“Why Zoos & Aquariums Matter” (WZ&AM)
National Science Foundation Grant Awarded
Proposal Leads: Paul Boyle, Ph.D., Bruce Carr, Ph.D.
Co-Investigators: Cynthia Vernon, John Falk, Ph.D., and numerous other collaborators nationwide.
This research proposal involved a partnership with museums across the U.S., which clarified the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors visitors possess upon entering a museum and how visiting changes them. The partners called MIRP (Multi-Institutional Research Project) collected precise data about visitor experiences, enabling MIRP to describe how informal experiences build public understanding of nature.
MIRP bookended a fundamental change in the professional understanding of informal science education. Common prior beliefs were that little learning occurred in museum visits and that information retained after a visit was, at best, serendipitous and anecdotal.
MIRP collected data systematically across a considerable number and diversity of institutions for three years. This approach led to a descriptive database showing that substantive learning occurs in informal settings and yielded diagnostic tools that help museums enhance visitor experiences for increased learning outcomes.
Importantly, research by Howard Gardiner, Neil Fleming, and John Falk on multiple intelligences, varied learning modalities, and informal learning, respectively, illuminated the rich potential for learning in museums' highly kinesthetic, visual, immersive environments. The MIRP study built on this and other learning research, aggregating it to induce the National Academies’ declaration that “most of the science that Americans know is learned outside of classrooms.”