In this article, staff at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History discuss the efforts of the Learning in Informal Settings Program, including three international evaluation studies.
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John J. Koran, Jr.Mary Lou KoranBetty Dunckel CampAnne E. Donnelly
Kansas teachers participate in workshops at Konza Prairie on prairie ecology and long-term data collection. They choose a native prairie site near their school where students can collect data annually. This real world research experience allows students to use their own data and data collected by other schools and in previous years for comparison in classroom units developed by their teachers. Student collected data is added to our databases on the Internet and is available for use in any classroom. Several activities are offered to fit the class curriculum.
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Konza Prairie Biological StationValerie Wright
The Please Touch Museum is requesting $684,602 for the development of educational resource materials in science and mathematics for four-year old children, and training for their parents and teachers in Head Start and other daycare programs. This 44 month project will develop, test, and produce six materials-based science and math activity kits, science training workshops for parents and daycare educators, and related family materials and events. It will culminate in a national dissemination program to promote more effective preschool science and math education through materials- based science inquiry and increased professional relations between educators in youth museums and daycare centers.
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Marzy SykesRenee HenryTracey Prendergast
Green City Data is an after-school community service project. Teams of secondary students are trained to inventory urban natural areas selected by regional resource planning agencies to supplement their own data collection efforts. Representatives from seven agencies and educational institutions initiated this project to support development of a system of greenspaces within the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington metropolitan area. This consortium includes expertise in resource management, geography, biology, computer telecommunications, science education and community coordination. These and other community professionals tech students and volunteer team leaders (teachers or other adults) the basics of habitat identification and mapping in the context of regional planning. ***
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gail WhitneyMichael HouckJames GillenJoseph PoracskyEllen Lanier-Phelps
The Exploratorium is developing a model program that demonstrates the vital role science museum exhibits can play in supporting formal science education reform. The development of exhibitions and enhancement activities is based on the Science Framework for California Public Schools and the emerging National Science Education Standards. The project includes: A series of four museum exhibitions (with a total of 60 exhibits) based on the Science Framework themes of Patterns of Change, Stability, Scale and Structure, and Systems and Interactions Publications (Exhibit Guides and Pathways) for each collection A series of workshops and evening events for teachers, families and students A symposium, video and Internet resource for museum and education professionals An important feature is an information desk and resource kiosk to inform teachers, parents and the general public about science education reform efforts. The project aims at 5,000 teachers, 32,000 parents and caregivers, 140,000 students and 1,320,000 members of the general public.
"The Connecticut Museum Collaborative for Science Education" is teacher enhancement program that will serve approximately 5,000 middle school teachers (and their students) from throughout Connecticut over a three-year program period. The proposed program has been developed cooperatively by four of Connecticut's Science Museums and Centers (The Discovery Museum, The Maritime Center at Norwalk, Mystic Marinelife Aquarium, and Talcott Mountain Science Center), in consultation with the school districts they serve and the Connecticut Academy for Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology, the State's leadership organization solely devoted to enhancing education in mathematics, science, and technology. The Collaborative seeks to enliven and enhance the teaching of science, mathematics, and technology by drawing upon the resources of Connecticut's science-rich institutions and related businesses and industry. The proposed project will provide direct services to a core group of 72 middle school teachers and their students in eight urban and suburban school districts at the four participating museums and in their classrooms, as well as teacher training, curriculum development, and networking activities. Larger numbers of teachers and their students will be served through a planned series of interactive video teleconferences. A theme-based approach will be followed in which the unifying theme of "Earth Resource Monitoring" will serve to connect the activities at the four cooperating museums. The central concept of the project is collaboration among museums throughout the state to provide a bridge between science-rich institutions and the schools for teacher enhancement, curriculum improvement, and student enrichment. Special program components involve the participation of business and industry through "Video Field Trips", and parents through a "Family Science" activity. The involvement of the Connecticut Academy for Education in Mathematics, Science and Technolo gy as a member of the "Connecticut Collaborative" provides a direct link for integration of project activities into Connecticut's NSF-funded Statewide Systemic Initiative.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, PA, in collaboration with the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, the largest voluntary organization for girls in the world, requests NSF support for the National Science Partnership for Girl Scout Councils and Science Museums. This three-year project establishes partnerships between seven Girl Scout councils and six science-technology museums in six regions across the nation to promote science interest and knowledge in young American women. The project provides hands-on science activity kits and training workshops for Girl Scout leaders that assist them in conducting science activities with their troops. The science activities are directly linked to the existing Girl Scout badge program and help Brownie and Junior Girl Scouts (ages 8-11) fulfill science-related badge requirements. Each council/museum partnership will develop a specific program that involves the local underserved populations in Girl Scout science activities. during the three years of federal support, the National Science Partnership will develop a specific program that involves the local underserved populations in Girl Scout science activities. During the three years of federal support, the National Science Partnership will directly serve 11,500 leaders and 138,000 Girl Scouts. Extensive project dissemination will encourage the involvement of new partnerships and the institutionalization of the National Science Partnership by GSUSA, councils, science museums, and other formal education organizations so that the project has the potential to reach the more than 2.3 million Girl Scouts and 780,000 leaders across the United States.
