The Space Place: Adventures in Informal Education - and Lessons Learned

Informal education settings provide unique opportunities to convey Earth and space science learning to a variety of audiences. The NASA Space Place suite of outreach products and activities include deliverables to both the formal and the informal education arenas. The question is, how can Earth and space science efforts best create high-quality products and activities for the informal education sector- and how can these products and activities be effectively disseminated to these audiences? This session will describe the approach by a small outreach team for NASA's New Millennium Program (NMP) Space Place effort. The Space Place team's approach has been three-fold: 1) develop a suite of products designed to appeal to (and educate) the informal education audience, 2) disseminate these products through leveraged distribution channels which serve the informal education community, and 3) invite participation by missions beyond those within NMP, but rather NASA-wide - for a richer and broader message, and a greater variety of content The informal education audience served by the Space Place can be found in science centers, museums, planetariums, libraries, community centers, and community organizations. This informal education audience seeks to be entertained as well as to be educated, and this audience often includes multiple generations. Personnel at informal education venues may or may not have a science background, may or may not have significant training in conducting activities, and may, as often as not, be volunteers. As a result of valuable lessons learned, Space Place materials developed for informal education settings attempt to be adaptable for multiple age groups, and easy to administer. Dissemination to the informal education community could be a daunting effort. But another lesson learned by the Space Place team is the value of alliances with national organizations within that community. These alliances make distribution of the Space Place activities and products both economical and comprehensive. While the Space Place effort started as a New Millennium Program effort, it was quickly expanded to all NASA missions who wish to participate. The team soon realized that the informal education community wanted a variety of content - not just more and more information about a few missions, but rather a continuous infusion of new content from new missions. This expansion of the Space Place program allows any mission to take advantage of the existing Space Place infrastructure and alliances - and provides the much-needed variety of materials that the informal education community desires. This poster session will provide an overview of the Space Place effort within the informal education community, and will illustrate some of the valuable lessons learned by the team in working with this rich and varied community.