Conference Presentations & Invited Talks

2017

Evans, E. M, Palmquist, S & Weiss, M (April, 2017). Counting on Counterintuitive Concepts to Make Museum Exhibits Meaningful. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX. 2016 Evans, E. M. (December, 2016). Helping Children (and their Parents) Understand Evolution. Pacific Science Center, Seattle, WA

Evans, E. M., Distel, L., Palmquist, S., & Weiss, M (August, 2016). Scientific and Intuitive Reasoning among Adults and Youth after an Informal STEM Learning Experience. Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Denver, CO.

2015 Evans, E. M. (August, 2015). Bringing "Big Data" to the Table: Two Methods of Analyzing the Impact of an Interactive Visualization. Gordon Research Conference on Visualization, Bates College, Maine

Horn, M. S., Phillips, B., Evans, E. M. Block, F., Diamond, J., & Shen, C (April, 2015). Visualizing the Tree of Life: Learning Around an Interactive Visualization of Biological Data in Museums. Annual International Conference of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching, Chicago, Il.

Phillips, B., Evans, E. M., Horn, M. S., Block, F., Diamond, J., & Shen, C (March, 2015). Folk Biology at Work: How children and adults reason about the relationship between Humans and Other Animals. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Philadelphia, PA.

Lane, J. D., Wellman, H. W., & Evans, E. M. (Feb. 2015). Investigating the Cognitive and Cultural Foundations of Prayer. Why Prayer? A Conference on New Directions n the Study of Prayer: Social Science Research Council. New York, NY.

2014 Evans, E. M. & Weiss, M. (August, 2014). The Spiral Model: Integrating Research and Exhibit Development to Foster Conceptual Change. Workshop on Fostering Cognitive Development in Museum Settings, Brown University, Providence, RI. 2013 Evans, E. M. (October, 2013). Leveraging Intuitive Reasoning: STEM Learning in Informal Settings. Developmental Psychology, University of Michigan.

Lane, J. D., Wellman, H. W., Evans, E. M., Dolins, F., Blumer, D., Cooper, A., Alame, N., Haddix, A., & Stankovich, M. (October, 2013). Children's and Adults' Understanding of Prayer as a Form of Communication. Biennial Meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Memphis, Tn.

Gulgoz, S., Lane, J. D., Wellman, H. W., Evans, E. M & Dolins, F. (October, 2013). The Development of a Concept of Omniscience among Muslim Children and Adults. Biennial Meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Memphis, Tn.

Evans, E. M, Phillips, B.C., Horn, M.S., Block, F., Diamond, J., & Shen, C (April, 2013). Active Prolonged Engagement: When Does it Become Active Prolonged "Learning"? Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle, WA.

Phillips, B.C., Evans, E. M, Horn, M.S., Block, F., Diamond, J., & Shen, C (April, 2013). How is a Human Like a Banana? Conceptions of Humans as Part of the Natural World. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle, WA

Evans, E. M & Mull, M., (April, 2013). Deconstructing a Naïve Metaphysics: Developing conceptions of the Natural and the Supernatural. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle, WA.

2012 Evans, E. M. (April, 2012). Learning about controversial science, informally. The case of evolution. Learning Sciences, Northwestern University.

Chua, K. C., Qin, Y., Block, F., Phillips, B. C., Diamond, J., Evans, E. M., Horn, M., & Chia, S. (2012): FloTree: A Multi-touch Interactive Simulation of Evolutionary Processes.2012 To appear in the demo session in the 2012 ACM Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces Conference.

