"How Things Fly" is a major new exhibit gallery being produced by the National Air and Space Museum and is scheduled to open in 1995. The goal of this permanent exhibition is to convey, to the broadest possible audience, the essential principles by which aircraft and spacecraft fly. "How Things Fly" represents an important departure from other exhibitions at the Museum in both content and execution. Instead of relying on static displays of historical artifacts, "How Things Fly" will use interactive devices and live demonstrations designedto spark curiosity, invite visitor participation, and provide children and adults with the opportunity to discover for themselves answers to some of their fundamental questions about flight. "How Things Fly" will be the first major exhibiton at the Museum devoted entirely to hands-on learning. It will incorporate some of the best interactive exhibitry ideas from othermuseums, improve upon them where possible, and include a substantial number of original exhibits. While intended to help visitors more fully appreciate the Museum's collection, the cooperative efforts, such as publications, a traveling exhibition, and educational outreach programs, will extend the exhibition's impact across the nation.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Barbara BrennanSteven SoterChristopher StetserDavid RomanowskiJoann Hinkel
Boston Museum of Science seeks funds from the National Science Foundation for the development of a group of interactive exhibits and educational programs that will comprise the Museum's permanent TESTING THE THEORY activity center. The project is part of a new approach to exhibits that aims to make the experiences available to visitors closer to the actual process of scientific discovery. Visitors will carry out experiments in fields ranging from chemistry and cognitive psychology, to statistics, optics, and materials science. The focus will be on promoting specific experimental skills and scientific habits of mind, and on encouraging the transfer of these skills to everyday activities. The exhibit techniques developed during the prototyping and production of TESTING THE THEORY are expected to be of importance to science museums and others concerned with increasing science literacy.
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 Milwaukee Public Museum will develop two test stations: A Wetland/Wood Station and a Mobile Testing Station that will be used to evaluation how hands-on activities that incorporate scientific tools and methods can be applied to supplement the educational experience of traditional natural history museum dioramas. As a result of the MPM's work, visitors will become engaged in a "field experience" by means of techniques to encourage observing, recording of data, and hypothesizing using tools that a scientists might use to study the natural environment such as a hand lens, radio telemetry receiver, scales, rulers, and/or calipers. Visitors will also have the opportunity to investigate further in the "lab". Here visitors will use such tools as a computer, microscope, measuring grid, and they will be encouraged to experiment, infer, predict, and classify. The intent is to have the visitor discover how scientific information is used to support decisions in every day life. The development of these stations will be accompanied by considerable formative and summative evaluation studies. The results will be disseminated in order that other natural history museums with dioramas may replicate these ideas in order that visitors might move beyond the primary "animal identification" phase in their examination and enjoyment of dioramas.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
William HackbarthW. Carl TaylorJames KellyAllen YoungMary Korenic
WGBH Educational Foundation is producing a prime time television series and informal education outreach component entitled 'A Life of Science.' Each of the six one-hour programs in the series will profile a contemporary woman scientist: Lydia Villa-Komaroff, biologist; Melissa Franklin, physicist; Misha Mahowald, computational neuroscientist; Marcia NcNutt, geologist; Lynda Jordan, biochemist; and Patty Jo Watson, archaeologist. The stories will present their scientific quests and careers but also will be about scientific lives. An outreach plan, which centers around a national campaign called 'The Missing Persons Investigation,' will target two primary constituencies: girls and boys 11-14 years of age and their adult teachers and youth service community leaders. The project will serve these audiences in formal school-based settings as well as in the informal settings of community-based organizations and institutions. Beyond these immediate target groups, the outreach project will reach a broad and diverse national public through related activities including demonstrations exhibits, community campaigns at local public television stations, and media partnerships. A comprehensive promotion plan has been devised to inform the public of both the series and the outreach component of the project.
9355625 Cassady The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is developing a new permanent 12,000 square-foot gallery, "The Wet, Wild, Wonderful World of Science: A Science Gallery That Connects Kids to Their World." Water is the catalyst for the exploration and discovery of science concepts throughout the gallery. Within the gallery are three hub context areas (Pipes and Pumps, Streams and Ponds,Tubes and Flasks) that are closely linked, both conceptually and physically. The message is that the concepts introduced in one hub also apply to the others, thus erasing artificial distinctions between natural and physical sciences. The goals of the project are: To create a gallery that will make science accessible to the museum's current and underserved visitors. To create hands-on opportunities for young people to practice scientific thinking so they may better understand the physical and natural world. To create a science education experience that promotes linkages for visitors between the learning of science in the gallery and formal and informal learning outside of the museum. To research the application of constructivist theory in the design of hands-on exhibits.
