Museums and cultural institutions have long provided a crucial resource for students and teachers in science classes. Many of those institutions consider working with schools to be a core part of their missions. This article describes Urban Advantage, one of the largest and most coordinated programs in the country which goes further than many…

Research indicates school culture impacts student achievement. At Teach Them All Middle School (TTA), an achievement gap exists between African American and White students. The purpose of the current study was to examine the perceptions of African American students concerning the school culture at TTA. The research questions explored the…

With increasing emphasis on multicultural art education and integrative pedagogy, educators have incorporated community resources, such as cultural artifacts exhibited in art museums, to enrich their programs. Cultural artifacts are human-made objects which generally reveal historic information about cultural values, beliefs, and traditions.…

This report aimed to measure the impact of a unique professional development program entitled Project ASTER III (Active Science Teaching Encourages Reform) on teachers' self-efficacy and perceptions about inquiry-based science teaching. Project ASTER III enabled teachers to explore inquiry-based science teaching through exhibit-based…

Numerous connections between the visual arts and sciences are evident if we choose to look for them. In February 2006, students and faculty from the Art and Geol/Geog departments at NW Missouri State University put together an exhibit at a local art gallery featuring works that were born out of science, inspired by science, or exploring the…

In 1792 more than 350,000 people in Britain signed a petition calling for an end to the slave trade. It was, writes historian Adam Hochschild in his book "Bury the Chains," "the first time in history that a large number of people became outraged, and stayed outraged for many years, over someone else's rights". In 1807--after 15…

Many benefits accrue for students when they work in teams. Researchers have shown that the learning-by-doing approach of group projects results in active learning and far greater comprehension and retention, higher levels of student achievement, accomplishment of sophisticated learning objectives, the development of critical reasoning skills, and…

Thomas Chandler and Heejung An describe how digital mapping technology can be incorporated into community-based K-12 social studies projects. According to Chandler and An, digital mapping can add value to the social studies curriculum by enabling students to better understand the interdependence between the lives of individuals and their…

Stefanie Panke, Christian Kohls, and Birgit Gaiser maintain that effective strategies for the development of educational technology can only arise when the process is understood, analyzed, and assessed as a social phenomenon, and when the experience of users is integrated within the design process. To illustrate, they describe the early…

State testing or end-of-course exams are recommended to determine if high school graduates are ready to enter college or the workforce because these assessments are aligned to content area expectations and standards that are measurable within each state as well as from state to state (Achieve, 2006). However, such assessments do not measure all…

Over the course of three rounds of consecutive funding, the National Science Foundation (NSF) invested in the Traveling Exhibits at Museums of Science (TEAMS) collaborative. Since 1996, the TEAMS collaborative museums have developed traveling exhibitions and related education materials to circulate through each other's museums, and then more…

Since World War II, European museums have abandoned their laissez-faire policy and design, and have decided to actively teach or guide visitors' learning. The position of museum educator has been created to place objects in their scientific, social, or historical context, and to help members of the public to extract the maximum meaning from these…

A study attempted to describe visitors' psychological functioning while viewing museum exhibits. The research was designed to enable a comparison of psychological functioning as viewed by subjects and a researcher. Two sets of data were gathered, the first with 45 visitors (men and women, 25-65 years of age, with various educational levels) to a…

This document is a brochure to guide young children and their parents as they tour a display of glass art works from the Corning Museum, exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Questions are posed about individual pieces and the exhibit in general. Activities for children to do at home also are suggested. (DB)

An arts festival at Helen J. Stewart School, Las Vegas, Nevada, a public school for students with all ranges of mental retardation, features participatory workshops, performances, and a variety of other "arts happenings." The festival is an outgrowth of a creative arts curriculum which promotes art, music, dance, and drama. Planning is extensive…