A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES is a five-part series to be produced by WETA fornational PBS broadcast in the 1993-94 season. The series is to be adapted from the best- selling book of the same title. Its author, Diane Ackerman, will present the programs and collaborate with the producers throughout. Each program will focus on a single sense: smell, touch, taste, hearing and vision respectively. Each will explore: how the world is sensed by animals and humans, including the evolution of the sense; what is perceived; and how human beings reconstruct and recreate their sensory worlds, through cuisines and perfumes, music, sculpture and painting. Shot on location around the world, these documentary films will incorporate viewpoints from anatomy, physiology and neurochemistry, experimental and perceptual psychology, cultural anthropology, literature, art, music and history. Compelling stories and illustrative vignettes and precise graphic animation will arise from rigorous research, in collaboration with a board of advisors. By unifying material from science and the arts and humanities, the series will reach a general audience. Viewers will be awakened to a new awareness of the range and power of their senses. Companion materials for schools will extend the series to the formal learning environment and will motivate further study.
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Richard HuttonDavid McGowanRichard Thomas
The purpose of the NSF grant is to support the production of "the Scientist:, an hour-long film in a six-part television series entitled RENAISSANCE. Designed to appeal to non- specialists -- the general public as well as high school and college students -- the film will recreate the ge of the Renaissance by drawing on a mixture of animation; documentary footage of historic sites and art; interviews with contemporary figures who represent the continuing influence of the Renaissance; and actors speaking the words of the period. Viewers will thus hear the words of great figures; see the results of their work; and be treated to re-enactments that evoke their lives. Like al the films in the series, "The Scientist" will trace an important theme of the Renaissance -- in this case, the birth of modern science -- using all aspects of its society and culture to convey both a sense of the past and a perspective on the present. 'thanks to the rich materials of the age, and the lively confrontations it witnessed, a modern audience will come to understand both the origins of the scientific outlook and -- through the interviews with contemporary scientists -- how it continues to shape our world.
National Public Radio is seeking to expand its coverage of scientific issues in two ways: through the creation of a new Environmental Reporting Unit, and through the introduction of SCIENCE FRIDAY, a two hour call-in talk show dedicated to scientific issues. Each of these projects will be supported by an extensive outreach effort targeted at local schools, community groups, science museums, and nature centers. Through the Environmental Reporting Unit, NPR plans to produce eight to ten half hour documentary reports per year on critical environmental issues. Each of these reports will be available to listeners on cassette and will be accompanied by supporting documentation. The SCIENCE FRIDAY team will engage NPR's audience in a lively debate on questions ranging from nuclear physics to archaeology. In addition, SCIENCE FRIDAY will travel to high schools and museums across the country and engage in question and answer sessions with students, teachers, parents and school administrators. These "on the road" segments will be supplemented by live broadcasts from annual meetings of the National Association for Science (NAS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Through these efforts, NPR will be able to draw listener attention to the need for improved science and mathematics education, while helping listeners make informed evaluations of current public policy in these areas.
WNET/Thirteen will produce a series of 10 one hour public television programs, "CHILDHOOD" that will explore how children grow and develop,and how parents and societies have raised children throughout history and across cultures. Extensive use of current research and scholarships from the disciplines of developmental and cognitive psychology, anthropology and sociology, education, history and culture will be used to create a coherent and revealing view of childhood development. The series will be heavily promoted on public television, will be accompanied by a trade book and viewer's guide, and should generate audiences of more than 10 million viewers in its first series airing, based on prior experience with the producers prior series, "The Brain"; the accompanying trade book sold more than 150,000 copies. The producers of this series are highly skilled at the interpretation of complex scientific subjects on television, with a number of award-winning series to their credit. They have assembled an prestigious international team of advisors and consultants. WNET has a realistic plan for raising the $7.5 million necessary to complete the project from the PBS/CPB Superfund, corporations, and co-production agreements. An award of $200,000 in FY 87 and continuing funding of $200,000 in FY 88 based on satisfactory progress is recommended.
