The Initiative in Innovative Computing in the Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, in collaboration with the Encyclopedia of Life Learning and Education Group, University of Nebraska State Museum, Northwestern University Department of Learning Sciences, the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan, the California Academy of Sciences, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Boston Children's Museum, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and TERC, will develop, evaluate and disseminate Life on Earth, a developmentally-appropriate intervention for learning about the Tree of Life, Common Descent, and Natural Selection in museum settings. The primary goals of the project are to improve museum visitor understanding of evolution and to use innovative touch-screen technology to enhance museum visitor learning.
The deliverables are eight developmentally flexible Life on Earth activities, designed to allow visitors to choose their own difficulty level. Each activity is designed to engage visitors in learning one of the two key concepts of evolution: common descent and natural selection. The activities are unified within a conceptual framework based on a research-based, peer-reviewed developmental learning progression for an understanding of evolution. Specific target audiences are: Beginner (3rd-5th grade), Intermediate (6th-8th grade, and Advanced (9th-Adult). These activities, developed as computer software, will be delivered via a compelling multi-touch, multi-user digital interface with the potential to transform the way science is experienced in informal settings. The highly qualified and experienced core team is supported by a strong advisory group of evolutionary biologists, science educators, and informal learning professionals.
The activities will be developed in diverse museum settings with input from their different audiences: natural history museum, science museum, children's museum. The direct potential public impact is estimated at approximately 4.5 million for the partner museums; potential indirect impacts are across the ISE field through a free software package downloadable to any institution with the appropriate hardware. The potential professional audience is exhibit developers seeking to develop learning experiences about evolution in natural history museums, science museums, zoos, aquaria, and other ISE institutions. Front-end evaluation, formative evaluation and prototyping will be conducted by the project team lead by Dr. Judy Diamond and Dr. Ann Spiegel. Summative evaluation will be conducted by TERC.
(lifeonearth.seas.harvard.edu) exhibit helps museum visitors understand evolution and biodiversity by combining innovative big data visualizations with a multi?touch tabletop technology. Building on research in the Learning Sciences and Human?Computer Interaction, the Life on Earth exhibit includes three interactive experiences: DeepTree, the focal activity, offers visitors the opportunity to see, touch, and manipulate a phylogenetic tree of life containing seventy thousand species. This tree of life represents the evolutionary relationships of species from the beginning of life on Earth, about 3.5 billion years ago, to the present. DeepTree's deep zoom interface encourages visitors to "fly through" the vast branching patterns of our evolutionary history while investigating relationships among species. This exhibit demonstrates that all life on Earth is related through shared derived traits, and includes major times of divergence (see Image 1). FloTree is a hands-on simulation illustrating the dynamic population-level processes of speciation and biodiversity underlying evolution (see Image 2). Build-A-Tree is a multi-level puzzle game that challenges visitors to construct phylogenetic trees of increasing complexity (see Image 3). The Life on Earth exhibit has been installed in the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California, at the University of Nebraska in the State Museum and in the School of Biological Sciences in Lincoln NE, the Field Museum in Chicago IL, and Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge MA. The DeepTree has also been distributed to Europe at the Oxford University Natural History Museum, UK, Musée National d'histoire Naturelle in Luxembourg, and Centro Ciencia Viva de Estremoz in Portugal. PBS NOVA Labs has recently developed an online Evolution Lab based on Build-A-Tree and the DeepTree (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/labs/lab/evolution/). To investigate the effectiveness of the DeepTree exhibit we incorporated both experimental and observational methods into one large research study. Families were recruited from the Field Museum in Chicago and the Harvard Museum of Natural History. For the experimental study we randomly assigned 123 pairs of youth, all 8-15 years old, to participate in one of four conditions. In the first two conditions, pairs of youth interacted with the DeepTree exhibit on a tabletop display for ten minutes. In a third condition, they watched a ten-minute video on the topic of evolution and the tree of life. Individual responses on a 53-item post-assessment were then compared to responses in a fourth, baseline condition. With the experimental design we demonstrated that the DeepTree table-top interactives, but not the video, elicited higher levels of understanding of the targeted evolution concepts, in comparison with the baseline. Additionally, we collected observational measures of youths' social engagement and tabletop interaction through video recordings and computer logs of touch interaction. Parents of the youth provided detailed demographic information. Notably, conversation that focused on the DeepTree exhibit and physical manipulation of key features of the DeepTree each contributed positively to the learning outcomes, irrespective of family background and beliefs. This research demonstrated that in ten minutes or less it is possible for a targeted informal learning experience to successfully convey a STEM concept as important as the idea that "all living things on earth are related". A qualitative analysis of dyadic participants interacting with the tabletop exhibits was published in the International Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning in March 2015. In this paper, we describe four distinct patterns of visitor interaction with the DeepTree, providing generalizable design guidelines. A summative evaluation was conducted at the California Academy of Sciences with 639 visitors on both of the DeepTree and Build-A-Tree multi-touch table exhibits. This evaluation included both video recording (with informed consent), and shadowing with behavior coding. We analyzed the video, behavior codes and digital logs of visitor interactions on the touch tables from these studies. Our findings published in ACM CHI 2015 contribute to our knowledge of how to algorithmically define collaborative groups in busy exhibits, and to what extent study methodologies may influence the outcome of evaluations. Overall, the findings from our multiple studies inform the design of future learning experiences that engage the general public in collaborative exploration and learning using large scientific data sets. disclaimer: This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
