RMC's media team began conducting evaluations of children's television programs in the 1970s. Early projects bridged our expertise in early childhood to media in program evaluations for Franco Files and Reading Rainbow and studies for funders such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Today our evaluation work includes a wide range of educational media and museum projects, many funded by the National Science Foundation. We are also active in the emerging informal science education learning community, sharing our work with that community at informalscience.org, at professional conferences of the National Science Teachers Association and the Association of Science and Technology Centers, and at lifelong learning symposia. See also Arts and Culture.
Highlights:
Formative & Summative Evaluation of Living on Earth's "Third Rock Reality"
This ground-breaking three-year formative/summative evaluation study for Living on Earth's "Third Rock Reality" looks at engaging young (ages 18-30) African-Americans in environmental science issues and careers. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project is exploring how new media formats, including social networking, podcasting, and other Web and mobile technologies can engage this non-traditional listening audience in the exploration of scientific and environmental issues.
Dragonfly TV: Museum - Media Collaboration
The DragonflyTV (DFTV) children's science television series Going Places in Science modeled a new form of collaboration between television and museum professionals. Educators from science centers, museums, and national forests and parks had a unique opportunity to identify science inquiry topics connected with their institutions' resources and to develop content with DFTV producers. RMC's study of the collaboration between science education and television professionals was the focus of an article, "Border Crossings in Informal Science Education: DragonflyTV's Experiment in Museum-Media Collaboration," in the Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education's e-newsletter.
Evaluation of DragonflyTV: Science and Storytelling
RMC's evaluation of DragonflyTV: Going Places in Science also afforded an opportunity to examine the storytelling strategies that were most effective in engaging children and conveying science content. A two-part study examined the strategies employed in different science investigation segments, including the number of child investigators, their development as characters, and how the hypotheses, data collection methods, and findings were presented, in light of children's learning. The final report offered suggestions for best practices in using storytelling in children's science television.
Evaluation of Science on a Sphere
RMC conducted the front-end evaluation of NOAA's spherical film display Science on a Sphere for the Maryland Science Center. Piloted with data sets from NOAA and NASA, this new technology creates scientifically accurate and stunningly realistic imagery of Earth and celestial objects, as well as animations of climate systems and human interaction on the globe. The evaluation gathered and analyzed audience responses to the experience to explore the medium's strengths for conveying science content. The study found the sphere was extremely effective in communicating global processes and relationships and also highlighted the importance of grounding viewers with local reference points. Read the Science on a Sphere evaluation report.
Learning in 2D and 3D: Dinosaurs Alive Large Format Film Evaluation
The simultaneous release of the Maryland Science Center's Dinosaurs Alive in 2D and 3D provided an opportunity to conduct a preliminary study of the differences in the educational impact of these two large format media, and has produced some interesting findings such as the greater perception of learning experienced by 2D audiences compared with 3D audiences. We are continuing this investigation of 2D and 3D films in forthcoming evaluations.
Other Work:
• Formative and summative evaluations of Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France, Partners Health Care Systems
• Baseline evaluation of Kid Guides, Echo Entertainment
• Formative and summative evaluations of The Human Body (IMAX film), Maryland Science Center
• Formative evaluation, Mount Washington Observatory Weather Discovery Center
• Evaluation of the Weather Notebook Radio Show, Mount Washington Observatory
• Formative and summative evaluation of Lost Worlds: Life in the Balance, Blue Mountain Films
• Formative evaluation of The Linguists, Ironbound Productions
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