This document reports on the first phase of a summative evaluation of Science Friday's expansion to examine the importance of research as a theme underlying all science and technology changes. In this phase of the evaluation, in-depth qualitative discussions concerning public understanding of basic research were held with listeners of Science Friday. The study has two goals: (1) To provide feedback to producers as to the series’ current strengths and weaknesses with respect to the above stated goals; and (2) To guide the development of a written questionnaire to be mailed to random public
SoundVision Productions is developing and distributing a series of ten, hour-long public radio documentaries that will explore the turbulent boundary between science and the humanities, capturing the present moment of tremendous scientific and scholarly ferment with the unique and intimate power of radio. By introducing the radio audience to the thoughts and voices of some of the world\'s most accomplished scientists, in conversations with the counterparts in the humanities, the series will look at recent developments in science including physics, molecular and cell biology, environmental science, cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and the multiple disciplines of the life sciences reflecting the increasingly subtle and widespread application of evolutionary theory. In each program, a careful account of new scientific ideas and discoveries will be placed within the context of historical and contemporary thought about the human and natural worlds. Barinetta Scott, the Executive Producer, has most recently been the Executive Producer for the highly regarded NSF funded NPR series, "The DNA Files." In developing this project, she will work closely with an advisory committee that includes: John Avise, Research Professor, Dept. of Genetics, University of Georgia Samuel Barondes, Professor and Director of the University of California San Francisco\'s Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry Terrence Deacon, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Boston University Anne Foerst, Professor of Computer Science and Theology, St. Bonaventure University Ursula Goodenough, Dept. of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis William Irons, Professor of Anthropology, Northwestern University Gordon Kane, Professor of Physics, University of Michigan Jim Miller, Senior Program Associate for the AAAS Program of Dialogue Between Science and Religion W. Mark Richardson, Episcopal Priest, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, General Theological Seminary Holmes Rolston, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University Michael Ruse, Professor of the Philosophy of Biology and Ethics, at Florida State University Mary Evelyn Tucker, Professor of Religion at Bucknell University Dorothy Wertz, Senior Scientist; Social Science, Ethics, and the Law; The Shriver Center.
With support from the National Science Foundation and Best Buy, Twin Cities Public Television has produced a science series for children. Entitled "DragonflyTV," the series presents real kids engaged in real science to promote the process of science inquiry in viewers. This formative evaluation gathered feedback from 5th and 6th graders in response to three 28 minute videos, presented one per week. The following were the general research goals: To evaluate change in student ability to design an experiment To measure change in interest in doing one's own science investigation To determine
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Barbara FlaggTwin Cities Public Television
KCTS, Seattle's PBS affiliate, is producing a series of three one-hour prime-time science education television specials starring Bill Nye. The specials will be aimed at a family audience and will be designed to promote informal science learning through an entertaining presentation of science in everyday life. Topics currently being considered for the specials are The Science of Sports, The Science of Learning, and The Science of the Future, thought other topics, such as Pseudo Science, also are being considered. Each program will maintain the entertainment values of enthusiasm for science so prominent in the Bill Nye the Science Guy series but will have a strong narrative element and air of suspense as Bill embarks on a journey of discovery, greater depth of content and presentation, and longer uninterrupted segments. The programs will be supported by a multi-pronged outreach program to reach parents and children through local PBS stations and science museums, community organizations serving disadvantaged populations and, possibly, a tie-in with a national chain of quick family restaurants. Many of the same team that created Bill Nye the Science Guy will work on this project including Bill Nye; Elizabeth Brock, Executive Producer; and Erren Gottlieb and James McKenna, producers. The production team will work with fourteen scientists and science educators who will advise the project on presentation and outreach. This group also will review and comment on all scripts and drafts of outreach material.
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William NyeJames McKennaErren GottliebBurnill ClarkRandy Brinson
WGBH is producing Seasons II and III of ZOOM, a television series featuring kids that gives viewers in the 8- to 11-year-old range a chance to explore, experiment, and share their creativity with the world. Each season would consist of 40, daily, half-hour shows -- each including a number of science and/or mathematics segments. A unique aspect of ZOOM is that every idea and activity on the show comes from a child who writes or e-mails the show and who is credited on-air for his or her contribution. Production staff and a working group of advisors with expertise in science and math education take these raw ideas and develop them into program segments and outreach projects designed to encourage "habits of mind" -- a set of problem-solving skills and dispositions toward science and math that has been developed in concert with the advisors. Three over-arching science and math-based themes also guide the way science and math are presented over the course of a season. Outreach for Seasons II and III will build on the solid base of outreach developed for Season I, and will consist of: ZOOMerang: Every child who communicates with ZOOM will get something back such as a compilation of science and math activities, jokes, poems, recipes and a series update. ClubZOOM: A set of standards-based science and math activities will be developed along with guidance for how to create after-school clubs. This effort will be pilot tested at 20 sites. ZOOMzones: These are areas in science-technology centers and museums that are devoted to ZOOM and include opportunities for youth and families to interact with science and math content featured on ZOOM. Ten pilot ZOOMzone sites were developed for Season I (from 80 applications). The number of ZOOMzones will be increased and continuing support will be offered to existing sites during Seasons II and III. ZOOMdays: During Season III, WGBH will develop ZOOMdays at shopping malls to reach youth who may not have access to ZOOMzones or ClubZOOM. ZOOMweb site: This web site provides an outreach extension to the TV series by collecting and sharing submissions; illustrating and producing science and math activities; creating a ZOOM community; providing research links to other sites; and aiding adults who are interested in furthering ZOOM's science and math activities in their homes, classrooms, museums and after-school programs.
