"Il ciclotrone" is the weekly science programme of "Radio Popolare - Popolare Network". During the last 12 years, once or twice a month listeners have been able to directly ask questions to the guest scientists in the studios, or to express their point of view on some controversial scientific issue. Phone-ins at Radio Popolare are not filtered; regular and occasional listeners are used to communicate with or through the radio, and in doing so they contribute to the sense of spontaneity which characterise the programmes.
A pilot study of five episodes in the Cyberchase series was conducted in late Fall 2001. The study was designed to assess the broad educational value, impact and appeal of the series, and to pilot the approach and instrumentation for a more extensive study in the spring of 2002. The study included more than 450 children and 20 teachers. Cyberchase is the Emmy Award-winning mathematics series and website on PBS KIDS GO! using broadcast, web, new media and educational outreach to impact millions nationwide. Designed for children ages 8 to 11 and packed with mystery, humor, and action, Cyberchase
The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) is implementing a new, 41-month phase and augmentation of a national public service advertising campaign that was launched in 1995. The Math is Power campaign was developed by NACME in partnership with The Advertising Council toward the goal of creating an increase in the number of students who graduate from high school with prerequisite courses to enroll in any rigorous, math- or science-based undergraduate program. The current project is designed to reach all students but is especially targeted to groups currently underrepresented in math and science and will be anchored by highly directed television, radio, print, and outdoor advertising. The new phase will introduce a Math is Power interactive web site. The website will allow NACME to add direct services to the information packets that are sent to students and parents who respond to the public service advertising. It will include: content relevant, age appropriate math challenges, games, problems, and contests; a national registry of math opportunities where students, parents, and teachers can find mathematics resources; an on-line special events chat room; and a best practices bulletin board. NACME will coordinate their outreach efforts with services such as the Community Technology Center Network (CTCnet) in order to facilitate web access for youth and parents in disadvantaged neighborhoods. They also will work directly with 25 cities with the greatest numbers of citizens who fall in the target population. Math and Science education services in these cities will be able to localize much of the material through such means as placing a local tag on the television ads. In addition, the NACME production and distribution capabilities will be substantially expanded to meet the tremendous demand for Math Is Power materials.
Twin Cities Public Television is producing the second and third seasons of Dragonfly TV, the science television series targeted at children ages 9 - 12. The series presents children showing their own scientific investigations and sharing the excitement that comes from making their own discoveries. Adult scientists are interspersed among the several groups of children who present research. They present their own research, their discoveries and their love of science. These adult reports are laced with home movies and snapshots of the adults when they were kids, linking childhood experiences to successful careers in science. Outreach for Dragonfly TV consists of a Dragonfly insert in the magazine Explorations, an interactive website where children can share their science investigations and programs at selected Boys and Girls Clubs of America and 4H Clubs. Teacher's Guides will be developed by Miami University of Ohio and distributed through the journals of the National Science Teachers Association.
The Wildlands Project is producing a four-hour television series for PBS and the CBC. The television series, "The Sacred Balance," will feature geneticist and environmental scientist David Suzuki as he examines a new vision of the human place in nature. The series aims to enrich and expand the scientific world view by looking at traditional knowledge, myth, literature and art, and by incorporating aspects of human spirituality into the insights presented by science. The aim of the project is to show that the world-view human beings have celebrated since ancient times is reemerging, transformed, from the laboratories of modern science. Moving away from reductionist techniques, researchers from many different disciplines are studying diversity, whole organisms, systems and relationships that begin in the individual cell and extend to the entire planet. The television series is designed to change the way the public acts in the world by demonstrating that what we do to the Earth we do to ourselves. Dr. Suzuki will work closely with an advisory committee in shaping the series. The members of this committee include: Lane Lubchenco: Professor of Marine Biology and Zoology, Oregon State University David Schindler: Environmental Ecologist, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta E. O. Wilson: Biologist, Harvard University Sylvia Earl: Marine Ecologist and "Explorer in Residence" at the National Geographic Society, Washington, DC James Parks Morton: Former Dean, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, currently at the Interfaith Center of New York The television series will be supplemented by a new, interactive Sacred Balance website and a teachers guide. Ancillary material also will include Dr. Suzuki's trade book, "The Sacred Balance."
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
David SuzukiRobert LangAmanda McConnell
WGBH is producing a three-hour television series about the scientific quest for a unified set of laws governing the universe. The programs, to be broadcast as part of the on-going NOVA series, will place special emphasis on the new development in physics known as string theory. Inspired by Columbia University physicist Brian Greene's best-selling book of the same name, "The Elegant Universe" will explore the ways in which our understanding of matter and forces, space and time have shifted over the years, most recently with the emergence of string theory in the 1980s and its resurgence in the last five years. Greene will play a prominent role in the series, both on camera and as a consultant helping the producers shape the programs. The series, planned for broadcast in the fall of 2002, will communicate critical scientific concepts through filmed experiments, carefully crafted explanations, and the latest in computer animation. Interviews with scientists and historians, re-creations of key breakthroughs in the history of science, and sequences featuring physicists working on today's most pressing problems will allow viewers to share in the excitement of scientific discovery. Outreach material will be developed for the public and for teachers. NOVA Online will produce a rich companion Web site to allow viewers whose interest is piqued by the series to enhance their learning in a number of ways, including interactive animations of famous experiments and essays that go deeper into subjects than the programs could.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Margaret DrainPaula ApsellBarbara Flagg
Twin Cities Public Television, in association with Red Hill Studios, is producing and disseminating an Exploring Time television special and associated outreach material. The project will augment and leverage the Exploring Time traveling exhibit now being developed by the Science Museum of Minnesota (NSF grant #99-01919). The goal of both the exhibit and the television special is to increase the public's understanding of our world by revealing the unseen world of natural change -- the multitude of changes that are occurring in the present but at rates too slow or too fast to be seen. The television special will provide visual explorations of changes that take place over a vast range of timescales -- from billionths of seconds to billions of years. The television series and exhibit will be supplemented by a range of materials. Both low- and high-bandwidth, web-based material will be available and a teacher's guide will be developed for middle school classrooms. A "Time Explorers Toolkit" will be available to both formal and informal learners. This CD-ROM includes detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to create time-lapse movies. The project also will coordinate outreach with the Community Technology Centers Network, the organization that supports technology centers that serve individuals from underrepresented and low-income groups.
