Moving Beyond Earth Programming: “STEM in 30” Webcasts. The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM) will develop nine “STEM in 30” webcasts which will be made available to teachers and students in grades 5-8 classrooms across the country. The primary goal of this program is to increase interest and engagement in STEM for students. Formative and summative evaluations will assess the outcomes for the program, which include the following:
Increased interest in STEM and STEM careers, Increased understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), Increased awareness and importance of current and future human space exploration, and Increased learning in the content areas.
This series of live 30-minute webcasts from the National Air and Space Museum and partner sites focus on STEM subjects that integrate all four areas. The webcasts will feature NASA and NASM curators, scientists, and educators exploring STEM subjects using museum and NASA collections, galleries, and activities. During the 30-minute broadcasts, students will engage with museum experts through experiments and activities, ask the experts questions, and answer interactive poll questions. After the live broadcasts, NASM will also archive the webcasts in an interactive “STEM in 30” Gallery.
In 2010 EarthSky Communications Inc. was awarded a broad implementation grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) entitled Proyecto de Implementacion Amplia EarthSky en Español (EarthSky in Spanish Broad Implementation Project). In partnership with the Spanish media company Univision Communications Inc. and a national Advisory Committee of Hispanic scientists, educators, and media experts, EarthSky proposed to present science information and scientist interviews to Spanish-preferring U.S. Hispanics via short video programs distributed on television and the Internet. Under the Broad
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SciGirls and Citizen Science: Real Data, Real Kids, Real Discoveries SciGirls is showcasing Citizen Science! From their own backyards to a NASA research center, the bright, relatable, real girls featured on the groundbreaking PBS series are seriously into science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. And Season Three of SciGirls finds these STEM adventurers tracking toads, counting clouds and much more, all in the name of citizen science. The brand-new season of the Emmy-winning show, featuring six stand-out episodes, debuted April 2015 on PBS KIDS (check local listings) and online at http://pbskids.org/scigirls. Citizen science is the newest STEM frontier that engages the general public –and kids – in real science. Scientists worldwide invite ordinary people—like the SciGirls—to observe and record data about everything from birds to beaches, monarch butterflies to maple trees. The data is then shared with scientists, who use it to generate new scientific knowledge. In six exciting new episodes, middle school girls and their female STEM professional mentors hit the great outdoors, cataloging frog calls, tracking the changing seasons, verifying satellite imagery of clouds, monitoring fragile butterfly populations, improving urban bird habitats, and advocating for healthy oceans. In addition, animated characters Izzie and Jake are back and finding themselves in sticky situations that can only be solved by STEM—and the SciGirls. When the SciGirls share their data with professional scientists, they save the day for Izzie and Jake and help save the environment! The new mobile-friendly website at http://pbskids.org/scigirls lets kids play new games, watch episodes and videos, and connect with fellow STEM explorers anywhere, anytime. “Collaboration is the key to successful citizen science,” said SciGirls executive producer Richard Hudson. “Since SciGirls’ beginning, working together—making discoveries, mistakes and friends—is one of the important research-based methods we use to engage girls around STEM. This new season underscores the importance of collaboration within the scientific research community and workforce. SciGirls is fortunate to have powerful partners advising us about citizen science, including the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, NASA and SciStarter.” The SciGirls creative team is headed by Twin Cities Public Television’s Director of Science Content Richard Hudson, Executive Producer of the long-running PBS children’s science series Newton's Apple and creator of DragonflyTV and the SciGirls initiative. Animation is created by Soup2Nuts, producers of PBS’ WordGirl. Strategic partners for the new series are the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Rick Bonney co-PI, and the National Girls Collaborative Project, co-PI Karen Peterson. SciGirls is made possible by a major grant from the National Science Foundation. Additional funding is provided by INFOR, Northrop Grumman Foundation, and PPG Industries Foundation.
WGBH Educational Foundation is requesting funds to produce 20 new shows and new outreach and Web activities for "ZOOM," which will be renamed "Hot Seat." "Hot Seat" is a daily half-hour PBS television series targeted to kids ages 8 to 11. Uniquely by and for kids, the program gives its viewers a chance to explore, to experiment and to share their creativity. The series, along with its far-reaching outreach, offers its audience an innovative curriculum that promotes the acquisition of basic math and science knowledge and the development of problem solving skills called "Habits of Mind." The intended impacts are to: (1) establish a project that uniquely integrates television, the Web and outreach as a model for how media can teach science and math; (2) engage kids and teach them science and math content and process skills; (3) provide curriculum and professional development to organizational partners. Innovation includes developing three new content areas for the series -- Invention, Space Science and Earth Science -- and evolving the project design by incorporating new production techniques that enhance the "reality factor" of the science programming. Outreach for the project will include printed materials for kids, families and educators. A new collaborative partnership is being developed with the American Library Association to help distribute the new afterschool curricula to librarians across the country. "Hot Seat" will support the existing network of "ZOOM" outreach partners and convert the museum "ZOOMzones" to "Hot Seat Spots." "ZOOM" currently is carried by 269 public broadcasting stations and is viewed by 4 million children each week.