The Magic School Bus Museum Collaborative, requests through Discovery Places, Inc., NSF support for six science museums and Scholastic Productions, Inc., to develop science education materials that capitalize on the interest and excitement in the forthcoming Magic School Bus television series and the Magic School Bus books. Over a three year period the collaborative will provide basic science education activities and demonstrations through museum educational programming. The collaborative will provide tools and support for teachers to use the Magic School Bus themes in their science curriculum and provide hands-on science classroom experiences using mobile museum exhibits. Working with the National Urban League, ASPIRA, the AAAS Black Church Project, and other youth serving organizations, the collaborative will encourage multi-ethnic participation in these museum programs. The numbers of children and their families who will be reached by the Magic School Bus Museum Collaborative are significant. The components of the project are a planetarium program (100 copies), two 1200 square feet traveling exhibits, and activity and programming guide, table-top exhibits and program, and 2 teacher enhancement workshops. Collectively, these components can reach conservatively over 5 million museum visitors in the first year. Coupled with the new television series, the Magic School Bus can have a tremendous impact on the education of young people in the sciences.
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.
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.
The University Museum at the University of Arkansas is conducting preliminary planning for expansion of their 1994 pilot project entitled "Women in Science." During this planning phase, the staff will meet regularly with experts and teachers to design an exhibit about non-academic female scientists in Arkansas that will travel throughout Arkansas, outline a workshop for teachers that would help them encourage their female students to participate in math and science, and develop a program that enables female scientists to work with groups of students. At the end of the three and a half month planning stage, a final report will present a plan for the exhibition, gender workshop, and scientist program which identifies personnel, gives models/prototypes, and a budget for each facet of the proposed project.
Blackside, Inc. is producing a television series and an outreach component about minority scientists. The goals of the six-hour prime-time series, "Breakthrough: People of Color in Science," are to raise the consciousness of the general public that is largely unaware of the significant contribution of scientists of color and to provide role models that will encourage young people to consider science and engineering careers. The programs will feature the work of contemporary African-American, Latino and Native American scientists and engineers who are active in cell biology, astrophysics, applied mathematics and other fields of science. The stories of their scientific achievements will present both women and men, old and young, at different stages of their careers, and will explore the professional, educational and social worlds they live and work in. Viewers will have immediate access to a comprehensive follow-up effort that will connect them with local, regional and national opportunities in informal science education. Blackside will collect information from existing resources and institutions as well using source material from several extensively researched databases geared toward minority students. Using all of this information, Blackside will create a metadatabase that will connect teachers, parents, mentors, and students to a rich variety of educational programs: extracurricular classes, mentoring programs, national science contests, teacher training workshops, and a myriad of on-line services. To ensure immediate access and, where possible, to customize the information to viewers needs, Blackside will disseminate it through a variety of means: an 800-number with a direct fax-back capability, an on-line service, a CD-ROM, and a printed packet delivered by mail. A principal target audience is gatekeepers in students' lives: parents, teachers, and scientists interested in becoming mentors. The target audience also includes students from fourth th rough twelfth grades. Joseph Blatt will serve a PI for this project and co-executive producer for the television series. His previous experience include serving as executive producer of "Scientific American FRONTIERS" and as a producer/director for several NOVA programs. He also has been executive producer for three television series/college credit courses in mathematics. Henry Hampton will be the other co-executive producer. He was the creator and executive producer of the 14-hour, award winning series, "Eyes on the Prize," about America's civil rights movement. The principal educational consultant will be Ceasar McDowell, assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Michael Ambrosino, the original executive producer of NOVA, will be the principal science television consultant.