Exploring Materials - Ferrofluid

Report date: August, 2008

Overview

Evaluation Title:

Date of report:

08/2008

Contact:

Sarah Cohn [1]

Permissions

[2]
Creative Commons
Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

General Description:

Science Museum of Minnesota visitors were invited to participate in the NanoDays activity, Exploring Materials – Ferrofluids in August, 2008. A total of fifteen visitors completed a self-administered survey after doing the activity. This formative evaluation assesses the activity’s ability to teach that materials behave differently when nano-sized, using the magnetic properties of magnetite to illustrate the idea.

Major Findings:

The formative evaluation of Exploring Materials—Ferrofluids shows that visitors found the activity interesting, and most thought it was enjoyable. About one in ten visitors had difficulty understanding the activity. Most visitors understood and remarked on the activity’s big idea and learning goal, but only half of respondents were able to express the activity’s relationship to nano in general.

Categorize

Evaluation type:

formative/remedial
public

Type of product(s) studied:

Program

Method(s) of data collection:

surveys

Resources

Documents:

nanodaysferrofluidsrep.pdf [3]

Author(s):

Sarah Cohn

Murphy Pizza

Associated product(s):

Exploring Materials - Ferrofluid (NanoDays 08, 09, 10, 11) [4]