Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) is a user-friendly web site and database that shares butterfly and moth species information with the public via dynamic maps, checklists, and species pages. BAMONA data are updated regularly and come from a variety of sources, including citizen scientists. Individuals can get involved by documenting butterflies and moths in their neighborhoods and submitting photographs for review. Collaborating lepidopterists serve as coordinators and oversee quality control. Submitted data are verified, added to the database, and then made available through the web site.
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Butterfly and Moth Information NetworkKelly LottsThomas Naberhaus
The Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, PA requests NSF support for a three-year model program entitled "Partnerships for Acheiving Careers in Technology and Science" (PACTS). Building upon a successful pilot project involving African-American students and mentors, PACTS aims to foster positive attitudes about science careers and increase students leadership skills and self-estee. Through bi-weekly hands-on science workshops with African-American Scientists as mentors, students will strengthen their understanding of science concepts and enhance their critical thinking skills. On alternate Saturdays, students will participate in college/career workshops. PACTS students will also have the opportunity to tutor younger students, visit science laboratories, and serve as science museum demonstrators. Additional support and encouragment will be provided through a network of community resources involving partnerships among scientists, professional associations, community centers, corporations and a science center. The PACTS model will be disseminated nationally through museum conferences, the national networks of professional associations and corporations, and presentations by PACTS staff to interested organizations in other cities.
A three-year project, Science Experiences and Resources for Informal Education Settings (SERIES), involves collaboration between the 4-H Youth Development Program, practicing scientists, science education centers, and community service agencies to provide community-based science experiences for youth. Goals for national dissemination of the SERIES project are: 1) Increase the quality and quantity of science experiences for youth as leaders and as learners; 2) For youth to actively experience how science concepts and processes relate to their everyday lives; 3) Provide opportunities for youth to take positive leadership roles in their homes and communities; and 4) Provide opportunities for youth to investigate educational and career possibilities in science and technology through a scientist mentor relationship. SERIES builds upon the materials, and instructional/coaching model successfully developed and tested during the Califronia SERIES Project. National dissemination by 4-H assures SERIES availability to the 5,100,000 youth currently enrolled in 4-H. Expected outcomes of SERIES are: 1) Refine and produce final versions in English and Spanish of four SERIES community service science units; 2) Develop two new units; 3) Development of an "inquiry coaching" module for adult volunteers; 4) Develop and asses apprentice-like mentoring experiences for SERIES teens to work directly with scientists; and 5) Establish four SERIES regional dissemination centers, working collaboratively with 4-H, science centers and other youth serving agencies to provide national dissemination of the SERIES program model to 28 states.
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Richard PonzioLaurel DeanHerbert Thier
This proposal calls for development, over five years, of a national, interactive, telecommunications-supported Network of 85 or more affiliated neighborhood technology learning centers in inner cities and other impoverished areas, for the purpose of attracting, and then nurturing underserved peoples' active involvement with math, science, and technology. Network affiliates will provide informal opportunities for disadvantaged minority young people and their families and friends to get access to, and learn to use, the most powerful tool for personal empowerment yet known, to engage in explorations designed to increase awareness of their ability to do math and science and of the potential for careers in these areas, and, through telecommunications, to involve themselves with distant peer groups in collaborative investigations. Such opportunities present attractive and cost-effective alternatives to the dead ends that street life, drugs, incarceration, and/or welfare offer. Success in achieving these goals depends, however, on the availability of continuing programmatic and staff development assistance, and on the ability of Network members to engage, not as disparate entities, but as a mutually supportive community, in this momentous task. Proposed Network services include (in addition to telecommunications linkages) the identification, development, and dissemination of technology-mediated math and science activities appropriate to community education, consultative planning and technical assistance, staff development workshops, the development of a resource database, and an annual all-affiliates meeting -- all these to be accompanied by systematized self-assessment procedures. Also included is the development of a Network infrastructure to support continued existence of the Network beyond the grant period.
