Mill City Museum and Wilder Research collaborated to facilitate focus groups with local elementary school educators to learn about their experiences with virtual in-school programs, what motivates them to consider and schedule a program, and what barriers prevent or deter them from pursuing these types of programming options. This report presents…

This article describes dance/STEAM-based educational workshops for 3rd and 4th graders at a local science museum led by the artistic director and members of a professional dance company and supported by a large university research community. The overarching pedagogical goal was to use dance to learn about science and science to learn about dance.…

Traditional museums of culture and history are failing to develop or make effective use of augmented reality (AR) technology. To address this deficit, the present study sought to develop online and offline experiential AR learning tools that would enable children to more fully explore museum artefacts. The study approach was based on the Blended…

The aim of study is to compare the contributions of virtual and real museum tours in terms of perceived presence and knowledge retention. The sample of study which was 28 third graders enrolled in a public primary school in an informal instructional process. There were two groups (virtual group and real group); one visited virtual museum (n=14),…

Access to community cultural institutions such as museums, zoos, and theaters has the potential to improve students' educational experiences. This article estimates the impact of School in the Park, a museum-based educational program for low-income students that takes place within the cultural institutions and museums of San Diego's Balboa Park.…

The purpose of this article is to describe the process and products associated with a successful Earth Day collaboration between a children's museum and a university education department. Using the idea of an "educational ecology" as a metaphor, we illustrate the collaborative development and implementation of this event hosted and…

Annual fieldtrip visits offer an excellent opportunity to engage teachers and students in learning opportunities that may not otherwise be available in their classrooms. Here we describe a collaborative project designed to support teacher engagement before, during, and after a classroom fieldtrip to a children's museum. We found that providing a…

The aim of this qualitative case study was to explore the use of stories as tools for learning within formal and informal learning environments. The design was based on three areas of interest: (a) the story as a tool for learning; (b) the student as subjects engaging with the story; and (c) the context in which the story learning activity takes…

Imagine a classroom where students are actively engaged in seeking scientific knowledge from books and computers. Think of a classroom in which students fervently write to create PowerPoint presentations about their scientific topic and then enthusiastically practice their speaking roles to serve as docents in a classroom museum setting. Visualize…

This book details the Guggenheim Museum's classroom-tested, inquiry-based approach to learning. This user-friendly guide provides teachers (grades 2-8) with strategies and resources for investigating art to enhance student learning across the curriculum. "For the classroom teacher", Art Investigation provides an exciting way to study contemporary…

This study draws on data from a 10-month critical narrative inquiry of science teaching and learning in a third grade, dual language, integrated co-teaching classroom. The teachers were participants in a 14-week science professional development seminar that enrolled inservice and preservice teachers and focused on enhancing science teaching and…

In 1985, the leaders of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academies established the National Science Resources Center (NSRC) to address the critical problem identified by the "A Nation at Risk" report. Through its Curriculum Development Center and in partnership with its publisher, Carolina Biological Supply Company, the NSRC developed…

In this article, the author discusses an art adventure with her third, fourth, and fifth grade enrichment kids to the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado. The author demonstrates and teaches her students how to use the art tissue paper and oil pastel complementing the creative spirit of the Jaune Quick-to-See Smith work presented…

School in the Park is a museum-based intervention intended to nurture the resilience of inner-city students in third grade to fifth grade. The academic resilience and personal development of participants were compared to those of nonparticipants for 2 years. Although the groups differed in academic resilience for the duration of the study, they…

This paper describes the Science in the City seminar, an innovative approach to in-service and preservice science teacher development that bridges formal and informal science learning contexts. Drawing upon the tenets of design and evaluation research, the study focuses on the teachers' presentations of evidence of student learning from trips they…