Horn, M.S., Leong, Z. A., Block, F., Diamond, J., Evans, E. M., Phillips, B.C., & Shen, C (2012). Of BATs and APEs: Designing an interactive tabletop game for natural history museums. Computer-human interaction. (CHI'12)

2011

Evans, E. M. (October, 2011). Acquiring Religious Concepts in Childhood. McGill Center for Research on Religion: Lecture series on Religion and the Brain. McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Evans, E. M. (October, 2011). Encountering Counterintuitive Ideas: Building a Developmental Learning Progression for Evolution Understanding. In Lane, J. (Chair). Developing Natural and Supernatural Counterintuitive Concepts. Biennial Meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Philadelphia, PA

Evans, E. M., & Lane, J. D. (October, 2011). "Charlie and Kiwi's evolutionary adventure" Integrating narrative into exhibit design. In Weiss, M. (Chair). Narrative and exhibit design: Science learning through stories. Annual Meeting of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, Baltimore, MD

Evans, E. M. (April, 2011). Learning About Evolution, Informally. Webinar for the Environmental Literacy Project: Michigan State University and Colorado State University [http://edr1.educ.msu.edu/EnvironmentalLit/index.htm]

Evans, E. M. & Lane, J. D. (April, 2011). Understanding evolution: A proposed learning progression from children's everyday intuitions to counterintuitive concepts of common descent and natural selection In Brown, K. (Chair). Early Cognitive Abilities for Learning Math and Science: Implications for Instruction from the National Science Foundations REESE Program. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Lane, J. D., Liqi, Z., Nagrotsky, A. L, Zavitz, S., Evans, E. M. & Wellman, H. M. (April, 2011). Developing concepts of the afterlife: A cross-cultural investigation. Presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Montreal, Canada

Lane, J. D., Hetherington, C. C., Emerick, J. K., Leider, B. M. & Evans, E. M (April, 2011)). Building on children's intuitions: How an informal learning experience changes children's minds about evolution. Presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Montreal, Canada

Evans, E. M. (January, 2011). Creationism: What is it? How do you catch it? Pre-Conference: Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Antonio, Texas

 2010

Evans, E. M., Lane, J. D., & Weiss, M. (October, 2010). Authentic objects and children's understanding of evidence: The case of archaeopteryx. In Martin, J. (Chair). From Object to Evidence: Rethinking What's Real in Science Museums? Annual Meeting of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, Hawaii.

Weiss, M., Evans, E. M., Lane, J. D., Storksdieck, M. & Palmquist, S. (October, 2010). If we build it will they learn? Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, Hawaii.

Weiss, M., & Evans, E. M. (October, 2010). Presenting Essential Modern Science: Evolution, Climate Change, and Biotechnology. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, Hawaii.

Evans, E. M., Frazier, B., Hazel, A., Kiss, A., Lane, J. D., Spiegel, A. N., & Diamond, J. (August, 2010). Tree-thinking: Do pictorial representations of evolution help or hinder museum visitors' understanding? Understanding the Tree of Life Conference, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh

Lane, J. D., Liqi, Z., Wellman, H. M., Evans, E. M., & Zavitz, S. (August, 2010). Developing concepts of the afterlife: A cross-cultural investigation. In Bering, J. (Chair), How do we acquire religion? Presented at the 20th World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, Toronto.

Evans, E. M. (June, 2010). What do visitors really know about evolution? How we know what they know? Beyond Diffusion: Science of Science Education Lecture Series. Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC. [videos of the series made available on museum and science center listserves]

Evans, E. M. (May, 2010). Creationism is not the (only) problem: Cognitive constraints on an understanding of evolution. Interdisciplinary Program in Culture and Cognition. Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Evans, E. M. (March, 2010). The evolution revolution: Our genes, our evolution, and the color of our skin. Sponsored by Community Based Organization Partners (CBOP), the Center for Public Health and Community Genomics, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Flint, MI

Evans, E. M., (March, 2010). (With S. Brem and G. Sinatra) Evolution Challenges: Integrating research on the teaching and learning of evolution. REESE Principal Investigators Meeting, National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C.

Evans, E. M. & Lane, J., Hetherington, C. & Emerick, J. (March, 2010). (With M. Weiss) Changing children's minds about evolution: A research study in an informal setting. Division of Informal Science Education (ISE), Principal Investigators Meeting, National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C.

Evans, E. M., & Lane, J. D. (February, 2010). Changing Children's Minds About Evolution: A Research Study. In Weiss, M. (Chair). Mind Changes: Can out-of-school learning contribute to evolution literacy? Annual meeting of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, San Diego, CA.