Acting on behalf of a group of academic, educational and public-service organizations the University of California-Santa Barbara proposes to improve aquatic science education in informal settings that include youth-service organizations such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, Boys and Girls Clubs and 4-H. The specific emphasis will be on the close interdependence between humans and the aquatic environment and on the need for enlightened social action in defense of that environment. The thrusts of the project will be to establish the California Aquatic Science Education Consortium; to develop multiple copes of sets of instructional materials on topic of aquatic science appropriate for informal educational settings; and to develop a program for training a cadre of trainers who in turn will train volunteers in the use of the materials. The program has a significant potential for broader national application.
The Discovery Center is a "hands-on" science museum with a mission to provide the public with a basic science literacy. The proposed HOFPP project is an outreach program that will take an informal science education activity to disadvantaged parents and children in the facilities of four (first year) collaborating "parents": The Urban League, the Spanish Action League, the North American Indian Club and Girls Inc. of Central NY. The purpose of the program is to encourage and enable parents of disadvantaged school children to play an active role in their child child's education. Phase I of the program is implemented as a series of ten weekly classes in which parents and children will work together on hands-on science activities; Phase 2 follows with a science club program. Graduates will be informally channeled into an inner-city magnet school for science and math. Past Discovery Center outreach programs have already demonstrated ability to attract disadvantaged parents. The proposed program will touch 1,000 disadvantaged persons during the initial three-year period. During the third year the HOFPP project will be transported and implemented at a Science museum in another New York State community. A three year cost-shared NSF project is proposed that will be later sustained by The Discovery Center operating budget with local donations. A professional outside evaluation will be performed to measure program success. Program reports, materials and consultation will be propagated to other interested organizations to gain maximum impact.
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Rachel NettletonMary StebbinsAnnette SalsberyElizabeth Kneale
The New York Hall of Science requests $829,312 over four years to develop and circulate a traveling version of "Hidden Kindoms - The World of York Hall of Science in April, 1991. The traveling version will consist of: an introductory panel; 16 Easy-View microscopes exhibiting living microbes; units dealing with size, scale and magnification; two interactive computer programs entitled "Understanding AIDS" and "How Your Body Fights Disease"; a video microscope for the Microscopic Life demonstration; units on virusesand bacteria; a mosaic of color transparencies of different microorganisms; one Optech (BYOB) interactive video microscope; three zoetropes illustrating mcrobial movement; and a mini-laboratory room containing all the equipment and materials necessary for maintaining the exhibit and presenting the MICROLAB workshops to students and teachers. The 1,500 square foot exhibit will travel to nine sites over three years. The new York Hall of Science will provide on-site training in estasblishing and maintaining the exhibit, a weekly shipment of microrganisms and supporting materials, an exhibit catalog, an 11-minute video featuring living microbes, pre- and post- visit materisla for schools with suggested activities , and programs for student and teacher workshops. A novel feature of this traveling exhibition will be the opportunity for the host museum to retain, on a cost-share basis, the mini- laboratory with its equipment and four Easy-View microscopes which can become the core of a microbiology program. Biology, Microbiology; Informal Science Education; Elementary, Middle and High School
A three-year project, Science And Youth (SAY), integrates the existing curriculum, instructional design, and training capacity of the 4-H Science Experiences and Resources for Informal Educational Settings (SERIES) project with high school students exploring careers in teaching at eleven existing "teaching magnet" high schools across the country. The SAY project expands the quantity and quality of informal science education experiences by accomplishing the following objectives: 1) prepare one thousand teenage teachers/leaders to present SAY activities to forty thousand elementary school age youth: 2) involve participating youth in a total of five hundred community service projects; 3) involve five hundred teenage leaders in mentoring relationships with local scientists, and; 4) have seventy-five percent of the participants continue their education in science and/or the teaching profession. SAY uses a teens-as-leaders model to engage younger youth (ages 9-13) in hands-on, inquiry-based science activities that result in science-based community services projects. SAY offers youngsters a vehicle for experiencing how science problem solving strategies are applied to home and community problems. The pedagogy of the SAY project represents the best of current research on science education, and offers an innovative model for the preparation of a new cadre of science teachers.
