Learning more about getting everyone DOING science

Posted on by | 1 Reply

Katie Woollven tells us about how she’s learning more about getting everyone DOING science research, aka Citizen Science or Public Participation in Science Research:

“I’ve been interested in Citizen Science research since I began my grad program, so I was really excited to attend the Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) conference Aug 4-5 in Portland. The speakers were great, and it was nice to see how my questions about citizen science fit with the current research in this field.

Although public participation has always been important to science throughout history and is NOT new, the field of research on citizen science IS relatively new, and is somewhat disjointed. Researchers in this field lack a common language (prime example: should we call it PPSR? or citizen science?), which makes it difficult to stay abreast of the latest research. There have been calls for a national PPSR organization, one of the conference goals was to get feedback from people in the field about what they would want that organization to do.

One of my favorite talks was from Heidi Ballard of UC Davis, who is interested in all the possible individual, programmatic, and especially community-level outcomes of PPSR projects. She asked questions about the degree and quality of participation, such as: Who participates in these projects, and in what parts of the scientific process? Whose interests are being served, and to what end? Who makes the decisions, and who has the power?

Another interesting part of Heidi’s talk was when she touched on the relative strengths of the 3 models of PPSR projects. Citizen science projects can be divided into 3 categories (see the 2009 CAISE report): contributory (generally designed by scientists, and participants collect data), collaborative (also designed by scientists, but participants may be involved in project design, data analysis, or communicating results), and co-created (designed by scientists and participants, and some participants are involved in all steps of the scientific process). I found this part fascinating, because I think learning from the strengths of all 3 models can make any program more successful. And of course, learning about different citizen science projects during the poster sessions was really exciting! Below are a few of my favorites.

PolarTREC- K-12 teachers go on a 2-6 week science research expedition in a polar region, and then share the experience with their classroom. I think this is really interesting because of the motivational aspect of kids participating in (and according to Sarah Crowley, even improving) authentic scientific research.

Port Townsend Marine Science Center Plastics Project– Volunteers sample beaches for micro-plastics around the US Salish Sea. I’ve heard a lot about this center, and the strength of their volunteer base is amazing.

Nature Research Center, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences– I really want to visit this museum! Visitors can engage in the scientific process on the museum floor, in one case by making observations on video feed from a field station.”

Conference talks, poster abstracts, and videos

Katie Woollven is in the Marine Resource Management program, focusing on Marine Education.

ed. note – apologies for the sporadic postings these last few days. Katie Stofer has been out of town, and things weren’t quite as well set up for other lab members to start posting themselves.

What I’ve learned this summer: Julie’s last post

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Pulling it all together and making sense of things proves one of the hardest tasks for Julie:

“I can’t believe this summer is about over.  I only have 3 days left at Hatfield.  Those 3 days will be filled with frantic work getting the rest of my exhibit proposal pulled together as well as my Sea Grant portfolio and presentation done for Friday.  I go home Saturday morning and I haven’t even figured out when I’m going to pack.  Eek.

But back to the point at hand.  Doing social science has been such a fun experience.  I really loved talking to people to get their feedback and opinions on Climate Change and the exhibit.  I’m so excited for this exhibit.  I want it to be fantastic and I’ve been working very hard on it.  I am stoked to visit next summer to see it in the flesh!

One thing that I find really challenging about doing this kind of research though, is pulling together the data and putting it into a readable format for something like my End of Summer Final Presentation on Friday!  The big survey I did, for instance, was 16 questions and the data collected is very qualitative and doesn’t fit neatly into a table on a power point slide.  So I have to determine which things to pull out to show and exactly how to do it.  I feel confident that I’ll get it down, it’s just going to perhaps rob me of some sleep the next couple days.

Today (Tuesday) I finally got to do something that I should’ve done long ago.  Mark took me into the “spy room” as some call it and showed me all the awesome video footage being recorded in the visitor center.  It’s really incredible!  I was able to download a few videos of myself interpreting at the touch tank which Mark suggested would be a good addition to my portfolio.  Now I feel like a real member of the Free Choice Learning crew.”

This summer has given me a wealth of experiences that will really benefit my future…I can’t wait to see what that future holds.

So much data, so little time.

Posted on by | 4 Replies

Ok, I guess I am following suit and forgot to post on Friday! I don’t have quite as good of an excuse as Katie. Instead of prepping for conferences I was recovering from a vacation.

