展品，以促进“公众参与科学”。在这里，“公众参与科学”指的是超越传统方法的机会，让公众理解科学。该活动将邀请专业人士考虑如何将展览设计转向吸引参观者参与STEM，强调STEM创新与参观者日常生活、个人代理以及他们与个人社交网络和推动STEM知识和创新的机构之间的相互依存关系。会议及其前后活动将汇集来自美国和加拿大的策展人、展览开发商、社区外展专业人士、博物馆管理人员和有学问的科学家。他们将共同努力，确定设计展品的设计原则和主要障碍，以更好地帮助科学博物馆实现两个目标：1)使参观者的不同和个人问题、关注和观点成为他们对展品的体验的核心；2)吸引参观者成为展览体验的贡献者，使他们的贡献可见和有意义。在为期两天的活动中，与会者将考虑展品如何支持更广泛、更多样化的公众参与关于STEM发现和创新在社会中的作用的关键辩论。这项努力是基于最近关于公众参与科学的工作；关于重新组织博物馆，使其成为参观者，特别是机构的当地社区参与和贡献的场所；以及博物馆内部的制作和工程设计。目标是为科学博物馆的未来愿景制定一条路线，在此愿景中，科学博物馆保持其作为可信信息来源的地位，同时发挥其作为真正参与和社会互动场所的潜力，在此过程中，参观者对博物馆的实质和工作做出有意义的贡献，同时也参与、学习并对STEM学科的核心概念和实践负责。会议将建立一个科学中心网络的能力和协作参与，这些中心的工作对于实现博物馆领域的最终目标至关重要，即让所有年龄段的公众在非正式环境中学习STEM。会议和相关活动将由纽约科学馆的工作人员进行评估，并由一个由研究和开发专业人员组成的外部咨询委员会进行监督。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The theme of this conference project by the New York Hall of Science will be exploring how to better design exhibits to promote "public engagement with science." Here, "public engagement with science" refers to opportunities that go beyond traditional approaches to the public understanding of science. The event will invite professionals to consider how to shift exhibit designs toward engaging visitors with STEM in ways that emphasize the intersection of STEM innovation with visitors' daily lives, their personal agency, and their interdependence with their personal social networks and the institutions that advance STEM knowledge and innovation. The conference and its pre- and post-conference activities will bring together curators, exhibition developers, community outreach professionals, museum administrators, and learning scientists from the United States and Canada. They will work together to identify design principles and key obstacles to designing exhibits that can better help science museums achieve two goals: 1) making visitors' diverse and personal questions, concerns, and perspectives central to their experience of the exhibits; and 2) engaging visitors as contributors to the exhibit experience in ways that make their contributions visible and consequential. During this two-day event attendees will consider how exhibits can support broader and more diverse public participation in critical debates about the roles of STEM discovery and innovation in society. The effort is grounded in recent work on public engagement with science; on reorganizing museums to become sites for participation and contribution by visitors, and particularly by institutions' local communities; and on making and engineering design programming within museums. The goal is to chart a course toward a vision of the future of science museums in which they maintain their status as sources of trusted information, while also fulfilling their potential as sites of genuine participation and social interaction, in which visitors make meaningful contributions to the substance and workings of the museum floor while also engaging with, learning about and holding themselves accountable to the core concepts and practices of the STEM disciplines. The conference will build the capacity and collaborative engagement of a network of science centers whose work is central to achieving the museum field's ultimate goal of engaging the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments. The conference and associated activities will be evaluated by staff at the New York Hall of Science, with oversight by an external advisory committee of research and development professionals.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.