How public gardens and arboreta evaluate their education programs determines the stories they can tell about those programs’ ability to positively impact their targeted audience and the broader community, and to build collaborations with research institutions. The feedback evaluations provide is critical to improving and adapting programs to have broader and more meaningful impacts.
Staff from The Morton Arboretum, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and North Carolina Botanical Garden will recap the process and findings of three very different programs and their evolving evaluations, as examples of how these practices can provide institutions with the data they need in order to capture the impact of their programs and provide suggestions for how to make those programs even better. Assessment instruments will be shared, along with the process that went into developing them and how they might be replicated at other institutions.
Presenters: J. Joslin, Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; J. Massey Lelekacs, North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill, NC; M. Wheeler-Dubas, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Pittsburgh, PA