The evolution of language, perhaps two hundred thousand years ago, led to our ability to think abstractly, invent logic, store and exchange ideas and to create culture. What language is, how it works and how it distinguishes us from others is the subject of a four part public television series produced by Equinox Films, Inc., New York, N.Y. To examine language, the series will be filmed in laboratories and universities throughout the United States and on the streetcorners to capture the everyday life and language of Americans. Additionally, parts of the film will be shot in Japan, a sophisticated culture with a completely different language type from ours and in North Central Australia and Papua, New Guinea, where two exotic languages of special interest are spoken. Language is so taken for granted that most of us do not question its nature. Most educated people are unaware even of the revolution that took place in the study of language about 30 years ago. The intriguing interplay between language as a grammatical system and, conversely, as a living changing part of human expression is a complicated and fascinating journey. Exploring the development of language is a challenging project and one that has been imaginatively conceived and developed. The P.I. is highly respected with a number of credits and awards in television production. The co-P.I. is a noted linguist and scholar. The list of linguistic experts who are advisors to the project represents some of the top scholars in the field. All reviewers were extremely enthusiastic about the series and recommended funding. An award of $400,000 with $200,000 in FY'87 and $200,000 in FY'88 is recommended.
WGBH Boston and its NOVA production group will produce a series of eight one hour television programs titled "Life: Cracking the Code". The series will cover recent advances in molecular biology, the record of personal quest and achievement of many of the biologists who have contributed to these advances, the social costs and benefits that have resulted and the ethical questions that new knowledge and new abilities in biology have generated. Individual programs will include "The Language of Life" on the discovery of DNA's role in molecular biology, "Molecular Machines" on proteins; "Designing the World to Order" on practical consequences of the new biology, "When Cells Rebel" on the processes involved in cancer, and "Between Self and Other" on the immune function. The series will be produced for prime time PBS evening broadcast to an audience of more than twelve million individuals by a co- production by the NOVA science unit at WGBH and the Chedd-Angier Production Company. Scientific advice and consulting will be provided by Harvard's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and a project advisory committee composed of seven distinguished scholars chaired by Prof. David Baltimore. The series production budget will be approximately $ 4.2 million. This new science series on DNA, molecular biology and its new technologies will cover one of the great intellectual achievements of our time. It will provide timely information about an area of scientific discovery that is rapidly transforming many aspects of our life. The series will, in addition, document the rich recent history of molecular biology with the participation of many of the original researchers who are still alive and active in their fields.
This one-hour documentary film profile of world famous mathematician Paul Erdos is being made for eventual broadcast on the NOVA series. At age 76, the world's most prolific mathematician (1,100 papers and over 200 co-authors) still spends all of his time moving from country to country, meeting with other mathematicians to work on problems. The film will show how a prodigious mathematician, with a career of over 50 years, lives and works, how he interacts with his colleagues, and how the international community of mathematicians functions. It aims to explore the human side of a discipline in which God, Beauty and Numbers are the subjects of daily speculation. But what do mathematicians actually do? Because of his peripatetic nature and eternal curiosity, Erdos provides an ideal window on a field that has often been perceived by the public as remote and intimidating. The film will show Erdos and his colleagues at work and play. Interviews and archival materials will establish his contributions in combinatorics and in Number theory. Some more accessible problems will be illustrated with animation and computer graphics. The interplay of a warm human story with intriguing philosophical speculations and mathematical problems will show important results are arrived at in mathematics. This is expected to stimulate interest in mathematics among television viewers and students. The film is in production and only partial funding is being requested from NSF.
The goal of the project is to produce a one hour television documentary and a series of video teaching modules which explore a wide range of scientific disciplines in an exciting manner by presenting the story of how these disciplines are used in the preparation and racing of an Indianapolis race car. This program will be distributed to a wide audience through its broadcast by PBS and cable sports networks; through dissemination to classrooms and museums nationwide; and through distribution via agencies that focus on bringing educational programs to youth and minorities across the country. We expect to attract a new audience to science, the millions of Americans who are infatuated by automobiles. This is an audience that cuts across age, ethnic and racial distinctions in America today. This exciting story of applied science should also appeal to American youth in a way that more traditional science stories do not. The major scientific disciplines involved in the project are: basic engineering, mathematics and physics, aerodynamics, materials science, mechanics, telemetry and computer aided design. This project is submitted to the Informal Science Education Program. The specific content of this project will be aimed at an audience with little background in science. High-school students and adults should be able to understand all the principles presented. Younger audiences will gain insight into how a knowledge of science is fundamental to a sport that many of them find fascinating.
WGBH/Boston in association with the Chedd-Angier Production plan the production of a series of five one hour public television programs on the environmental history of North America, "A Continent Transformed". Each of the programs will emphasize a key process which has shaped American environmental history: biological invasion, drawing boundaries, linking transportation and market systems, projecting ideals onto the landscape, and increasing the pace and complexity of systematic change. The principal author of the series and its on camera host will be William Cronin, a leading ecological historian. The series will be assisted by a prestigious Advisory Board, educational materials will be developed for series classrom use, and 8 million viewers should see each episode when the series airs in the Fall of 1992. NSF support will represent approximately 10% of the project total.
