Many museums attempt to connect museum activities to classroom learning goals by creating "before" and "after" suggestions for the classroom teacher. Therefore, when doing out of school activities it is common to organize and plan such activities from a before, during and after perspective. The present study primarily rests on…

Engaging students in conversations around science and engineering design can be challenging. Sparking such conversations during field trips at an interactive science center has additional challenges. First, students vary considerably in age from day to day: science center employees might work with first graders one day and sixth graders the next.…

Science centres generally strive to increase awareness, interest, capability and participation by citizens in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This review of Scitech's professional learning (PL) strategy was designed to analyse quantitative and qualitative feedback about the professional learning activities delivered by…

Interactive science centers are unique players in the science education community, but their positioning as both authorities on science and providers of "free choice" learning presents learning researchers with a problematic contradiction rooted in the complexities of trying to be both "scientific" and "education" organizations. Using insight from…