Planetarium Audiences and Cosmology Visualizations

1. Planetarium Audiences and Cosmology Visualizations Zoë Elizabeth Buck October 19, 2011 Special thanks to Joel Primack, Doris Ash and Nina McCurdy

2. Introduction and Context Effective teaching, curricula and interventions Equity Cosmology is coming of age, but it’s not in K-12 curricula Why do this kind of research?

3. Introduction and Context The Adler creates a visitor experience. • State of the art theater • “Road trip of the Universe” (show director) • Real data visualizations • large scale dark matter evolution, galaxy merger, type 1a supernova, star passing by a super-massive black hole The new show Tension: curators and educators “[T]he educators think the curators just want to teach all their obscure scientific points, and the curators think the educators just want to dumb everything down, [in a whisper] and they really do want to dumb everything down.” -Adler Astronomer

4. Introduction and Context Visitors want to “experience space.”

5. Research Methodology Education research uses a variety of methods taken from anthropology, psychology, sociology and political science, among other fields My methodology is interpretive – although I enter into the research with broad questions, my hypotheses are formed inductively, after data collection has begun My research uses a mixed methods approach - data is both quantitative (surveys), and qualitative (interviews, stimulated recall, and observations) I spent a month at Adler Planetarium in Chicago observing, giving surveys, and interviewing staff and visitors Methodology and Methods.

6. Research Methodology Show is dynamic – it has been shaped by producers, writers, artists and scientists working with the Adler, and each visitor is making sense of it using the resources at their disposal • (MacDonald, 2002) Learning is social and situated • (Vygotsky, 1978; Lave & Wenger, 1991) Equity as a lens • Valuing informal knowledge (Lemke, 2011) • Viewing learners as inherently intelligent, trying to make sense of what they experience (diSessa, 1993) • “[E]xploring ways in which…competence can be supported to promote development of robust understanding of the physical world" (Warren et al., 2005, p 122). Theoretical framework.

7. Research Methodology How are visitors to the Adler Planetarium interacting with cutting edge cosmology visualizations in a new planetarium show? Research Question.

8. Findings People are being “inspired.” • Inspiration as a worthy outcome • The “inspiration index” – series of Likert scales • n=23 More inspired……………………………………………………………………………….…..less inspired

9. Findings Visualizations are sticking with people.

10. Findings Visitors are drawing on visualizations over narration.

11. Findings Visualization details affect interpretation. F4W: Are those all galaxies there that we are looking at? I'm not sure... F2M: I'm seeing two or three stellar nurseries right now, this would probably have been at the early stages, the later stages of the big bang, possibly Z: What do you think the white stuff is made of? F4G: Stars? Z: What makes you think they are stars? F4G: Cuz stars I look at up at the sky from my house and I see stuff like that, it looks like minature Suns, which…are bulbs of light

12. Findings Visitors are drawing on multiple resources.

13. Conclusion The closest thing to really “experiencing space” Visualization content is sticking with people Artistic decisions matter (color, speed, transitions, etc) Using resources and making connections to construct new knowledge What this means for cosmology visualizations.

14. Conclusion Preliminary results Now: White, highly educated demographic To Do: Recruit diverse families (n~25) Limitations and next steps.