Award Abstract # 1010889
Life on Earth

NSF Org: DRL
Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL)
Recipient: PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE
Initial Amendment Date: September 28, 2010
Latest Amendment Date: July 22, 2012
Award Number: 1010889
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Ellen McCallie
emccalli@nsf.gov
 (703)292-5115
DRL
 Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL)
EDU
 Directorate for STEM Education
Start Date: September 15, 2010
End Date: January 31, 2015 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $2,312,150.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $2,312,150.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2010 = $1,726,392.00
FY 2012 = $585,758.00
History of Investigator:
  • Chia Shen (Principal Investigator)
    chia_shen@harvard.edu
  • Judy Diamond (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Evelyn Evans (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Harvard University
1033 MASSACHUSETTS AVE STE 3
CAMBRIDGE
MA  US  02138-5366
(617)495-5501
Sponsor Congressional District: 05
Primary Place of Performance: Harvard University
1033 MASSACHUSETTS AVE STE 3
CAMBRIDGE
MA  US  02138-5366
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
05
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): LN53LCFJFL45
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): AISL
Primary Program Source: 04001011DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04001213DB NSF Education & Human Resource
Program Reference Code(s): 9177, SMET
Program Element Code(s): 725900
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.076

ABSTRACT

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.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Block, Florian; Hammerman, James; Horn, Michael; Spiegel, Amy; Christiansen, Jonathan; Phillips, Brenda; Diamond, Judy; Evans, Margaret; Shen, Chia "Fluid Grouping: Quantifying Group Engagement around Interactive Tabletop Exhibits in the Wild" ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'15) , 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702231
Block, Florian; Horn, Michael; Phillips, Brenda Caldwell; Diamond, Judy; Evans, Margaret; Shen, Chia. "The DeepTree Exhibit: Visualizing the Tree of Life to Facilitate Informal Learning" IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) , v.18 , 2012 , p.2789 1077-2626
Davis, P., Horn, M.S., Block, F., Phillips, B., Evans, E.M., Diamond, J., Shen, C. ""Whoa! We?re going deep in the trees!": Patterns of collaboration around an interactive information visualization exhibit" International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning , 2015 10.1007/s11412-015-9209-z
Horn, M.S., Leong, Z.A., Block, F., Diamond, J., Evans, E.M., Phillips, B.C., Shen, C. "Of BATs and APEs: Designing an ineractive tabletop game for natural history museums" ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'12), ACM Press , 2012 , p.2059 10.1145/2207676.2208355

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

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.

The Life on Earth (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 (http://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 disti...

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