Past Projects

Below are selected projects that we have completed. 

 

Evaluation Capacity Building

As part of an IMLS-funded Museums Empowered grant (#MA-40-18-0548-18) Jill has served as an evaluation consultant to the High Desert Museum for three years, helping to define an institutional logic model, build knowledge and skills around evaluation through workshops, trainings, and mentoring, and develop an institutional evaluation plan to support sustainability of evaluative thinking across the organization and accountability and relevance to audiences into the future.

 

Roots of Wisdom

Roots of Wisdom (NSF DRL #1010559) was an NSF-funded informal science learning grant that supported collaborative partnerships between OMSI and four Native communities, including Native Hawaiians, Eastern Band Cherokee, Tulalip Tribes, and the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla, which resulted in a 2,000 square foot traveling exhibit, banner exhibit, toolkit, and staff guide. Along with Native Pathways, Jill co-led the summative evaluation of this four-year project in order to document impacts and lessons learned for both the partnership and public audience levels.

 

Weaving Stories

A three-year project funded by IMLS (#MA-40-17-0639-17), this collaboration between the Museum at Warm Springs and the High Desert Museum was designed to build capacity at both museums for engaging audiences in learning around Indigenous worldviews, cultures, and histories of the Indigenous Plateau region, as well as building skills around reciprocal collaboration across a tribal and non-tribal museum. Jill led an ongoing process evaluation with Native Pathways to support the partnership’s growth, identify and track key project goals, and document outcomes. The evaluation process used PhotoVoice and Talk Story dialogues to create space for sharing learning, building relationships, and developing trust through sharing stories and experiences around bridging Indigenous and Western worldviews.

 

Ways of Knowing

This three year project funded by IMLS (# MA-10-17-0177-17) is a collaboration between the Wild Center (Tupper Lake, NY), Akwesasne Cultural Center Museum (Akwesasne), Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center (Onichota, NY), and the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment (State University of New York, Syracuse), designed to increase the ability of all partners to bridge gaps between Native knowledge and western science through exhibits, programs, and a youth internship. Jill led the formative and summative evaluation for Ways of Knowing, along with Native Pathways, focusing on creating reflective spaces for dialogue, building relationship and trust, and documenting outcomes for partners and public audiences. The evaluation team used PhotoVoice, interviews, written reflections, and Talk Story dialogues to document the process and impacts of the project. This included co-creating concepts, designs and plans that: a) reinterpreted a living aquatic exhibit in The Wild Center’s permanent exhibit hall from a Haudenosaunee (Mohawk) worldview; b) developed a canoe outing based on indigenous ecological knowledge and western science; c) trained and shared summer interns across the three museum partners; and d) adapted and replicated a portion of the new interpretive elements made for the TWC exhibit for presentation at the other two partner sites.

 

Our Universes Summative Evaluation

The inaugural exhibition of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, entitled “Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World,” opened in 2004 and focused on Indigenous cosmologies and worldviews of the universe, and the relationship between humankind and the natural world. The 7,910-square foot exhibition featured more than 900 cultural items throughout eight community-curated galleries and three pan-tribal spaces. In order to better understand how visitors experience and make meaning out of the Our Universes exhibition, Jill co-lead a summative evaluation of Our Universes with Native Pathways. The evaluation team used exit surveys (n=319); exit interviews (n=43); observations (n=49), and reflective tracking (n=52) to better understand who visited the exhibition, how visitors engaged with and reacted to the space, and what main messages visitors were taking away from the exhibition.

 

Rural Activation and Innovation Network (RAIN)

As part of the Rural Activation and Innovation Network (RAIN), an NSF-funded initiative (DRL #161255) designed to build local, place-based networks in Rural Arizona to support STEM learning and outreach across diverse communities, Jill led a three-phase research effort to explore the ways in which people see STEM in relation to themselves and in the context of their community.
Key research questions included: 1) How do individuals in rural areas perceive themselves and their community in relation to STEM, within the context of their overall perceptions of STEM?; 2) What might a community-based STEM identity look like, and how can this be documented or measured?; and 3) How might individual STEM identity be associated with community STEM identity? Findings have been disseminated through multiple research briefs, developed in collaboration with the Center of Science and Industry, as well as in multiple forthcoming publications.

 

Future Focused Education – Theory of Change

Using processes grounded in an Indigenous worldview, Reimagine Research Group and Native Pathways supported Future Focused Education (FFE) in developing a Theory of Change designed to create shared language and understanding around FFE’s vision and mission, identify visions of success from a community-centered perspective, and build a road map for evaluation processes across the organization’s partnerships, initiatives and programs. To do this, the evaluation team conducted a series of 10 listening sessions with key shareholder groups (including FFE staff and board, school and community leaders, educators, youth, community partners, and education policy leaders) in a Theory of Change process funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. A visual road map and narrative report were developed in order to guide FFE’s collective pathway forward and determine a process for continuous evaluation and learning.

 

Fernhill Wetlands Visitor Study

Reimagine Research Group was engaged in a partnership with Mason Bee Interpretive Planning during the Discovery Phase of an effort to develop a Visitor Experience Plan for the Fernhill Wetlands in Forest Grove, OR. RRG staff conducted a visitor study using exit surveys, an online survey, and community member interviews to understand the types and motivations of visitors, how visitors experience the wetland, and to what extent visitors understand the wetland’s unique role in the community.

Since we design each project to suit your specific needs and context, we recommend that you contact us for a free 60-minute consultation to discuss your research or evaluation needs and how we might best work together.