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Hello, all:

I am looking for research on workbench/lunch counter type activities, where visitors gather at a table of "loose parts" and engage with them.  We are curious about facilitation, operational aspects, visitor engagement, duration of participation, oh, and [can of worms alert] "learning" too.  Also different degrees of open ended-ness, from a table full of zoobs to an earthquake table to a circuit building table...

I know about the APE report, and the PIE activities/web site, both of which are very useful (anyone not familiar with either of these, I recommend checking them out at the explo site).  Any other actual research would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if people have particularly cool versions of these types of activities, or anecdotes about successes/failures I'd be glad to know about them.

Thanks!

Eric Siegel
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