The Smithsonian Associates Program at the Smithsonian Institution has a unique, one-time only opportunity to test the potential of producing a very low cost, but high quality science program featuring an outstanding and widely recognized scientist. The program will be an edited hour from an hour and a half interview that Timothy Ferris will have with Stephen J. Gould before a live audience on November 7, 1997. If successful, the program will be broadcast in prime time by PBS and would serve as a prototype for additional programs other eminent scientists. During the requested Small Grant for Exploratory Research phase, the Smithsonian will: * Determine if a viable hour-long program can be derived from a live interview that is only an hour and a half in duration. This 1 to 1.5 ratio of finished program material to the total footage shot is very economical but also is much lower than most television programs which have a ratio of 1 to 3 and up. * Test how to take advantage of Dr. Ferris' talents in a video interview format. While Ferris has interviewed many scientists for print media, this will be his first interview for this kind of broadcast medium. * Assess how successful Ferris is in conducting a live interview so that difficult scientific concepts will be accessible to a lay audience. This interview with Dr. Gould also will provide a rare opportunity to investigate emerging research areas that are likely to be of lasting interest and to present them to the public. The Smithsonian Associates will assess the effectiveness of this approach in two ways. First, a group of five scientists and informal science education experts will review a rough cut of the program to determine if a program can be produced in this manner and effectively convey complex science to a lay audience. Possible members of this group include Bruce Alberts (National Academy of Science), Paula Apsell (WGBH), Robert Hazen (George Mason University), Mary Jane McKinven (PBS), and Maxine Singer (Carnegie Institute). The second gauge of effectiveness will be the acceptance of the program for prime time distribution by PBS and the public reaction to the program. Timothy Ferris is a generalist scholar who has taught in five disciplines - astronomy, English, history, journalism, and philosophy at four universities. He currently is emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He has received the American Institute of Physics prize, the American Association for the Advancement of Science prize, the Klumpke-Roberts prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The television producer will be Catherine Tatge who has produced a wide range of programming for PBS and for CBS Cable. Her productions include Playing With Fire: The Tenth Van Cliburn Piano Competition and the feature film of the New York City Ballet version of The Nutcracker. She was commissioned by the Congress of the United States to direct and produce an historical overview of the U.S. Congress. The PI for the project will be Mara Mayor, Director of The Smithsonian Associates and former Director of the Annenberg/CPB Project which supports the creation of educational resources for a variety of media.
Eclipse| is a one-hour program within the prime-time series NOVA, to be broadcast nationally during the 1991-92 season on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The program will document the total eclipse of the sun that takes place on July 11, 1991, and the research performed at the observatories located atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The program will trace three narrative lines. The first will be that of the eclipse itself and its importance for ongoing scientific investigation of the solar corona and solar physics. The second will be that of ongoing problems in understanding the sun, especially the issue of solar variability. The third will place this eclipse within the history of eclipse science. The passage of an eclipse over a major observatory complex is a unique occurrence -- it has never happened before, and will not happen again for several generations. The four minutes of totality will allow solar astronomers to turn deep space instruments on the sun for the first time. At the same moment, however, this eclipse marks what many observers feel is the end of a 130 year research program. Eclipse| will provide its audience with a portrait of a spectacular natural phenomenon and of scientists attempting in real-time to tease new knowledge out of the sun. In addition to its broadcast, Eclipse| will be seen in an estimated 70-90,000 classrooms over a seven year period.
WGBH is producing four, two-hour programs on the lives of scientists. These programs will be the initial programs in a continuing series of television portraits of distinguished scientists to be broadcast as regular features in the prime-time science series NOVA. The scientists to be covered in the first four programs are Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, and Percy Julian. By illuminating the lives and scientific careers of these important figures, the programs will enhance public understanding of such basic scientific concepts as evolution, the solar system, the chemical bond and the structure of the atom. Ultimately, the programs will give viewers a new perspective on the process of scientific discovery. Ancillary educational support for the programs will include enhanced content on the web site at NOVA Online and classroom support material in the NOVA Teacher's Guide that is mailed to 60,000 teachers nationwide. WGBH also has formed an outreach partnership with the American Library Association to create informal educational resources for use by families, youths, and adults. The core of this special outreach plan is a set of Library Resource Kits that will be available to all 16,000 public libraries. Paula Apsell, Executive Producer for NOVA, will serve as PI for the project. Members of the advisory committee include: Evelyn Fox Keller, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, MIT; Kenneth R. Manning, Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and of the History of Science, MIT; Noami Oreskes, Associate Professor of History, University of California, San Diego; Daniel I. Rubenstein, Chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University; and Neil D. Tyson, Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium.
The WGBH Educational Foundation and the NOVA production team will produce an hour-long special program in the NOVA series on the remarkable scientific response to Supernova 1987A, the most significant supernova to be observed since 1604. Responding rapidly to this unique opportunity, they will capture the spirit of science in formation, through video and audio interviews with many of the involved research scientists in their laboratories and observatories around the world during the critical time period when there are as many questions as answers about the event. They will continue to cover the scientific response into the summer and early fall, including scientific meetings that are expected to provide clarification and explanation of the supernova's behavior. They are responding with insight and speed to a rare opportunity, and will match National Science Foundation funds with $300,000 of their own production funds to produce this program. NSF support will be used to insure that the coverage land treatment of the event will be substantive and accurate, and rich enough in detail to illustrate the processes of scientific discovery, research cooperation, and debate and dialogue that leads to understanding. The resulting program will be seen by the more than 12 million viewers of the NOVA series, as well as by tens of thousands of classrooms in high schools and colleges. Educational materials will be produced to accompany the program. An award of $50,000 for FY87 is recommended.