In the Fall of 1994 The New York Botanical Garden will begin its second 100 years of commitment to science education with the opening of the Children's Adventure Garden and the Children's Adventure Trails. As two components of the Children's Adventure Project , these informal science education facilities will use participatory discovery to engage urban children and their families in learning botanical science, inquiry skills, positive attitudes towards science, and the methods of scientists. In the 1.5 acre Adventure Garden children will interact with living plants and fabricated exhibits to discover fundamental principles of plant biology; and in the one mile of Adventure Trails they will closely observe interdependencies of complex ecosystems using the framework of these fundamental principles. To expand visitor understanding of plant biology and the ways that scientists study it, Investigation Stations, integral components of each facility, will be placed so that visitors will handle, sense, and observe living plants in situ and interact with fabricated exhibits and scientific tools. The Project will be developed by NYBG staff educators and scientists with on-going participation of a broad spectrum of advisors and consultants, including exhibition designers, evaluators, community school teachers, and environmental education specialists.
The Youth Experiences in Science (YES) Project of the 4-H Center at UC, Davis will produce, pilot and evaluate an informal science education curriculum expressly designed for 5-9 year olds in school-age child care (SACC) settings. Seven thematic units will be developed (three in both English and Spanish versions), utilizing the basic design process and instructional model developed in the earlier SERIES Project. Each unit consists of engaging hands-on activities performed with inexpensive materials and incorporating home and neighborhood service applications. During the three years approximately 500 teenage volunteers will deliver the program to approximately 2,500 children through a network of existing SACC sites operated by 4-H and other community groups. Capitalizing on SACC settings, the program will collaborate with schools and reach out to parents through development of "Science Family Backpacks" and "Science Family Activity Nights." Program evaluation includes in-depth monitoring and use of multiple assessment instruments and measures at 25 selected sites. In addition to formative and summative evaluation, data will be available on parent involvement and the amount, nature, and durability of positive influences on participants' school science interest and success.
The Health Museum (THM) is requesting $868,108 over 30 months to create a 3,600 sq. ft. permanent exhibit containing seven Body Stops components, which will maintain THM's science literacy focus by linking concepts of human biology to everyday experience through visitor exploration of the human body's seen and unseen operating systems. Ancillary instructional materials and programs will be produced. The educational goals of the project are to: 1. Promote understanding of the basic biological sciences in the context of the human life cycle and health; 2. Present vital basic science information through an active and accessible exhibit environment which complements formal science education; 3. Develop an appreciation of basic human biological sciences as they are presented similarly across all people and an appreciation of human variability as these biological processes are played out in the individual. The target audiences are families, urban youth, and student and teacher groups.
Blackside, Inc. is producing a television series and an outreach component about minority scientists. The goals of the six-hour prime-time series, "Breakthrough: People of Color in Science," are to raise the consciousness of the general public that is largely unaware of the significant contribution of scientists of color and to provide role models that will encourage young people to consider science and engineering careers. The programs will feature the work of contemporary African-American, Latino and Native American scientists and engineers who are active in cell biology, astrophysics, applied mathematics and other fields of science. The stories of their scientific achievements will present both women and men, old and young, at different stages of their careers, and will explore the professional, educational and social worlds they live and work in. Viewers will have immediate access to a comprehensive follow-up effort that will connect them with local, regional and national opportunities in informal science education. Blackside will collect information from existing resources and institutions as well using source material from several extensively researched databases geared toward minority students. Using all of this information, Blackside will create a metadatabase that will connect teachers, parents, mentors, and students to a rich variety of educational programs: extracurricular classes, mentoring programs, national science contests, teacher training workshops, and a myriad of on-line services. To ensure immediate access and, where possible, to customize the information to viewers needs, Blackside will disseminate it through a variety of means: an 800-number with a direct fax-back capability, an on-line service, a CD-ROM, and a printed packet delivered by mail. A principal target audience is gatekeepers in students' lives: parents, teachers, and scientists interested in becoming mentors. The target audience also includes students from fourth th rough twelfth grades. Joseph Blatt will serve a PI for this project and co-executive producer for the television series. His previous experience include serving as executive producer of "Scientific American FRONTIERS" and as a producer/director for several NOVA programs. He also has been executive producer for three television series/college credit courses in mathematics. Henry Hampton will be the other co-executive producer. He was the creator and executive producer of the 14-hour, award winning series, "Eyes on the Prize," about America's civil rights movement. The principal educational consultant will be Ceasar McDowell, assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Michael Ambrosino, the original executive producer of NOVA, will be the principal science television consultant.