APPOINTMENTS

Graduate Student Researcher, Learning Research & Development Center

Web Developer, www.informalscience.org

PROFESSIONAL HISTORY

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

INTERESTS & PROJECTS

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.

RECENT WORK

Eberbach, C. & Crowley, K. (2009). From everyday to scientific: How children learn to observe the biologist's world. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 39-68.

Eberbach, C. (2008, March). The effect of parents' disciplinary knowledge and conversational style on children's observation of pollinator activity. In K. Crowley (Chair) Thinking through the disciplines in informal and everyday settings: Ecology, art, robotics, and paleontology. Session presented at the American Educational Research Association, New York, NY.

Eberbach, C. (2007). Educators without borders. Public Garden, 22(1), 5-6.

Palmquist, S., Eberbach, C., & Crowley, K. (2007, April). Families learning through observation: Implementing quasi-experimental methods in informal learning environments. In P. Bell (Chair) Methodological challenges and innovations in studying learning in informal contexts. Structured poster session presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, Chicago, IL.

Eberbach, C. & Crowley, K, (2005). From living to virtual: Learning from museum objects. Curator, 48(3), 317-338.

Eberbach, C. (2004, April). Investigations of parent-child scientific explanations in botanical gardens. In K. Crowley (Chair) Museum learning collaborative. Session presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Diego, CA.

Eberbach, C. (2003). Designing for family learning in a children's museum. In M. Borun (Chair) Designing for visitor groups: An update on applications of family learning principles. Session presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums, Portland, OR.

Eberbach, C. (2003, June). Landscapes for learning. Poster session presented at the International Symposium on Cognitive Approaches to Creative Processes, Nagoya, Japan.

Eberbach, C. (2001). The meaningful garden: The children's adventure project. Paper presented at the American Public Garden Assocation Annual Conference, Asheville, NC.

Eberbach, C. (1999). Kids, museums and the great outdoors. Hand-to-Hand, 13(3), 1-6.

HONORS AND GRANTS

National Science Foundation, Senior Staff, ISE #0638981, Informal Science Education Resource Center (2007-2012)

National Science Foundation, Co-PI, ISE #0610348, InformalScience.org: Building a Web Community for Informal Science (2006-2008)

University of Pittsburgh, School of Education Alumni Fellowship (2005-2006)

National Science Foundation, Co-PI/Originating PI, ISE #0125740, My Place by the Bay: Prepared Environments for Early Science Learning, $1.5 million (2002-2005)

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, PI, Children's Adventure Project, $150,000 (1997-1999)

National Endowment for the Humanities, PI, Nature & Culture in the Garden, $125,000 (1996-1998)

National Science Foundation, PI, ISE #9353545, Children's Adventure Project, $1 million (1993-1998)

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, PI, Children's Adventure Project, $175,000 (1993-1998)