We are excited to continue to grow and expand this project to include more programs. We are also working on the following pursuits:
1) We have begun to grow and build community among informal physics practitioners and researchers. Participants in this project include informal physics program leaders and physics educational researchers. We have made connections with these participants and continue to share back the results of our work to them. Inspired by our work, participants have asked for the ability to make connections with each other – and we have received some support from the major physics and physics education organizations - the American Physical Society, The American Association of Physics Teachers, and the Physics Education Research Conference - to this end. In 2019 PI Hinko and Senior Personnel Fracchiolla co-lead a full conference on informal physics education. From there, a series of workshops were developed by Fracchiolla for the American Physical Society for informal physics practitioners. Based on feedback from these events, a fledging network for informal physics is in initial stages of being supported by the American Physical Society. This community growing and expanding could lead to more research-based informal teaching and learning experiences within the disciplinary home of physics and astronomy.
2) We have started the seeds for new projects.
This project has been so fruitful that there are a number of new directions to move on. Projects already in initial stages of development are:
Developing tools for practitioners from the key component framework for program assessment. These may be in the form of self-evaluation, or may be tools used for external evaluators in support of more inclusive, sustainable programming.
Investigating physics students who have since graduated and who volunteered in informal education programs – What is the impact on their identity, careers, values, and connections to community?
Investigating programs that combine physics with arts – What are the ways that these arts-physics informal spaces function and do they require different resources, personnel, etc.? What is the impact on audiences, university student volunteers, and involved communities in these interdisciplinary, informal education activities?
Investigating connections between researchers and practitioners in informal physics – Can researchers and practitioners build and leverage community for support? What structures can help grow and sustain this community?