This project by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) develops a public education program on chemistry. The program: introduces students and the general public to the science of chemistry and processes of chemistry-related research through drop-in lab activities; provides follow-up chemistry activities for use by elementary teachers and parents so that children can further explore the interests they have developed in science and chemistry; provides opportunities for internships for high-school students as lab assistants so that they can develop greater knowledge of "everyday" chemistry, laboratory techniques and safety, develop skills in working with others and in teaching chemistry, and explore potential careers in teaching chemistry; and make available the resources developed by OMSI to other interested science museums.
9355629 Chiss This is a project of the Chicago Children's Museum to develop, evaluate and install a 2,200 square foot permanent exhibit called "Inventing: The Process of Discovery." This exhibit engages young visitors (primarily from 6-10 yrs.) in inventive creativity, testing, and development, and teaches them a meaningful sequence of activities for problem-solving. Museum educators and adolescent interns act as multi-cultural role models in exhibit areas and facilitate hands-on learning. Every year the exhibit will serve over 500,000 children, parents and teachers in Chicago's inner city and metropolitan neighborhoods. A large percentage of this audience is under-served minority children drawn from CCM's alliances with diverse ethnic community agencies. This exhibit provides a safe haven where young multi-cultural, often disadvantaged children may find support for science learning and be encouraged to grow and participate in the many science fairs, science clubs, and invention conventions available to adolescents in the Chicago area. ***
The SOUNDPRINT Media Center is producing a series of radio documentaries entitled 'Science and Technology on SOUNDPRINT,' a set of related educational and outreach materials, and multimedia non-broadcast applications. The project will include 16 original science documentaries and 21 programs repackaged as special broadcasts distributed to over 200 public radio stations in the United States, reaching over 750,000 listeners, and ten countries around the world. The programs also will be distributed on Internet Talk Radio. The 16 new Programs will be grouped around three themes: 'The Butterfly Effect' which will bring large scientific concepts describing global change to a more human level, 'Technology and Culture' which will consider the implications of technology, and 'The Consequences of Science' which will look at the broad implications of scientific research. The Executive Producer for the project is Moira Rankin. Neenah Ellis will serve as Senior Producer and will work directly with independent producers in story and script development. The Science Editors will be Ann Finkbeiner, a freelance science writer, and Barbara Culliton, Deputy Editor of 'Nature.'
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 Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary requests $58,414 from the Informal Science Education Program of the National Science Foundation to infuse an environmental education message with innovative approaches to visitor self-instruction, through the two elements which comprise our Communities and Connections in the World of Nature project. This $364,097 project is an ambitious attempt to introduce and involve BBWS visitors with the fascinating interactions of life which hold all living communities together. Fine and coarse grain examination of 11 ecological concepts (e.g., habitat, human impacts, energy flow, etc.) central to these interactions is achieved through a creative blend of innovative public programs, museum-style interactive exhibits, engaging graphics and habitat-oriented live animal displays. Specifically, NSF funding will allow BBWS to: 1) Develop and conduct participatory educational programs (Jr. Naturalist/ages 5-8, Jr. Ecologist/ages 9-12) that introduce ecological themes and concepts to families and school groups. 2) Develop and produce a 180 sq. ft. computer-based interact exhibit (Habitat Puzzle) that encourages visitors to explore ecological concepts of habitat composition in depth.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Tyrus William BaumannKimberly KasterMichael Reed
The Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education (FASE) is requesting a planning grant to explore the feasibility and potential of establishing a specialized educational news service aimed at both commercial and noncommercial news programs. During this planning phase they will: convene an Advisory Board to review and refine the project. This committee will examine such issues as what types of information should be included in such a news service, how stories will be selected and by whom, how accuracy and balance of each story will be determined, and how to assess the effectiveness of the effort in terms of impact on viewers interests, knowledge, and action; conduct market research to ascertain the receptiveness of the television news markets to an information product of this type, analyze the methods by which stories could be effectively and economically distributed, and assuming that feasibility of such a project is established, develop a specific plan for proceeding in a larger and longer-term scope.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Steven HeardKathie HeardJudy TaussigRob Mikuriya