Resources
Working with National Science Foundation support
NSF's Informal Science Education program supports innovation in "anywhere, anytime, lifelong learning," through investments in research, development, infrastructure, and capacity-building for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning outside formal school settings. The NSF ISE program is one of several grant programs in NSF's Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL).
- 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)
CAISE Newsletters
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. [ View all CAISE newsletters ]
CAISE Inquiry Group Reports
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
Articles from the Visitor Studies Association
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. [ View all related articles ]
- 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
More about evaluation
Tools and resources for evaluating project impacts.
Reports from NSF-funded conferences and workshops
- 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
More about informal science education
Reports, conferences, and resources developed with support from the National Science Foundation's Informal Science Education program.
- 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)
- Impacts of a Visit to a Zoo or Aquarium