"Roman City," fourth in a series of PBS specials based on the acclaimed books of David Macaulay, is an hour-long film that traces the planning, engineering, building and habitation of an ancient Roman city at the height of empire. The program continues the unique Macaulay presentation format of a cinemaquality animated dramatic story juxtaposed with live- action documentary segments, hosted by Mr. Macaulay and filmed at actual sites portrayed in the story. Each film roots its dominant structures and technology firmly within the thought and culture of its historical period. The dual presentation style has enabled the previous Macaulay specials to capture a wide range of viewers from young children all the way up to older adults. "Roman City," as well as the previous award-winning Macaulay specials--"Castle," "Cathedral" and "Pyramid"--is specifically aimed at enhancing the scientific, technical and humanistic understanding of both young people and adults outside of the formal educational environment. All indication from the previous programs suggests that this goal has been widely achieved. There is a natural curiosity about other cultures, about things technical and how they interrelate with human needs and aspirations, and we believe our unique format satisfies that curiosity in an entertaining, informative and educational manner. The ancient Romans achieved breakthroughs in planning and the delivery of those elements deemed necessary for the functioning of an increasingly world. Aqueducts, sewers, roads, bridges, amphitheaters and public buildings, even public lavatories, all speak to the technical mastery of the ancient Romans. And if their social aims were not always as "advanced" as their scientific and technological sophistication, then that, too, provides a modern object lesson on the critical and mutually dependent interrelationship of science and civilization.
LIVING ON EARTH is a new weekly National Public Radio newsmagazine about the people and politics of environmental change. It goes beyond the ecological segments on NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED and MORNING EDITION to meet the growing demand for consistent, high quality, balanced and in-depth coverage of the environment, and scientific discoveries and advancements relevant to the rapidly changing ecology of our planet. Audience research consistently shows that information about the environment is a priority to a broad majority of public radio listeners, and these listeners are twice as likely as all adults to take personal and political action in relation to environmental concerns. With the premiere of Living On Earth in April 1991, public radio in the U.S. began serving its national audience with its first journalistically strong environmental show, Living On Earth. Each week's edition of Living On Earth begins with a one minute billboard, followed by a five minute newscast summarizing national and world ecological and scientific developments. The newscast includes modular breaks so that stations can insert two minutes of local environmental news. The balance of each program is devoted to a theme, with produced reports followed by a five minute newscast summarizing national and world ecological and scientific developments. The newscast includes modular breaks so that stations can insert two minutes of local environmental news. The balance of each program is devoted to a theme, with produced reports followed by interviews, commentaries, and occasional humor. From time to time the show is devoted to a full-length documentary or debate special. Standards of thoroughness, fairness, and excellence result in shows that stimulate as well as inform. Distributed by National Public Radio, the program is available to more than 400 NPR stations in the U.S. Already 160 of those stations have signed up to air the program. Many environmental issues -- sustainable energy, population, biological degradation, sustainable economic development and pollution, for example -- are of global concern and cut across political, racial and cultural boundaries. Material and information for Living On Earth is obtained from diverse producers and will be exchanged with public radio services around the world.
SOUNDPRINT, the weekly half-hour, nationally heard public radio documentary series proposes SOUNDPRINT EXPLORES SCIENCE, five programs that will make science more understandable and accessible to general audiences, with secondary use in instructional settings. SOUNDPRINT proposes three different treatments of science: 1) Programs that profile scientists and the life of a scientist; 2) A comprehensive examination of a long-term science project; and 3) Explorations of issues on the frontiers of science. Two programs will profile scientists to illustrate what it is like to live the life of a scientist, how she/he became interested in a particular subject, why it is important, current research on the subject and scientific method. One program will trace, over time, a scientific project: it will be recorded over time and presented in a compressed half hour. Listeners will learn about the scientific method, share in the human interest and suspense. Two programs will bring listeners the latest thinking on a subject from individuals working on a scientific frontier and present it in an engaging, understandable manner. SOUNDPRINT has a successful track record of initial science programming within the on-going series. SOUNDPRINT documentaries combine journalistic excellence, personal storytelling and state-of- the-art audio production to create compelling programs which present issues and ideas in an accessible, memorable way. Distributed by the American Public Radio Network, SOUNDPRINT reaches over 300,000 listeners each week; cassette copies of program reach a broad post-broadcast audience in schools, libraries, community centers, youth centers, colleges and informal sharing by listeners.