In this article, Jacksonville State University's Stephen Bitgood presents a literature review of successful interactive exhibits. Bitgood outlines guidelines for designing interactive exhibits, focusing on two aspects of interactive exhibits: stages of evaluation; and design of the exhibit in terms of the physical device, labels for instruction and explanation, and the visitor-exhibit interface.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum will develop, install and evaluate a museum-wide Interactive Computer Information System (ICIS) designed to enhance visitors' exhibit learning through museum-wide visitor information access and connectivity. ICIS will provide educational experiences for 1.2 million people per year, tailoring its information presentations to individual visitor needs and levels of knowledge. Exhibit based units will add advanced presentation functions beyond the usual graphics and text labels. ICIS will include 67 touchscreen-operated computer stations and six min- computers linking 27 exhibit areas in The Franklin Institute. This project is a collaboration between The Franklin Institute and the Unisys Corporation, which will provide over a five year period systems engineering, hardware, installation, maintenance and training of museum personnel valued at $2.4 million. An extensive evaluation plan will include studies of visitor-computer interaction, the economics and management of system maintenance, collaboration between museum and corporation and effectiveness of computer-based exhibit interpretation techniques. Project results will be disseminated through conference presentations, seminars and published articles.
READING RAINBOW, produced by Nebraskans for Public television/Great Plains National ITV Library, is a fifty part continuing PBS children's television series which entices children ages five through eight to read good books. The present project seeks to integrate quality science books into their nationally successful PBS series, thus encouraging children's interest in science and making science books more visible. Six science programs have been produced with prior NSF support; this award will support the production of nine additional half hour READING RAINBOW programs with scientific themes that will become an integral part of the on-going series. A special promotional effort will also be funded to reach early elementary teachers who have not yet discovered Reading Rainbow programs. Targeted at five to eight years olds, READING RAINBOW receives heavy in- school use as well as at-home viewing. It is carried by virtually all PBS affiliates, reaching 95% of the nation's households and 8 million series viewers. In addition to receiving all major children's television awards, READING RAINBOW has demonstrated both increased summer reading and increased requests by title for the books reviewed. The opportunity for increasing attention to science books for early readers is outstanding. NSF support is 31% of the total budgeted; the remainder will be provided by the Kellog Company, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by PBS station.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Twila LiggettLee RockwellJack McBride
The Lawrence Hall of Science proposes to develop a major public education program, including a traveling exhibition, two planetarium programs, a play, and a kit for schools entitled "Columbus' Great Experiment." Emphasizing science and technology, Columbus' first voyage is portrayed as an experiment aimed at testing the hypothesis (based on doubtful evidence) that sailing to the west was a more practical way of reaching the Indies than by sailing east around the Horn of Africa. As with many scientific experiments, the results were quite different from what the experimenter had in mind: instead of finding a sea route to the Indies, Columbus vastly expanded knowledge about our planet and spurred developments in science and technology. These events occurred within a social and cultural context that were critical to the development of modern science, and resulted in far-reaching changes in the population and ecology of the world which continue today. The National Endowment for the Humanities has recently awarded a grant for the development of the exhibits. The present proposal requests that NSF join with NEH to complete and expand the project, by funding: a) components of three additional copies of the exhibition to be constructed by other museums, thus expanding the public audience to 19 million visitors; b) two participatory planetarium programs; c) a play about the scientific aspects of Columbus' voyage; and d) school kits that will enable teachers to present the most important ideas embodied in the exhibition to students who are unable to view the exhibition at a science center. Interest in these programs will peak around Columbus Day, 1992, we anticipate that the materials will be sufficiently interesting, informative, and entertaining to be used for many years to come.
THE DR. FAD SHOW is a daily television series for children ages 6 to 12 that encourages creativity, inventiveness and problem solving in a lively half-hour format. Each program is taped before a studio audience and high-lights the inventions of young participants as well as the fads and inventions of the past, present and future. Created and hosted by Ken Hakuta, or Dr. Fad as he is known to millions of young viewers, the series will combine thirty-five brand new shows with thirty previously produced episodes for a total of sixty-five programs. The series will be produced and packaged next spring and summer at WETA-TV in Washington, D.C. and will be ready for national broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as early as fall of 1991. THE DR. FAD SHOW will be accompanied by a significant outreach and promotion effort, as well as an educational component that will include an activity and teacher's guide. The programs have already won the endorsement of the National Education Association and the National Inventive Teaching Association (NITA) among others, as well as the enthusiastic support of parents, teachers and a legion of dedicated young viewers and participants.