I thought it might be nice to provide an update about the Exploratorium project, where NOAA scientists are embedded on the museum floor with the Explainers (Exploratorium front-line staff consisting of young adults). I have collected so much data for this project I am beginning to feel overwhelmed.

Here’s the data that I have collected:
– Formal Interviews with each of the four groups of scientists, both before and after their experience.
– Informal interviews with all of the scientists. These were done in the time walking back to the hotel or when grabbing lunch. Both great times to collect data!
– Interviews with the two Explainer managers plus a survey with open- and closed-ended questions at the end of year 2.
– Interviews with each of the lead Explainers, 8 total. Also, lead Explainers during year 2 completed a survey with open- and closed-ended questions.
– Pre- mid- and post- data for what Explainers think atmospheric sciences is and what atmospheric scientists do. This was not done during the first year topic of ocean sciences.
– I also provided an optional survey for all Explainers so they could share their thoughts and opinions about the project. This provided a reflection opportunity for the Explainers that were not lead Explainers during the project.
– Visitor surveys about their experience in the scientists’ installation. During year 2 these were collected in both paper form and using survey software on the iPad.
– Field notes during meetings and time on the museum floor. During year 2 the field notes were taken on the iPad using survey software.
– And lastly…personal daily reflections.

So the question is “now what?” This data provides opportunities for triangulation but where does one start? I’m spending my final month of summer trying to figure that out.

Hopefully my next blog post will showcase my progress and some findings.

Rolling Twenties

Posted on by | 2 Replies

After talking to a developer, I’m switching to a turn-based format for Deme. I probably should have done this to begin with, and my reasons for not doing so earlier owe a lot to my own misconceptions about myself.

I don’t think of myself as a turn-based game fan. When I find out a computer game is turn-based, I tend to stop reading the description and look for something else. Somehow, this notion of myself as a real-time game guy persists despite my whelming affection for several turn-based games. These include computer games and tabletop games alike. Of course, many tabletop games are inherently turn-based.

The new concept I’m pursuing is fairly simple, drawing mechanical inspiration from games like Battle for Wesnoth and Heroscape. These games, likewise, are derived from other systems (turn-based tabletop strategy games, in general, have an interesting genealogy that includes H.G. Wells). One benefit of a turn-based system is ease of balancing and modification. Real-time games require finer simulation, which means more complexity. I want people to be able to modify Deme in the future, so this process should be as painless as possible. Initial development will also be much faster and simpler.

Another big bonus is the ease with which the game can be prototyped and balanced on pen and paper. I have hauled out my 20-sided die for this purpose, just in case. Fortunately, HMSC is a pretty good place to find nerds, ecologists, biologists, computer geeks and gamers. I only learned recently that my minor advisor is an Age of Empires fan. At some point I may have to pit him against my wife, whose historic conquests in that game’s campaign mode have filled many a night with the din of clashing steel.

Meanwhile, I have rejoined the husbandry team. I’ve switched gears a couple of times to focus on one area of my career or another, so it’s interesting to walk between worlds. I find I miss the FCL Lab when I’m working on aquarium systems, but I miss the animals when I work on interpretation and design. I think—or rather, I hope—this is a good thing. I want to do everything. I find it very motivating, but it could become paralyzing without the proper focus.

Some last thoughts (for now?) from Diana

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Our Summer Scholars’ time is drawing to a close at the end of the month, so we’re hearing some final words, at least for the moment, from some of them, starting with Diana:

“These past weeks have been filled with things that I never thought would happen and have surprised me in the most spectacular ways.  First, I went on vacation to Vancouver, BC and Seattle, WA which was a memorable experience.  I was able to see behind the scenes tanks and animals at the Vancouver Aquarium and even got to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s works in person as well as King Tutankhamen’s burial chamber items.  This vacation was a nice break from the craziness of the visitor’s center and refreshed me for another few weeks as an education intern.  The moment I returned many volunteers and other workers at Hatfield were asking about my vacation.  Even this little thing made me feel fully welcomed into the Hatfield family.  One of the first things that occurred when I returned was that many unannounced summer camps came into the visitor’s center which is always an experience.  Yet, one of the most progressive things I did was creating new signs for me shoreline erosion tank.  This time one of my mentors Mark Farley and I created 2 different signs compared to one long sign.  One sign said “The Erosion Problem” with photos of me showing how to use the paddle to create waves and see the erosion of the sand.  The second sign said “The Erosion Solution” and gave the visitors a chance to try 1 of 3 different protective strategies for beach/shoreline erosion.  These new larger signs seem to be working well for now.  I can already see a difference in the behavior of children and families when they come to wave tank; instead of sand castle building, they actually read the sings and follow the directions.