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.
ScienCentral, with major support from NSF, has been developing and distributing short science stories for inclusion in local ABC news broadcasts. They are now developing a plan, in cooperation with NBC News Channel, to produce stories about cutting edge research to be carried on local NBC stations during their local news broadcasts. During this planning phase, ScienCentral will produce, distribute and evaluate three stories about current research in the area of global climate change. Specific planning tasks include: determining the technical and editorial processes for working with NBC News; conducting formative evaluations for topics, format and desired frequency of stories; and developing an auditable cost sharing process. The Editorial Board for the project includes Eliene Augenbraun, PI/Executive Producer and former research scientist; Besty Rosenfield, Vice President of ScienCentral; Jack Penland, News Director; and Curt Epstein, Senior Producer. They will work closely with an advisory panel consisting of Greg Kohler, Senior Producer, NBC News Channel; Leon Lederman, Office of Strategic Initiative, Illinois Institute of Technology; Jane Lubchenco, Environmental Scientist, Oregon State University; and Danielle Gray, Deputy Director for Emory University Integration of Education and Research, Center for Behavioral Neuroscience. Members of the advisory board will review scripts and roughcuts of all segments.
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."
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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.
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Margaret DrainPaula ApsellBarbara Flagg
EarthTalk Incorporated is producing and distributing 282 "Edge of Discovery" radio programs. Each of the 90-second programs will explore an area of on-going research and will feature "actualities" or recorded voices of scientists explaining their work. The programs will be carried on 700+ public and commercial radio stations. The broadcast programs will be supplemented by an "Edge of Discovery" web presence that will contain the radio programs themselves plus a "More Info" section for each program that includes references to printed articles and links to other web sites on the day's topic as well as supplementary background material such as transcripts of interviews with scientists. The "Edge of Discovery" web page also will feature a "Meet the Scientists" section in which a new scientist will be profiled each month, and it will feature live online "chats" with scientists six times each year. The producers/hosts for the series are Deborah Byrd and Joel Block who created, produced and hosted the highly successful radio series Earth and Sky. The Senior Producer is Marc Airhart who will be primary liaison with the team of researchers and writers. Review of all material developed for the projected will be done by the project's review committee of 95 scientists.
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Deborah ByrdWilliam BrittonMarc AirhartBarbara Flagg
The Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (WETA) in partnership with BBC2 and the Open University, is producing ten half-hour television programs that explore the reality of scientific discovery. In each episode, five scientists who have been abandoned on a deserted island solve science-based challenges using only their collective expertise, wits, the island's resources and a few basic tools. In one episode, for instance, the scientists will need to: 1) calculate their location with the exact latitude and longitude, 2) create insect repellant, and 3) design and build a homemade radio. The programs capture both the disappointments of experiments that go wrong as well as the joy and excitement of success. The television series will be supported by "Rough Science Adventures," field experiences where members of the public solve challenges similar to those facing the scientists in the television program, and by a Rough Science website. Outreach partners include the New York Hall of Science, the National Society of Black Engineers, and the International Educational Technology Association.
The long-running and highly successful National Public Radio series "Science Friday" is venturing in new directions. Given that basic research underlies all of the technological advances influencing our world and that tax dollars pay for that research, the public needs to be informed about the basics of research. To address this need for public education, "Science Friday" will examine the importance of research as a theme underlying all science and technology changes by: Finding the research roots at the bottom of each story; Exploring the cooperation among corporations, private institutions, and research foundations and illuminating how each plays a role in the research process; Following the research "bumps" along the road to illustrate that research success depends upon failures -- not all research produces positive results; Illuminating the barriers to successful research; Helping listeners understand the thought process of researchers; Scaling the "ivory tower" by enabling listeners to question and talk directly with researchers; and Helping listeners understand the role of basic research in policy-making. Ira Flatow, the host, will take "Science Friday" on the road and produce programs in Oklahoma, Iowa, Michigan, Massachusetts, Arizona and other locations. He also will visit schools and universities and will speak at public events. NPR also will reactivate the "Science Friday Kids Connection" which will take each week's program and its guest scientists directly into classrooms across the country.