EmailPrint
Research & Evaluation

Changing Colors

 

Permissions

Creative Commons license image
Creative Commons
Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

General Description: 

The Science Museum of Minnesota surveyed 30 museum visitors after they used the Changing Colors exhibit. This formative testing of the exhibit assessed its ability to teach about nanoscale structures and the uses of nanophenomena to create new products.

Major Findings: 

The formative evaluation of the Changing Colors exhibit showed that the exhibit currently struggles with conveying information about nanophenomena and their relationship to everyday products. Due to instruction errors and exhibit malfunctions, visitors struggled with understanding what to do at the exhibit and how different sections related to each other.

Documents: 

application/pdf icon2008 Butterfly Evaluation

Associated product(s): 

NISE Network product

Changing Colors

Changing Colors is an interactive exhibit that shows how some high-tech nanomaterials mimic natural phenomena. Super-small, light-reflecting structures—instead of pigments—on the wings of some butterflies create intense, iridescent colors. Nanoscientists have replicated this effect with layered, super-thin films. Watch the colors change on butterfly wings and thin-film slides as you move them beneath a light source, and discover how nanoscale structures can manipulate light and create color. Butterfly specimens deteriorate with heavy use, and may need to be replaced periodically.

  Read more
 

Questions?

Contact about evaluations in the catalog.