The visitor’s center also had some crazy moments.  We had Micro A and Micro B tanks overflow into the VC overnight and leave a lake in the surrounding area an inch deep.  That lake was an interesting mess to clean, but created a wonderful learning moment.  I was able to watch the aquarists and learn how to put on new filter bags as well as rework the tanks.  I was challenged to follow the pipes and figure out where the water went such as the outflow and inflow pipes.  Other crazy moments that occurred were people trying to put their whole hand inside of anemones or trying to crawl inside of the touch tank to touch the different fish.  While all of this was going on I also got to have some spectacular moments in the VC.

These spectacular moments occurred when the Aquarists took me under their wing and showed me some impressive things.  First, I got to see a fish necropsy which was highly informative and taught me new dissections skills.  I was also taught how to kill invasive coral apitasia with lemon juice.  I was able to inject a few micrometers of lemon juice into each invasive apitasia, which kills it almost instantaneously.  The apitasia tries as a defensive mechanism to spit its own guts out, but the lemon juice is too acidic.  I also learned through this process how to siphon a tank and change out the water while balancing the acidity in the water with baking soda, thus making the seawater more neutral.  Yet, the most spectacular thing I learned with the aquarists was how to feed all the animals in the Hatfield Marine Science Center.  I learned how and what to feed each animal except the octopus in the visitor’s center, which took a long time but was completely worth it.  The amount of knowledge I learned during that time was amazing and I will not forget anytime soon.  This entire summer has been a learning experience, but definitely a fun one that I shall remember for the rest of my life.”

 

Busy week, weekend, month!

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Sorry I missed posting on Friday; I’ve been frantically trying to get ready for my two upcoming conferences, as well as collecting some data last-minute (yay) with some subjects that let’s just say treated scheduling a bit flexibly. My schedule of deadlines in this last week has been:

Aug 14 Geological Society of America abstract deadline – they have a session on eyetracking in the geoscience education section. Digital posters, which means we can show real eyetracking data. Good folks for me to meet in particular.

Aug 15 NARST 2013 proposal – I ended up skipping this; it will just be too much too close to when I’m trying to defend, plus I didn’t have a great proposal to go along with this year’s theme of inequality. Puerto Rico would have been awesome, though. I did get a proposal in in July for AERA instead, which is much closer to home in San Francisco, though even closer to my defense time!

Aug 15 final paper due for the International Science Communication Conference (JHC) – involved getting some friends to translate my abstract and keywords into French, of which I speak about 6 words, none of them “eyetracking.” Presentation was due in July.

Work on a presentation with Shawn and Laura for 6-ICOM; we have an hour and a half between us, but don’t know the audience very well, so we’re hoping our idea of about 45 minutes of presentation and 45 minutes of interactive discussion goes over with them. We’re apparently about the only research group looking at multimodal discourse in learning in museums, and science learning in particular, so we’re not sure how familiar the others will be with why we’re studying what we are, for one thing. However, we should be able to have a good discussion about methods and analysis. We’ll be using Prezi which will allow us to make a record of the discussion and then share it after the conference. Plus we edited it together, which went well except for a couple minor mishaps.

Collect two interviews, one with a subject that contacted me Thursday after having been away and I managed to squeeze the interview in on Friday, and the other with a subject that missed the first appointment.

Aug 20 (tomorrow) leave for Europe for three weeks for two conferences – 6-ICOM and JHC (plus a week of vacation in between in which I try to swing by a museum research group in Germany that’s using mobile eyetracking).

So it’s been a little crazy. I’ve been lining up more of our lab folks to post more regularly as well, so you’ll be hearing more about the variety of projects we’ve got going on.

However, stay tuned to our twitter feed @freechoicelab, as I/we will be doing my best to live tweet from both conferences. Live being 8 or 9 hours ahead of the U.S. West Coast, so maybe you won’t be awake when we are, but still.