A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of subject matter and introduced many interactive exhibits. Many if not most modern science museums – which increasingly refer to themselves as science centres or "discovery centres" – also emphasize technology, and are therefore also technology museums.
Science education is the teaching and learning of science to non-scientists, such as school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process, some social science, and some teaching pedagogy. The standards for science education provide expectations for the development of understanding for students through the entire course of their K-12 education and beyond. The traditional subjects included in the standards are physical, life, earth, space, and human sciences.
Cooperative education is a structured method of combining classroom-based education with practical work experience. A cooperative education experience, commonly known as a "co-op", provides academic credit for structured job experience. Cooperative education is taking on new importance in helping young people to make the school-to-work transition. Cooperative learning falls under the umbrella of work-integrated learning but is distinct as it alternates a school term with a work term in a structured manner, involves a partnership between the academic institution and the employer, and generally is both paid and intended to advance the education of the student.
Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) is an academic preparation program for pre-college, community college and university-level students. Established in 1970 in California, the program provides academic support to students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds throughout the education pathway so they will excel in math and science and ultimately attain four-year degrees in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) fields. The program has successfully been replicated in over a dozen other states.
The Great Lakes Science Center is a museum and educational facility in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Many of the exhibits document the features of the natural environment in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The facility includes signature (permanent) and traveling exhibits, meeting space, a cafe, and an IMAX Dome theater.
Explora is a science center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, located near Old Town Albuquerque. Its name is the imperative form of the Spanish language verb explorar, which means to explore.
The Discovery Museum and Planetarium is a hands-on science museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut, that serves as both a tourist destination and an educational resource for area schools. The Discovery Museum provides dynamic, hands-on STEM experiences designed to resonate with the innate curiosity, learning desire, and spirit of exploration of visitors, encouraging young learners to ask questions, solve problems, and engineer solutions today so they are better prepared to embrace the challenges of tomorrow.
The University of Georgia (Tbilisi) is a private university founded in 2004 in Tbilisi, in the country of Georgia.
The Arizona Science Center is a science museum located in Heritage and Science Park in the heart of downtown Phoenix. Home to over 350 permanent hands-on exhibits, the Center provides 400,000 annual visitors with interactive experiences. Aside from the permanent exhibitions, Arizona Science Center has featured a number of nationally traveling exhibitions. Along with daily demonstrations throughout the Center, the Center provides shows in the Dorrance Planetarium and in a five-story, giant screen IMAX Theater. This non-profit corporation provides special educational programs and science activities for visitors of all ages including, summer science camp, Adult’s Night Out, thematic events, Stroller Science preschool programs, and the Science on Wheels outreach program.
The Orlando Science Center (OSC) is a private science museum located in Orlando, Florida. Its purposes are to provide experience-based opportunities for learning about science and technology and to promote public understanding of science.
Discovery Place Science is a science and technology museum for visitors of all ages located in the Uptown area of Charlotte, North Carolina. Discovery Place Science brings science to life through hands-on interactive exhibits, thrilling activities and experiments, an IMAX Dome Theatre, and boundless other educational opportunities and programs. The Museum, which first opened in 1981, underwent an 18-month, $31.6 million renovation in 2010 that transformed it into a reimagined state-of-the-art science and technology museum.
Lawrence N. Shaw was an American physicist, curator, artist and founder of Pi Day. Larry Shaw worked at the San Francisco science museum The Exploratorium for 33 years, performing just about every function for the museum. He was a key member of the arts and technology community in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Wade Institute for Science Education, based in Quincy, Massachusetts, United States, and founded in 1986, provides resources and professional development to informal and formal teachers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The Exploratorium is a museum of science, technology, and arts in San Francisco. Its mission is to create inquiry-based experiences that transform learning worldwide. It has been described by the New York Times as the most important science museum to have opened since the mid-20th century, an achievement attributed to "the nature of its exhibits, its wide-ranging influence and its sophisticated teacher training program". Characterized as "a mad scientist's penny arcade, a scientific funhouse, and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one", the participatory nature of its exhibits and its self-identification as a center for informal learning has led to it being cited as the prototype for participatory museums around the world.
The National Informal STEM Education Network ' is a community of informal educators and scientists dedicated to supporting learning about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) across the United States. In 2016 the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network transitioned to a new, ongoing identity as the National Informal STEM Education Network. While we'll still be known as the NISE Net, network partners will now engage audiences across the United States in a range of STEM topics.
The DO-IT Center is based at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1992, DO-IT’s mission is to increase the successful participation of people with disabilities in postsecondary education and careers, in STEM fields and careers, and in computing fields and careers throughout the U.S. It directs the national AccessSTEM program, and co-directs the national AccessComputing Alliance focused on engaging people with disabilities in computing fields.
The Bay Area Discovery Museum is a children's museum located in Sausalito, California inside the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is right at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. The museum's mission is "to transform research in early learning experience that inspire creative problem solving" so that children will gain skills to become the innovative problem solvers of tomorrow.
Physics outreach encompasses facets of science outreach and physics education, and a variety of activities by schools, research institutes, universities, clubs and institutions such as science museums aimed at broadening the audience for and awareness and understanding of physics. While the general public may sometimes be the focus of such activities, physics outreach often centers on developing and providing resources and making presentations to students, educators in other disciplines, and in some cases researchers within different areas of physics.
The Texas Museum of Science & Technology (TXMOST) opened in March 2015 in an interim facility in Cedar Park, Texas, with the vision of creating a destination science and technology center for the Central Texas area, and inspiring and educating both schoolchildren and the general community in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. TXMOST is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