2009

Evans, E. M., Spiegel, J., & Diamond, J. (April 2009). Contradictory or Complementary? Creationist and Evolutionist Explanations of Origins. In Legare, C. (Chair). Using Religion and Science to Explain the Riddles of Existence: The Case of Origins, Disease, and Death. To be presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.

Tare, M., Frazier, B., French, J., Evans, E. M., & Diamond, J. (April 2009). Parents' Scaffolding of Children's Learning at an Evolution Exhibition. In Frazier, B. (Chair). Family Conversations in Museum Settings: How do They Contribute to Children's Science Learning? To be presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.

Lane, J., Wellman, H. W., Evans, & E. M. (April 2009). How do Children Understand the Mental and Perceptual Capacities of Super-Humans. To be presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.

Lane, J., Legare, C., French, J., Kiss, A., & Evans, E. M. (April 2009). Anthropomorphizing Nature: What Effect Does it Have on Understanding? To be presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.

Szymanowski-Price, K., Evans, E. M., & Smith, P. (April 2009). How versus Why? The Development of Causal Flexibility in Children's Reasoning. To be presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.

2008

Evans, E. M. (October, 2008). Bridging the gap: From everyday explanation to scientific explanation (using museum objects). In Weiss, M. (Chair). Visitors and Scientists: Are they Speaking the Same Language? Annual Meeting of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, Philadelphia.

Evans, E. M., Weiss, M., Koke, J., Storksdieck, S., & Kennedy, J. (July, 2008). Conversations Across Disciplines: From Theory to Practice-The Spiral Model. Panel Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Visitor Studies Association, Houston, TX.

Pollock, W., Weiss, M., Rand, J., Evans, E. M., & Koke, J. (April, 2008). Visitors and Scientists: Are they Speaking the Same Language? Panel Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Museums, Denver CO.

2007

French, J., Tare, M., Frazier, B., Wolfgram, S., Evans, E. M. & Diamond, J. (October, 2007). Informal Museum Learning: Analyzing The Use Of Evolutionary Terms In Parent-Child Conversations. Biennial meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Santa Fe, NM.

Legare, C., Hazel, A., French, J., Witt, A., Evans, E. M. (October, 2007). Children's Understanding Of Evolution: Learning From Museum Exhibits About Natural Selection. Biennial meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Santa Fe, NM.

Evans, E. M., Hazel, A., Nesse, R., Weder, A. B., Murdock, C., Gervasi, S. & Witt, A. (May, 2007). Learning Darwinian medicine: Cognitive and Cultural Constraints. Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, Washington, D.C.

Rosengren, K. S., Evans, E. M., & Anderson, K. A. (March, 2007). Examining the relation between children's understanding of parent-offspring variability and evolution. Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.

Szymanowski, K., Evans, E. M., & Wynn, S. (March, 2007). When do How and Why Questions Elicit Causal Chains? Age-group and Target Differences. Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.

2006

Evans, E. M. (October, 2006). (Mis)understanding evolution: A conceptual development approach. In M. Weiss (Chair) Evolution Exhibitions Today. Annual Meeting of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, Louisville, KY.

Evans, E. M., Spiegel, A., & Diamond, J. (July, 2006). A conceptual guide: Museum visitors explain seven evolutionary problems. In E. Giusti (Chair) Evolution: Current Exhibitions and Public Perceptions. Annual Meeting of the Visitor Studies Association, Grand Rapids, MI.

Evans, E. M., Nesse, R., Hazel, A., Weder, A., Murdock, C. & Mester, J. (April, 2006). Learning Darwinian medicine: Constraints, biases, and bridges. Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Francisco

Evans, E. M., Spiegel, A., Gram, W., Frazier, B. F., Cover, S., Tare, M. & Diamond, J. (April, 2006). A conceptual guide to museum visitors' understanding of evolution. Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Francisco. PDF of Handout (52K)

2005

Evans, E. M., Rosengren, K. S., Szymanowski, K., Smith P. H. & Johnson, K. (October, 2005). Culture, cognition, and creationism. In K. S. Rosengren (Chair), Culture, Cognition, and Folk Biology Symposium conducted at the Biennial meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, San Diego, CA.