The Informal Science Education Program has been supporting the radio series "Living on Earth" for several years. The World Media Foundation is now adding environmental science and technology features to "Living on Earth" and is developing and testing an outreach component that will involve youth as researchers and radio producers. The science and technology features, ranging in length from four to twenty-four minutes, will depart from the usual news-driven reports on the programs. Many of the segments will illustrate basic building blocks of environmental science, technology and related mathematics. Others will profile diverse pioneers in these disciplines. The radio programs will be the framework for an interdisciplinary exploration program for youth. Working with a team of educators from the Antioch University Graduate Program in Environmental Education, the project staff will develop a program in which secondary school aged youth cooperate with peers to produce professional, concise reporting on local environmental issues. Living on Earth will feature the best of the student work on National Public Radio and highlight these pieces as an expanded feature on its website.
Unicorn Projects, Inc. is producing a project about historic mills in American and the science and technology of their operation. The project will combine a nationally broadcast one-hour PBS special with print and interactive educational materials for the home and school markets along with family-oriented personal appearance by host-author David Macaulay at selected museum and mill sites across the country. The goal of the project is to acquaint viewers and participants with the technological innovations and the scientific, social and historical significance of water-powered mills in the early part of the industrial revolution. In addition to the television program the project will produce Mill Times newspapers applicable in formal as well as informal settings, curriculum-based school videos and teachers guides, activity kits including "toys" designed to introduce concepts in applied mechanics, and family-activity programs at selected sites. The PI and Producer/Director will be Larry Klein who has produced and directed the previous Macaulay programs among many other PBS specials. David Macaulay, author of many best-selling books on architecture and technology, will be the host and will work closely with Mark Olshaker, the writer, in developing the script for the program. The Education Director will be Toby Levine. The principal technology and history advisor will be Patrick Malone, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and American Civilization at Brown University and past president of the Society for Industrial Archaeology. The science advisor will be Theodore Ansbacher, principal of Science Services, an informal science education consulting company. Other advisors include Robert Dalzell, Gary Kulik, Judith McGaw, and Merrit Roe Smith.
WGBH is producing twenty, new, half-hour programs for the fourth season of "ZOOM." Uniquely for, by and about kids, "ZOOM" gives its viewers a chance to explore, experiment and share their creativity with the world. Targeted at children 8-11 years-old, "ZOOM" features a diverse cast of seven children who build bridges, solve puzzles, play games, respond to challenges and act out stories, as they bring to life contributions sent in by viewers from across the country. "ZOOM" currently is carried by 281 public broadcasting stations and is viewed by an average of 5.22 million children per week. The "ZOOM" website receives 18,000 - 20,000 visits per day with kids averaging 30 minutes per visit. The specific goals for Season IV are to: (1) connect science to kids' every day world and every day lives; (2) promote Habits of Mind and an understanding of the basic science and math within three content areas; (3) expand ZOOM's outreach activities, and (4) increase parental involvement in children's "ZOOM"-related activities. The themes for the new seasons will include "Your Biome," "Kitchen Chemistry," and "Structures." Outreach for the project will include printed materials for kids, families and educators; "ZOOM"-related activities at community-based organizations, shopping malls and science museums; and a 3000-page web site.
The ZOOM children's television series, which reaches over 5.4 million children each week, teaches viewers the scientific processes as well as delivering science and mathematics content. The outreach materials and activities provide viewers with opportunities to explore, experiment and share their creativity. WGBH is requesting $1,303,776 of a total budget of $3,977,936 to produce 20 new shows for the ZOOM series. There also will be a new ZOOM campaign, the ZOOMsci Club, which will provide a unique way for kids to deepen their science and math knowledge while engaged in ZOOM's hands-on activities. The campaign includes: the new television programs, new print materials and outreach activities, and a new area of the ZOOM website that includes an on-line forum for kids to share results of their experimentation. ZOOM has been chosen by PBS as the first children's "local/national" show. This PBS initiative capitalizes on the strength of local public television stations and provides the opportunity for stations to customize ZOOM to serve the needs of their local markets. The stations can produce and insert segments that honor local kids for their volunteer activities and feature local kids answering questions. Stations also can localize outreach activities, producing their own local ZOOM websites and launching ZOOM Into Action campaigns to motivate kids to volunteer.
Twin Cities Public TV is producing 13 half-hour programs of a new science show for children to be on public television. The show would be based on the children's magazine, "Dragonfly," and would present children doing science experiments that they developed and planned themselves. From time to time, the children would be joined by adult scientists who tell of their own research, their discoveries, and their love of science. The goals of the project are to foster in children a greater interest in science and the process of scientific inquiry; demonstrate the parallels between children's scientific explorations and the research conducted by professional scientists; and feature and promote science projects involving under-represented communities, particularly ethnic minorities and girls. Outreach for the project will include a monthly "Young Investigator's Field Book," a Dragonfly TV teachers' companion multi-page insert that will be integrated into the NSTA grade school and middle school journals for teachers, and a Dragonfly TV website. The project also will establish community outreach partnerships with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and the 4-H National Science and Technology Network.