ABSTRACT
This chapter designs Juicy Question to help family and field trip groups engage in collaborative inquiry at science museum exhibits. To make the activity successful, It reviews the research literature for principles underlying effective learning activities in three areas: science learning in schools, family learning in museums, and student learning during museum field trips. The chapter discusses and refines those principles with museum educators who teach or use inquiry-based learning methods. It offers a distillation of the fundamental ideas that guided our development of the Juicy Question activity. Educational research in museums and other informal learning environments has also revealed techniques that effectively enhance learning. Some of these principles come from studying families; others from studying students on field trips. These principles, drawn from best practices in schools and museums, gave us confidence that Juicy Question would help families and field trip groups engage in deeper inquiry in the museum context.
