The Minnesota Children's Museum, in collaboration with the American Library Association will develop a project to engage children ages two through seven years old and their parents in exploring mathematics through hands-on, book-based math activities in libraries and children's museums across the country. The main elements of the project are: 1. A 1200 square foot exhibit at the Minnesota Children's Museum; 2. A traveling exhibit to ten children's museums over a six month period; 3. Five smaller versions of the exhibit will travel to 75 libraries sponsored by the American Library Association. Each library that apply for the exhibit must present a plan in which 50 percent of their exhibit audience will be children and families of the under-represented, lower income groups, and racial and/or ethnic groups. 4. Programs and materials will be designed to provide parents with the means to actively participate in their children's math education. The collaboration of the Minnesota Children's Museum and the American Library Association draws together two organizations whose natural constituencies are parents with young children. Project 1,2,3 is designed to be national in scope and creates multiple formats within which families can enjoy exploring math. Its goals and objectives reflect four messages: start early, math is everywhere, parental involvement and get into books. The project Principal Investigator (PI) Ms. Jeanne W. Vergeront received her Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Science in Child and Family Studies and Environmental Design, respectively from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Currently, she serves as the Vice President, Educational Projects at the Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul, Minnesota.
This project is a collaboration between the Miami Museum of Science and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater Miami (BBBS) to empower single-parent families to become actively engaged in the science, mathematics, and technology education (SMT) of their children. It will involve, over the course of the project, parents, mentors, and community elements to create and expand a resource network and support primarily father-absent homes. The design of the project is focused on providing resources and advocacy critical to the success of young children in SMT education. It is a project designed to get parents actively involved with their children's science, mathematics, and technology education. The program will serve Dade County, Florida families. Museum staff and volunteers of BBBS will work closely in the development of mentor materials to be nationally distributed. The strategies that are used and refined will be packaged in a Tripod Toolkit and Mentor Handbook that can be used by other community groups to aid and assist parents in becoming more active in the science, mathematics, and technology education of their children. In addition to the toolkit materials, a set of Science/math Matters activities will be included designed to promoted science learning in the home with parents and their children. These materials will be produced in both English and Spanish to meet the needs of a diverse and multicultural American society.
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science proposed to develop an outreach science and mathematics program with a parent involvement and teacher enhancement professional development component. The goals of the project are as follows: (1) to involve parents in their children's education; (2) to promote a positive attitude on behalf of parents and students toward science and mathematics; (3) to increase teachers' level of comfort in teaching science; and (4) to enhance teacher's confidence in the hands-on approach as an effective method for teaching science. The objectives for the parent component of this project are: acquaint parents with the national and state science education goals and standards; introduce parents to activities that can be done at home with children; and provide families with materials and activity sheets that can be used at home. The objectives for the teacher component of this project are: (1) to provide teachers with opportunities for increased communication with parents about science literacy for children; (2) provide professional development for teachers on the use of hands-on science activities in the classroom; and (3) to providing bilingual activity guides and kits containing materials to encourage science learning. The methods for implementing this project will be varied according to the needs of the target audiences. Parents and children will be engaged through parent workshops and multi-aged children's activities conducted at the museum by experienced science educators. The professional development for teachers' component of this project will include an extensive summer workshop, on-going training/ planning sessions during the school calendar year and session on the uses of the bilingual teaching manuals. The cost sharing for this NSF award is 46.7% of the total project cost.
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.
The New York Hall of Science is in the process of designing and constructing a 50,000 sq. ft. facility addition. This project, which could also be called project BUILD: Building Underway-Informal Learning Design, will take advantage of the inherent teaching and learning opportunities in science and engineering found in an authentic, real-time setting. A portable exhibit unit, fashioned after a construction-site fence with peepholes, will highlight aspects of technology, math, engineering, and materials sciences found in the building trades and architecture. Each peephole will display an artifact, text, image or interactive for the visitor and have specific learning outcomes defined during the development of the exhibit. Associated programing, in the form of Explainer demostrations, workshops, lectures, building trades career days, design, and hard hat tours will be created for three distinct audiences -- families, adolescents 11-14 (middle-school) and young adults 15-18 (high school). The exhibit and programs will evolve and amend themselves in tandem with the changeable timetables and nature of construction. Finally, a guidebook written on "how to" replicate these learning experiences, construct the exhibit fence for other venues, and partner with architects and tradespeople will be available to the wider museum and informal learning community.
