MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation is an interactive science museum in Santa Barbara, California, whose mission is to ignite learning through interactive experiences in science and creativity. MOXI is a place where children and adults can explore and discover new things about the world around them, ask questions, seek answers, and have a blast doing so. MOXI’s exhibits were designed to align with the physical science and engineering disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and to engage museum visitors in the practices of science and engineering through playful interactions.
The Engineering Explorations programs are designed to engage students of all backgrounds in the practices of science and engineering through authentic engineering design challenges. Student understanding and participation in the MOXI field trip engineering design challenge is enhanced through the pre- and post-field trip classroom activities, which address related disciplinary core ideas, introduce the components of engineering design, and help students reflect on their learning.
In addition to supporting student learning, this curriculum also provides opportunities for teachers to develop expertise and confidence in facilitating engineering design through educative curriculum elements including content storylines, explanation of the rationale behind specific pedagogical choices, descriptions of anticipated student ideas, and suggested prompts to elicit student ideas and support student sense-making. MOXI and the University of California, Santa Barbara developed and tested the effectiveness of the Engineering Explorations curricula as a learning resource for both students and teachers.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 1824856 and 1824859.