Szymanowski, K., Evans, E. M., Smith, P. H. Wynn, S., & Fatkins, E. K. (October, 2005). Age And Question Type Predict Reasoning Pattern When Answering Questions About Adaptive Change. Biennial meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, San Diego, CA

Evans, E. M. (August, 2005). Learning about Evolution. In D. Tannenbaum (Chair) Darwinism, Creationism, and Intelligent Design. Symposium conducted at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, Washington.

Evans, E. M., Mull, M. S., Poling, D. A. & Szymanowski, K. (April, 2005). God as master planner: A late emerging aspect of a theory of mind? In E. Gottlieb (Chair), Development of Religious Thinking: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Symposium conducted at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.

Evans, E. M., Szymanowski, K., Smith P. H. & Rosengren, K. S. (April, 2005). Overcoming an essentialist bias: From metamorphosis to evolution. Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA. PDF of Handout

Szymanowski, K., Smith P. H. & Evans, E. M. (April, 2005). Parent beliefs and child explanations of the origin of species: A developmental mismatch? Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA. PDF of Handout

2003

Evans, E. M. & Poling, D. A. (October, 2003). Causal flexibility in children's and adults' reasoning about living kinds. In Evans, E. M.& Hatano, G. (Co-Chairs), How do children reason about nature? Biennial Meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Park City, Utah.

Evans, E. M., Mull, M. A. & Poling, D. A. (April, 2003). Constructing a naive metaphysics (with help from a naive psychology). In Evans, E. M. (Chair), Alternative realities, decoupled worlds? Magic and religion in the child's mind. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, Tampa, FL.

2002

Evans, E. M. (August, 2002). Cognitive and contextual factors in the emergence of beliefs about origins: God versus Darwin. In Subbotsky, E. (Chair), Causal beliefs in technologically advanced societies: Rationality and magical thinking. 17th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Ottawa, Canada

Poling, D. A. & Evans, E. M. (June, 2002). Concepts of species extinction, adaptation and evolution are influenced by religious worldviews. American Psychological Society, New Orleans.

Evans, E. M. (April, 2002). Children's ideas about the emergence of new species: Intelligent design or adaptation? In Hatano, G. (Chair), The evolution of the evolution concept: Effects of intervention. Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, New Orleans.

2001

Mull, M. S. & Evans, E. M. (October, 2001). Did she mean to do it? Factors influencing children's understanding of the mental states underlying intentional acts. Biennial Meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Virginia Beach, VA

Evans, E. M., Poling, D., & Mull, M. (April, 2001). Confronting the existential questions: Children's understanding of death and origins. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, Minneapolis, MN.

Mull, M. S. & Evans, E. M. (April, 2001). Magic can happen in that world (but not this one): Theory of mind understanding and children's explanations for illusory events. In Mull, M. S., (Chair), Does theory of mind meet magic? Theory of mind reasoning and children's fantasy beliefs. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, Minneapolis.

2000

Poling, D. A., Evans, E. M., & Gonela, N. (June, 2000). Age-related changes in explanations for the behaviors of animals and plants. Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. Montreal, Canada.

Mull, M. S., & Evans, E. M. (June, 2000). When appearances really are deceptive: Does understanding the reality of an event influence how children explain illusory and ordinary transformations? Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. Montreal, Canada.

Kishel, C. A., Funk, J. B., & Evans, E. M. (August, 1999). Facilitating children’s emotional expression through drawing. Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA.

1999

Poling, D. A., Mull, M. S., & Evans, E. M. (August, 1999). The Internet as an educational tool. Annual Meeting of American Psychological Association, Boston, MA.

Mull, M. S., & Evans, E. M. (April, 1999). Did a magician do it? Did God? Or, did it change by itself? Explaining natural and unnatural transformations. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development , Albuquerque, NM.

