Informal science learning environments, such as science museums, afford a variety of interactions, sense-making processes, participation modes, and roles. Accumulating research advances our understanding of the cognitive and affective dimensions of science learning in informal environments, including the development of scientific sense-making and…

This article explores the impact of an augmented reality iPad-based mobile game, called The Great STEM Caper, on students' interaction at a science center. An open-source, location-based game platform called ARIS (i.e. Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling) was used to create an iPad-based mobile game. The game used QR scan codes and a…

In this paper, we examine the interactional ways that families make meaning from biological exhibits during a visit to an interactive science center. To understand the museum visits from the perspectives of the families, we use ethnographic and discourse analytic methods, including pre- and postvisit interviews, videotaped observations of the…

What meaning visitors make from their interactions with science center exhibits--and "how" they do so--is an issue of enduring interest in the field of learning in informal contexts. In order to explore what resources schoolchildren bring to bear in making meaning, this study used video clips taken during school trips to prompt…