Creating a Program to Deepen Family Inquiry at Interactive Science Exhibits

A common goal of science museums is to support the public in science inquiry by engaging groups of visitors with interactive exhibits. This article summarizes the efforts of a team of researchers and practitioners to extend and deepen such inquiry by explicitly coaching families in the skills of scientific inquiry at interactive exhibits. The first phase of the project, reported here, involved designing a “best case” program that worked for small groups of casual visitors under ideal circumstances, facilitated by an experienced educator in a quiet laboratory near the public floor. The final program, called Inquiry Games, taught visitors to sandwich their spontaneous physical experimentation between two additional phases: asking a question to drive their investigation at the beginning; and interpreting the results of their investigation at the end. Provisional evaluation data suggest that the Inquiry Games improved visitors' inquiry behavior in several ways and was rated as very enjoyable by them. Encouraged by these indicators, we suggest ways in which this program might be implemented on the open museum floor.

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