Science centres are informal learning spaces embedded with artefacts embodying mediational affordances. This exploratory and small-scale mixed methods study juxtaposes eye-tracking technologies and qualitative interviews to examine how visitors to a gallery navigated this space and interacted with different artefacts. A total of 15 visitors to the…

The transformation of natural history and science museums from receptacles (temples) to facilitators (forums) of knowledge fosters discourse around issues relating to science and society, known as social scientific issues (SSI). To assist guests with enhanced object-based learning, extended reality (XR) technologies are thought to leverage the…

The social interactions that take place in science museums, whether between family members or with mediators, are recognized as essential to visitors' experience. However, there is still little empirical research in the Brazilian context on how families interact and converse on visits to science museums -- and even less on the role of the mediator…

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 qualitative and exploratory study aimed to understand the experience of adolescents during visits outside the school context in science museums and centres, and how the free-choice learning processes are constructed in this context. We analyzed the visits of four adolescents groups, from public schools, to Maloka (Bogotá, Colombia), and…

This article sets out to discuss physical prerequisites for creativity. Creativity has come to be regarded as one of the most valuable attributes a person can have, at least in today's Western societies. This article builds on and incorporates material from a Swedish project called Entrepreneurship Liminal space, Creativity, and Understanding. The…

The "Children's Engagement Behaviour Framework" was developed to describe young children's engagement with science exhibits and how their behaviour is related to learning about the exhibits. The "Framework" was synthesised from frameworks in research literature related to family learning and the nature of play. It describes…

This mixed-method research focuses on how school children visiting a science museum with their class perceive the overall experience of their visit to the science museum and which aspects of the science museum experience they recall as significant. The study participants were seventy two 4th grade students (age 9-10) who came to the museum with…

In this article, we report on a video-based field study of an intergenerational family's enactment of a mathematical object (a torus) in the context of an immersive mathematics exhibition in a science center. To do this, we center interwoven, multi-party mobilities at multiple scales--walking, gesturing, touching, and postural adjustments -- as…

Student-scientist-teacher interactions provide students with several advantages. They provide opportunities to interact with experts and professionals in the field, give students a chance at meeting a role model that may impact students' career choices, and increase awareness of available career options combined with an understanding of how their…

Hands-on digital interactivity in science centers provides new communicative opportunities. The "Microcosmos" multi-touch table allows visitors to interact with 64 image "cards" of (sub)microscopic biological structures and processes embedded across seven theme categories. This study presents the integration of biological…

The next generation of STEM professionals needs to understand interconnections between human and Earth systems to be able to address complex, multifaceted, emerging global environmental issues. Interest in STEM fields and professions can begin in middle school. To educate and connect middle school students to Earth systems and STEM fields, we…

There are many approaches that support studies of learning in relation to the physical environment, people's interaction with one another, or people's movement. However, what these approaches achieve in granularity of description, they tend to lose in synthesis and integration, and to date, there are not effective methods and concepts to study…

This research explores learning in science museums through the most common activity in a science museum--interaction with exhibits. The goal of this study was to characterize the learning behaviors exhibited by students as they engage with interactive exhibits in order to draw insight regarding the design of the exhibits. In order to do so, we…

This research investigates the social learning affordances of a room-sized, immersive, and interactive augmented reality simulation environment designed to support children's understanding of basic physics concepts in a science center. Conversations between 97 parent-child pairs were analyzed in relation to categories of talk through which…