The Association for Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) will gather data and develop a report to the field on mathematics activities in science museums. The purpose of the Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) grant is to support initial research on the current status of mathematics in science museums, to document exemplary models for the field, and to determine the feasibility of a mathematics initiative for science museums and their client schools. The final product, a document similar to the NSF-funded publication "First Hand Learning," will serve the field as well as the education community in seeking better approaches for improving mathematics education.
The Museum of Science in Boston will develop exhibits and programs for visitors to use models as tools for understanding the world around them. It is the 4th stage of a six-part, long-range vision and plan that focuses on comprehending science as a way of thinking and doing. "Making Models" will serve over one million visitors per year, mostly families and school groups. The models to be featured include physical, biological, conceptual, mathematical, and computer simulation models. Four (4) specific science inquiry skills will be stressed, which are associated with making and using models: recognition of similarities, assessment of limitations, communication of ideas, and the creation of one's own models for developing personal understanding and appreciation of the world in which we live. In tandem with this new exhibit, some current exhibits and programs will be modified to meet these modeling goals. Demonstrating the application of these new exhibit techniques for other museums and science centers, and evaluating how visitors learn in this setting will also be performed, with the results disseminated on a national level. The Museum will collaborate with two (2) other nationally known sites in this development and evaluation of exhibit components, creation of new teacher development programs, and the development of models-related web resources.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Douglas SmithLarry BellPaul Fontiane
The North Carolina Museum of Life & Science requests $627,003 (54.6% of a total $1,148,397 project budget) to develop "Mathematics=Easy as Pi." This will be a three-year statewide project from the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science on behalf of the 15 member museums of The North Carolina Grassroots Science Museum Collaborative to develop and implement programs and exhibits that will assist families, children and teachers to understand and appreciate mathematics. The components are a public celebration of mathematics name Pi day that will be held in 15 museums on March 14th of each year, teacher professional development workshops, 12 hands-on tabletop exhibits for 13 museums, and a Sharing math guide for use by families and children. This initiative will serve more than 2.7 million young people and adults in North Carolina over the initial three-year project. The materials will have continued usage beyond the project timeframe.
This project is composed of a 1,500 square foot permanent, and traveling exhibit, and a schools program focused on problem- solving, targeted primarily for children in grades 5-8. The exhibit includes a variety of classroom-tested puzzles, interactive computer programs, and hands-on challenge problems. These will enable participants to try and utilize different problem-solving strategies, and gain experience in spatial relationships, communicating mathematically, and reasoning inductively and deductively. Materials produced include: Solve It! Trunks, a problem-solving program that teachers can use as a single unit or integrate throughout the year; a publication which will enable others to reproduce the exhibits; and a Guide with suggestions about how to use the Problem-Solving Program. Other activities include Student and Family Problem-Solving Programs, and puzzle- based workshops.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
James FrenzaJohn BowditchCynthia Yao
The Great Lakes Science Center plans to enhance an existing facility by adding the Great Lakes Situation Room. This addition makes innovative use of live theater techniques to provide interactive programming for the visiting audience. The Great Lakes Science Center is a relatively new addition to the Informal Science arena but the visitation has double the expected projections. The programs for the situation room are: Science and Information Technology Show; Great Lakes Data Quest; My Own House Data Quest; and Mathematics All Around Us. These new programs, linked to the Great Lakes Environment and exhibitions throughout the facility will further enable the visitor to actually learn about science, environment, and technology using a unique format and "state of the arts" tools made available by informational technology. This project will impact a large, diverse audience in the Great Lake's area and beyond. It has the potential for replication in other museums and science centers. The goals of this project are to enhance the visitor's experiences and learning while at the science center. The themes for the programs will explore some popular topics among the visiting audience. This is a three-year project that will quintuple the programming capacity of the theater, enhance its role in providing Informal Science Education, provide new active learning experiences and expand the center's capacity for accommodating larger audiences of families and school students. The cost sharing for this award is 66.5% of the projected total budget.
The Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History will develop "Texas Dinosaurs: How Do We Know? -- Regional Dissemination of Science Inquiry Exhibits and Educational Programs on Paleontology." This will be a major permanent and portable exhibition project that will be accompanied by an array of educational programs for formal and informal audiences throughout Texas. The permanent 12,000 sq. ft. exhibit, "Texas Dinosaurs: How Do We Know?", will recreate field and laboratory processes of paleontological research in an inquiry approach to public learning in geology, biology, ecology and mathematics. Portable versions of the exhibit will be distributed to the Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Headquarters, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, the Science Spectrum in Lubbock, the McAllen International Museum, and the El Paso Insights Science Museum -- all in Texas. Regional dissemination of "How Do We Know?" exhibits and educational programs and materials will reach at least 1.5 million people annually, including isolated rural communities in the large geographic region of Texas.