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Catherine Eberbach cle4@pitt.edu LRDC, 1st floor |
Graduate Student Researcher, Learning Research & Development Center
Web Developer, www.informalscience.org
Learning in museums has been at the heart of my 15 years of professional experience. The experiences that are most salient to UPCLOSE include: (1) designing environments and programs that engage children and families in playful and scientific encounters with plants and natural environments; (2) investigating how families interact as children and families learn science; and (3) learning more about children's perceptions of plants and gardens. With this focus, I led development of outdoor and indoor children's environments at The New York Botanical Garden (15-acre Everett Children's Adventure Garden, 1/4-mile Wild Wetland Trail, and 1.5-acre Family Garden), the Bay Area Discovery Museum (1/2-acre Tot Spot and 2-acre Lookout Cove), and Longwood Gardens (3,500-square-foot Children's Garden). (For more information, go to Everett Children's Adventure Garden and Bay Area Discovery Museum.) Other contributions to the advancement of learning in museums include publications, presentations at professional meetings, as well as participation on professional committees and proposal review panels. I have served as Principal Investigator for work funded by the National Science Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
M.S. Public Horticulture Administration, Longwood Graduate Program, University of Delaware
B. S. Horticultural Therapy (Specialization: Special Education), Kansas State University.
My research interests include exploration of how engagement with authentic and representational objects affects parent/child explanations, discovery, and scientific reasoning. The popularity of interactive exhibitions in museums has increasingly placed replicated and virtual objects alongside exhibited authentic objects. Yet little is known about how visitor interaction with authentic, replicated, and virtual museum objects impacts visitor experience and learning. To begin to understand this, I conducted a study of family learning in a biological museum experience, specifically focusing on how parents and children (aged 7-9) used explanation as they engaged with living, model, and virtual plants. Findings suggested that: (a) process explanations were more frequent than causal, analogical, or principled explanations; (b) the model and virtual plants supported explanations similarly to one another but differently from living plants; (c) the living plants supported more explanations that referred to home than virtual plants; and (d) the model plant supported more connections to school than did the living and virtual plants.
I am currently working on an NSF-funded research study with the Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose, CA) to investigate how families extend museum learning via new technologies and the Internet. The Tech Tags—RFID embedded bracelets—are designed to personalize visitor experiences and to capture exhibit interactions onto a website, which are accessible after visiting the museum. As visitors use exhibits with RFID readers, their experiences are captured onto a personal website that they may access at any time and from any place. Do the Tech Tags work as designed? Does the Tech Tag system extend learning? Our research explores how families use the Tech Tags and the extent to which the Tech Tag website supports recall of exhibit experiences and more family conversation.
To promote and advance the field of informal learning in science and other domains, my work with UPCLOSE included leading development of the NSF-funded website, http://www.informalscience.org/. This work involved extensive communication with informal science educators, designers, evaluators, and researchers to ensure that diverse needs, goals, and objectives are addressed.
Eberbach, C. & Crowley, K. (2005). From living to virtual: Learning from museum objects. Curator, (48)3, 317-338.
Eberbach, C. (2004). Investigations of parent-child scientific explanations in botanical gardens. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association.
Ramberg, J.S., Borun, M., Eberbach, C., & Fohrman, D. (2003). Designing for visitor groups: An update on applications of family learning principles. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums.
Chermayeff, J.C., Eberbach, C., & Semmel, M. (2001). Inside out: Making outdoor learning environments. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums.
Eberbach, C. (1999). Kids, museums and the great outdoors. Hand-to-Hand, 13(3), 1-6. Out: Making Outdoor Learning Environments, American Association of Museums Annual Meeting, 2001
Eberbach, C. (2001). The meaningful garden: the childrens adventure project, proceedings from Annual AABGA Conference, Asheville, NC, 71-74.
School of Education Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2005-2006
Co-Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation, Informal Science Education, $1.5 million, My Place by the Bay, ISE# 0125740, 2002-2006 (Originating PI)
Program Director, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, $150,000, 1997-1999
Project Director, National Endowment for the Humanities, $125,000, 1996-1998
Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation, Informal Science Education, $1 million, The Children's Adventure Project, ISE# 9353545, 1993-1998
Program Director, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, $175,000, 1993-1998
Recognition, Community School District 11, Bronx, New York, 1992
Fellowship, Longwood Graduate Program, University of Delaware, 1985-1987
