Families at the Center of Informal Science and Engineering Learning: Caregiver-Child Conversations, Co-Designing with Communities, and Policy Directions

Long before children enter school, the conversations and stories families share at home and in informal learning environments such as museums shape their early science and engineering learning. Families across cultural and linguistic communities engage in rich conversational practices that represent powerful resources for children's developing science and engineering knowledge, skills, and identities. Informal learning institutions are uniquely positioned to connect with these family practices through exhibit and program design. Drawing on research on museum-based learning, family storytelling, and community-engaged co-design, this paper identifies three policy directions: co-designing exhibits and programs with families as partners to align informal learning environments with family practices, supporting story-centered programming that builds on families’ own cultural practices and knowledge, and investing in sustained partnerships among university researchers, museum practitioners, and the families and communities they serve. Together, these directions suggest that expanding access must be paired with learning environments designed to build on the practices families already use to foster their children's learning.