The Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul, Minnesota will receive $139,150 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the National Leadership Grants program (CFDA 45.312) to reinvigorate family learning programs eliminated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum will provide free or discounted admission and access to programs supporting lower-income families in raising thriving children. Programs will include free family nights, workshops on playful learning, and free play kits...
The Science Museum of Minnesota received a $494,389 Project Grant award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the Museums for America (CFDA 45.301) federal grant program. The funding will support the museum's efforts to build evaluation capacity and facilitate community-wide conversations about equity and climate action in the Twin Cities and Upper Midwest region. Through a variety of data collection strategies, ongoing reporting, and three summits, the museum will develop...
The Science Museum of Minnesota received a $704,677 federal Project Grant award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the 21st Century Museum Professionals Program (CFDA 45.032). The two-year grant will support the museum's efforts to drive transformative change towards greater inclusion, diversity, equity, and access within the upper Midwest museum community. The project will create a durable community of practice by collaborating with 20 small, underserved museums...
This Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (CFDA #47.076 STEM Education) provides USD 1,371,265 to the University of Alaska Fairbanks to study family learning at a traveling environmental biology exhibit developed in partnership with Alaska libraries and communities. The project aims to explore the relationships between exhibit design, nature connectedness, and emotional responses like awe. Researchers will use qualitative methods to assess visitor experiences, including...
The federal Project Grant award in the amount of $501,818 was provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the Museums for America (MFA) program (CFDA 45.301). The Sciencenter Discovery Museum in Ithaca, New York will partner with regional libraries to expand equitable access to hands-on STEM learning by supporting public libraries as trusted community spaces. The project will use input from prior collaborations to co-create STEM activity kits and establish a learning...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $164,945 Project Grant under the Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) program to the Long Island Children's Museum. This partnership development and planning project aims to extend the museum's longstanding collaboration with the Westbury School District to engage culturally and linguistically diverse newcomer families in informal STEM learning experiences for early elementary students. The project will integrate the Equitable Collaboration...
The Regents of the University of Minnesota, through its Office of Sponsored Projects Administration, was awarded a $545,740 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences. This 3-year grant, starting on September 1, 2023, aims to create a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) that fosters connections between early career faculty or postdoctoral fellows at minority-serving, teaching-intensive institutions and faculty mentors at research-intensive...
This Project Grant award of $3,269,924 from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program (CFDA 47.076) supports the "Scientists in the Family: Engaging Black Communities in STEM through Accessible and Inclusive Science Stories" project. The project consists of four key components: a feature-length documentary, a community engagement experience, a companion digital project of 30 short-form videos, and an integrated research study. The goal is...
The Museum of Science, Boston, in partnership with a coalition of museums and media producers, received a $558,512 Project Grant award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the National Leadership Grants (CFDA 45.312) program. The two-year project, running from September 2023 to August 2025, aims to build the foundation for museums of any size to address current topics of relevance through immersive digital experiences. Key activities include identifying best practices,...
This $369,186 National Science Foundation project grant under the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences program (CFDA 47.075) will fund research at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to advance understanding of human perception, behavior and learning in museum environments. Using computational methods including 3D motion capture and machine learning, the Museum Associates organization will transform a LACMA gallery into a laboratory to study visitor interactions with artworks and...
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), in partnership with the University of Minnesota (UMN) and Bakken Museum, is conducting a $499,743 practitioner-driven synthesis of 25 years of museum family learning conversations (FLC) research. Funded by the National Science Foundation's Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program (CFDA 47.076), this 3-year project aims to bridge research and practitioner knowledge to generate bidirectional insights for the future of museum design and museum-based learning research. The project involves gathering, scoping, and synthesizing existing FLC research, while formally incorporating practitioner-generated knowledge to spark the next generation of design and research on family learning in museums. Through targeted dissemination, the project seeks to make FLC research more accessible and interpretable for both practitioners and researchers, with the goal of advancing knowledge and creating new directions for practical and research development in this domain.