caise

• NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Program Overview
• NSF AISL Solicitation Frequently Asked Questions
• Submitting Competitive NSF Proposals, Roundtable Talk Presentation, ASTC 2012 Annual Conference (PDF, 20pgs, 3.9mb)
• The 2010 User-Friendly Handbook for Project Evaluation (PDF 159pgs, 795kb)
• Instructions for ISE OPMS Impacts and Indicators Worksheets (PDF 2pgs, 262kb)
• ISE OPMS Impacts and Indicators Worksheets (PDF 4pgs, 131kb)
• Framework for Evaluating Impacts of ISE Projects (PDF 117pgs, 956kb)
• The NSF Informal Science Education Program: Past, Present, and Future, October 2011, ASTC Annual Conference, Baltimore, MD (pdf 33pgs, 2.3mb)
• NSF ISE Online Project Monitoring System (Silverstein and Putman, CAISE Newsletter, September 2011)
• NSF ISE Online Project Monitoring System: Characteristics of Lead Organizations and their Partners (Silverstein, Putman, and Bryce, CAISE Newsletter, November 2011)
• NSF ISE Online Project Monitoring System Webinar, September 15, 2011 (Webex .ARF, 49mb)

The CAISE newsletter, issued in electronic format, includes NSF-funded project Spotlights, reports on CAISE Inquiry Groups and NSF-sponsored ISE conferences and workshops, articles by members of the Visitor Studies Association, and updates from NSF.

• April 2013
• March 2013
• February 2013
• December 2012
• November 2012
• October 2012
• July & August 2012
• June 2012
• May 2012
• April 2012
• March 2012
• February 2012
• December 2011
• November 2011
• September 2011

CAISE Inquiry Group reports are intended to strengthen and connect the ISE community by catalyzing conversations across the field around issues and topics of common concern.

• Informal Science Education Policy: Issues and Opportunities
• Inclusion, Disabilities, and Informal Science Learning
• Making Science Matter: Collaborations Between Informal Science Education Organizations and Schools
• Public Participation in Scientific Research
• Professional Online Communities
• Many Experts, Many Audiences: Public Engagement with Science

CAISE convened 20 ISE field leaders in science media production, policy, research and evaluation to think strategically about:

• navigating future directions in science communication, media, and learning;
• strengthening our evidence base and communicating the value of ISE media projects to a diverse set of constituents; and
• identifying ways to foster more coordination, collaboration and community among ISE media professionals and with others working in informal science education.

View more about the Media Initiative including background materials and action areas.

CAISE hosts a wiki that serves as a dynamic digital archive for the 2012 Informal Science Education Program PI Meeting, convenings hosted by CAISE in 2011 & 2012 on organizational networks, professional development, and sustainability science and education in ISE.

Access the CAISE Convening Wiki to view resources contributed by particpants and access meeting readings, materials and information about represented projects.

An ongoing series of articles that synthesize findings from research and evaluation, provide evidence of the contributions of informal science education, and provide information and guidance to ISE practitioners in carrying out their work.

• An Attention-Value Model of Museum Visitors (PDF 29pgs, 204kb)
• Paying More Attention to Paying Attention
• Integrating Developmental and Free-Choice Learning Frameworks to Investigate Conceptual Change in Visitor Understanding
• Creating a Learning Environment that Fosters Parent-Child Interactions: A Case Study from the Animal Secrets Exhibition Project
• Border Crossings in Informal Science Education: DragonflyTV’s Experiment in Museum-Media Collaboration

Tools and resources for evaluating project impacts.

• Informal Science Evidence Wiki:provides easy to read summaries of evidence that characterize the benefits and outcomes of ISE experiences.
• Principal Investigator's Guide to Evaluation: this guide is designed to support the useful integration of evaluation and project design in informal learning environments
• Framework for Evaluating Impacts of ISE Projects (PDF, 956KB)
• InformalScience.org evaluation database and related resoures
• Assessment Tools in Informal Science, a searchable database from PEAR (Program in Education, Afterschool & Resiliency)

• Proceedings for the Golden Gate Bridge International Conference on Public Works for Public Learning, June 20 - 22, 2012, San Francisco, California (PDF, 32 pgs, 6.7mb)
• Art as a Way of Knowing Conference Report (PDF 33pgs, 1mb)
• Learning as Phenomena for Scientific Inquiry (PDF 6pgs, 151kb)
• Challenges in Designing and Conducting Research on Afterschool Programs (Presented at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans-PDF 13pgs, 735kb)
• Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge, June 2008, NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning
• Citizen Science Toolkit Conference, June 2007, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Ithaca, N.Y.
• Out-of-School Time STEM: Building Experience, Building Bridges, October 2009
• Informal Science Education Summit 2010
• Communication on the Cutting Edge: Lessons from the Nanoscale
• Strengthening Informal Science Education in the Latino Community, March 2009

Reports, conferences, and resources developed with support from the National Science Foundation's Informal Science Education program.

• InformalCommons: a website that searches across informal learning websites to provide greater access to informal science education project descriptions, evaluation tools and products, exhibit case studies and reviews, reference materials, instructional materials, and more.
• NSF: Informal Science Education Grant Program (Presented at ASTC 2010 - PDF 28pgs, 1.8mb)
• Surrounded by Science: Learning Science in Informal Environments (National Research Council, 2010) | read online, free
• Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places & Pursuits (National Research Council, 2009) | read online, free
• 2008 CAISE Landscape Study Report (PDF 27pgs, 224kb) | Executive Summary (PDF 2pgs, 28kb)
• The Legacy of YouthAlive! (Sneider, C., Burke, M., 2011) (PDF 21 pgs, 410kb)
• NSF Influence on the Field of Informal Science Education (Ucko, D., 2010) (PDF 29pgs, 637kb)
• The 95 Percent Solution: School is not where most Americans learn most of their science (Falk, J,. Dierking, L., 2010)(PDF, 9 pgs, 2mb)
• Impacts of a Visit to a Zoo or Aquarium