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This academic project focuses on middle and high school students who do not have access to museums and gives them the opportunity to use educational exhibits that are brought to their school. The task was to create an educational, fun, and interactive exhibit in the field of the science of green energy. The first part of the problem formulation technique started with the use of a KTPA (Kepner Tregoe Problem Analysis) chart. In this chart, we split up the problem into four parts by addressing what the problem is, where it is happening, when it is happening, and how big it is. After assessing the four different aspects, we determined the focused audience of our project is middle and high school students, meaning along with the exhibit being interactive and engaging, a successful exhibit would be fabricated and set up specifically for them. Along with this, considering the user of the exhibit has not had the most access to museum education regarding science, technology, engineering, and math due to location, the exhibit needs to feature an ample amount of background information in order to properly and successfully educate the intended audience. Providing the user with a solid background gives them the ability to actually learn from the exhibit, but not only will background information be important, but the amount of total information that the user is given will need to be enough to please them as well. Failing to provide enough information is something the group must account for, but also overloading the user with information to the point that it goes over their head is also something we must be aware of. In order to successfully implement our project and for the exhibit to successfully educate the user, the right amount of information must be presented.

 

Lastly, the user of this project is interested in the fields of STEM, meaning they will already have an interest in the subjects that the project will address which are solar energy and solar panels, however, it is still important that the exhibit is still engaging and fun. Similarly to the amount of information that needs to be included, the exhibit should not be overly fun to the point that the purpose is no longer education. The exhibit must balance the educational and fun aspects of it to make sure the user takes something away from it, and for the project to be a success. Providing the users with the right amount of information and properly educating them through our exhibit is a very big factor, but addressing the right information to them is something the group will need to work on as well. Research was conducted on solar energy and solar panels along with research pertaining to the right way to organize and produce our exhibit which gave inspiration and direction for how I designed the project and its subsequent success.

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Different phases of the project can be found in the pictures below!​