1998

Poling, D. A., & Evans, E. M. (June, 1998). Children's and adults' explanations for the behavior of humans and other animal groups. Jean Piaget Symposium on Language and Literacy. Chicago, IL.

Amendola, R. J., Kreuchauf, M. S., & Evans, E. M. (June 1998). Is it magic? Children’s and adults' conceptions of ordinary, trick, and natural events. Jean Piaget Symposium on Language and Literacy. Chicago, IL.

1997

Evans, E. M., & Poling, D. (June, 1997). Cultural and cognitive factors in the emergence of diverse belief systems: Creationist versus evolutionist. Paper presented at the Jean Piaget Symposium on Culture, Thought and Development. Santa Monica, CA.

Barry, D., Elliott, R., & Evans., E. M. (April, 1997). The case of Arab immigrants living in the US. Fourth Annual Research Symposium: Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Ohio, Toledo, OH.

Evans, E. M., Stewart, S. F., & Poling D. A. (April, 1997). Humans have a privileged status: Parental explanations for the origins of human and non-human species. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, Washington, DC.

Poling, D. A., Vidic, J. M., & Evans, E. M. (April, 1997). The emergence of theories about origins: Children confront the existential question. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, Washington, DC.

Before 1997

Vidic, J. M., Bacon, L., Nelson, J., & Evans, E. M (August, 1996). Acquiring expertise in psychology: The role of students' naive concepts Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada.

Evans, E. M., Gelman, S. A., Vidic, J. M., & Poling, D. (March, 1996). Artificialism revisited: Preschoolers' explanations for the origins of artifacts and natural kinds. Conference on Human Development, Birmingham, Alabama.

Evans, E. M., Andress, C. A., & Stewart, S. F. (March, 1995). God or Nature? The role of essentialism in the development of beliefs about origins. In Evans, E. M. (Chair), Psychological Essentialism and causal reasoning: Children's beliefs across domains and in different social contexts. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, Indianapolis, IN.

Evans, E. M., Stewart, S. F., & Andress, C. A. (March, 1995). Mind and Society: Factors affecting the emergence of creationist and evolutionist beliefs. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, Indianapolis.

Evans, E. M. (March, 1993b). The role of "interest" in the acquisition of knowledge: Cultural similarities; gender differences. (Abstracts) Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, 9, p. 344.

Evans, E. M. (March, 1993a). Gender differences in achievement and attitudes: Changes from Elementary School to High School. In S-Y. Lee (Chair), Long-term predictors of achievement and adjustment among Chinese, Japanese, and American High School Students. (Abstracts) Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, 9, p. 134.

Evans, E. M. (March, 1992). Achievement and achievement-related beliefs in Asian and Western contexts: Cultural and gender differences. In C. Flanagan (Chair) Cross-cultural perspectives on adolescence: Achievements, concerns, norms, and beliefs. (Abstracts) Society for Research on Adolescence, Fourth Biennial Meeting, p. 62, Washington, DC

Evans, M. E., Chen C., & Schweingruber, H. (August, 1991). "Common knowledge" across three continents: Chinese, Hungarian, Japanese and United States students' performance. (Abstracts) 11th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Minneapolis, MN.

Thomas, N. G., Fiske, V., & Evans, M. E. (April, 1991). Doing policy research: A collaboration of schools and academe on a study of parent involvement. Presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the Michigan Educational Research Association, Novi, Michigan.

Thomas, N. G., Fiske, V., Evans, M. E., David, Y., & Bardouille, A. (March, 1991). Parental Involvement: Effects of three types on child achievement and mother's satisfaction with her child's school. (Abstracts) Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development, 8, p. 476.

Evans, M. E. (March, 1991). Understanding fossils, dinosaurs, and the origins of species: Ontogenetic and historic comparisons. (Abstracts) Society for Research in Child Development, 8, p. 246.

Evans, M., Barber, B. L., Gadsden, V. L., Paris, S. G., & Park, S-H. (March, 1989). What knowledge do parents have about educational assessment tests? (Abstracts) Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research In Child Development. 7, p. 236 .