While historic house museums have traditionally employed verbal-based programming, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often feel most comfortable engaged in sensory learning. Historic house museums, due to their tangibility, have the potential to tap into sensory experiences that can teach history to this audience. Despite this…

This paper theorizes and provides evidence of a "Research Communication Continuum" in which acquisition of skills conducive to communication with broader audiences contributes to greater efficacy in cross-disciplinary discourse and collaboration among scientists and engineers engaged in research; and, vice versa, acquisition of skills…

The Barbados Museum & Historical Society (BMHS) is seeking to attract a larger percentage of patrons from among the younger demographic, many of whom are technologically inclined. The intermedial performance approach was therefore recommended as a means of bridging the gap with this age group by allowing them to become "experiencers"…

English painter Barbara Bodichon received a dynamic home education, consisting of engaging lessons, reading sessions, family discussions, sketching excursions, and trips at home and abroad. As an adult, Bodichon led a nomadic life, living between Algeria and England and travelling across Europe and America. Seeking to unpack travelling and travel…

Museum field trips can be effective learning experiences for students, both in terms of connecting social studies content to museum discoveries and in equipping students to put life and academic skills into practice. At a museum, students can test their ability to think critically, use evidence to support claims, and partake in self-directed…

As a trust instrumentality of the United States, the Smithsonian is committed to the goals which Executive Order 13693 set for federal agencies, and is focused on making improvements in environmental, energy, and economic performance. As stated in the current Smithsonian Strategic Plan, one of the four grand challenges we have undertaken is…

We investigated the impact of inquiry instruction within a well-established, yearlong, studio-focused high school student program based at a contemporary art museum in the southwestern United States. The pretest and posttest focused students' attention on the work of two different contemporary artists and used the same prompts to solicit student…

Little is known about whether and how parents can foster their children's spontaneous focus on number, an unprompted measure of attention to small numbers of objects that predicts later math achievement. In the current study, we asked 54 preschool-aged children and their parents to play together in a children's museum exhibit using either a…

This article looks at the notion of what, not who, is underserved in museum education. The importance of looking through, in, and from objects in order to uncover underserved questions and themes is vital. A willingness to consider new ways to approach collections and display is necessary to have a dialogue with our audiences about how museums can…

We describe the impact of an African American history centred collaborative teacher study group (CTSG) professional development experience on the cultural competence of 20 secondary Social Studies and English Language Arts educators. Using mixed methods, baseline data indicated slight movement from the colourblind to the cultural pre-competence…

This publication provides governmental and higher education decision-makers a statewide perspective of Arkansas public higher education finance for the 2021-23 biennium, as well as trends for the past several years. It also contains a detailed financial profile of each institution and presents a basis for comparative assessments of revenue sources…

While there is extensive evidence that STEM careers can be important pathways for augmenting social mobility and for increasing individual prestige, many youth perceive a STEM trajectory as an unattractive option. In the USA, women and members of historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups continue to be underrepresented across STEM…

With today's fast-paced, ever-changing cultural, political, and social landscape, museums are in a unique position to provide visitors with the opportunity to connect and reflect on the world around them. From issues of social justice to immigration to reproductive rights, communities across the country are seeking spaces that allow and encourage…

Museum researchers have long acknowledged the importance of dialogue in informal learning, particularly for open-ended exploratory exhibits. Novel interaction techniques like full-body interaction are appealing for these exploratory exhibits, but designers have not had a metric for determining how their designs are supporting productive learning…

?he nature of scientific research goes beyond the learning of concepts and basic manipulation to the key factors of engaging students in identifying relevant evidence and reflecting on its interpretation. It is argued that young children have the ability to acquire viable, realistic concepts of the living world when involved in relevant activities…