This award is expanding the hands-on programming offered in the Discovery Labs of PRI's Museum of the Earth in order to increase public involvement and interest in Earth science. These labs, offered for two years, have been used to increase public awareness, interest, and understanding related to fossil records, how collections are used in scientific problem solving, how natural history collections are created and cared for, and, how to be personally involved in the process of paleontological research. The largest of the Discovery Labs, the Fossil Lab, is being augmented first so that visitors have greater opportunities to find fossils, identify and illustrate those finds, and participate as citizen-scientists who collect data for ongoing research. The Ice and Dino Labs are being expanded subsequently, based on evaluation of the revised Fossil Lab's impact. For all three labs, new programming is being developed that involves frequent presentations, user-friendly microscopes and cameras, art supplies, reference collections, teacher workshops, informational booklets and websites. Teacher workshops will train teachers to develop open-ended inquiry based classroom research experiences that incorporate real research from the Museum. This project is expected to serve as a model for incorporating hands-on geoscience activities into informal science education settings elsewhere.