Children's Television Workshop is embaring on a ground- breaking experiment in informal science education: the production of an entertaining animated series of 13 half- hour programs for Saturday morning commercial television, based on David Macaulay's bestselling book, The Way Things Work. The audience will be six- to eleven-year olds, with special focus on minority and economically disadvantaged children. The series' primary goal will be to entertain children with lively and appealing characters in a dramatic storyline, while stimulating children's interest in the scientific principles behind the workings of familiar machines and illustrating the action of their parts. NSF support will enable CTW to adapt the CTW Model -- the collaborative process used in earlier NSF-supported programs, 3-2-1 Contact and Square One Tv -- to the opportunities of the animation format and the realities of the partnership with a commercial network. Through a development agreement with CBS, CTW has begun the process of developing the series concept, characters, and storylines. Upon successful completion of this phase, production will follow with an anticipated broadcast premiere in fall 1992. NSF's $2.36 million support will allow this project to be possible by completing the series' funding; it will allow CTW to conduct significant formative research and summative analyses of educational impact, and to reach large minority and economically disadvantaged audiences through wider promotion and the creation and distribution of complementary print materials.
Maryland Instructional Television, in conjunction with the National Science Teachers Association, will use the expertise of scientists and educators and the medium of television to create an exciting science video series for children ages four through seven. The activities of the project include the identification of content, design of instructional video and ancillary print materials, and formative evaluation. Fifteen video programs will be developed, each containing two or three separate sub-programs. These will be supplemented by teacher and parent guides which will suggest activities designed to expand upon the material covered in the program. The series content and materials will explore everyday events in the lives of young children and will integrate science and mathematics concepts, skills and application into a variety of curricular areas. The companion activities will make use of objects already in the child's world or easily accessible in the home. This project is funded jointly with the Instructional Materials Development Program.
READING RAINBOW is a multi-part PBS children's television series that encourages children ages five through nine to read good books. The program format involves book reviews through narration and illustration with an overall program theme set by a lead book. With support from NSF they have produced and aired five half hour programs devoted to science books and science topics as part of the READING RAINBOW series. The present proposal will add an additional eight programs that focus on scientific themes over the next four seasons of the program, demonstrating to children how science is integrated into all aspects of their lives and encouraging them to read science books. The series utilizes a thorough system of book and program topic review before material is selected for each program. Scientists, educators, librarians, teachers, parents, and children evaluate candidate books for interest, appropriateness, readability, and suitability for television treatment. READING RAINBOW programs are evaluated for effectiveness after they are produced to provide feedback for future programs. The resulting programs are having a substantial effect on home, school, and library. Booksellers are reporting dramatic increases in sales of reviewed books; librarians greatly increased requests for and use of materials. Recent READING RAINBOW book reviews have led to new covers and new marketing programs for books, and teachers are using materials during the school year following summer broadcast. Publishers, seeing an increased market for books for young children, are encouraging new work by authors and illustrators. A $750,000 award over three years is recommended: $250,000 for FY 87, and additional amounts of $250,000 in FY 88 and $250,000 in FY 89.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Twila LiggettStephen LenzenJack McBride
The Mississippi Museum of Natural Science proposes to build on its program of activities that involve children in science and bring them into contact with the approaches, objects and equipment that scientists use, with each activity designed to stimulate thinking and heighten interest in science. Cardinal features of the program are the development of hands-on exhibits, science kits for classroom use and a studied tie with the children's television program, "3-2-1 Contact." The goals are to coordinate these activities with hands-on science activities for students in grades 3-6, and to coordinate classroom activities with those at the museum, which conducts "3-2-1 Contact Days" throughout the year when students come to the museum and take part in experiments, observations and enrichment lessons and actively manipulate museum objects. The museum now will refine the program components, including improvement and duplication of the hands-on kits, continuation of the workshops for elementary teachers and development of new participatory exhibits dealing with insects and endangered species, and will present them to an expanded audience. One-third of the children in the state live below the poverty level, and fifty per cent represent minority populations. As most of these children lack such out-of-school experiences these informal science activities are particularly meaningful.
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.
With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Public Radio (NPR) will provide five years of operation of NPR's Science Unit to provide science and technology news and information on NPR's MORNING EDITION, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, and WEEKEND EDITION shows. Prior NSF support has allowed NPR to create stable, sustained in-depth science coverage on the national network of 335 local public radio stations. More than 9,000,000 people a month, or 2.5% of the U.S. population each week, listen to NPR's news magazines. Science coverage includes 400-500 science stories each year. NPR's News and Information Service is widely acclaimed; awards have included the Alfred I. DuPont Columbia University Journalism Award, and the Science Unit's staff's Westinghouse-AAAS Science Journalism Award and the National Association of Science Writers' Science in Society Award. With this five year award, NPR will consolidate the gains that have been made, continuing to provide the coverage that has earned their reputation, while moving towards financial independence from NSF. A FY87 30 month award of $574,449 and, subject to the availability of funds, following 12 month awards of $240,698 in FY89, $210,939 in FY90, and $180,623 in FY91 are recommended.
Award-winning Scholastic Productions, Inc. proposes to produce 39 fully animated, half hour television programs, based on the successful children's science book series, The Magic School Bus. We are seeking funding for the initial three seasons (13 episodes per season) which will be produced over a four year period. Designed as an informal science education series for PBS, it is targeted primarily for 6-9 year-olds, with special attention given to reaching girls and minority children. The series has clear science pedagogical goals: 1) to motivate children to further science study, 2) to present science facts, concepts and systems, and 3) to inspire positive attitudes towards science and education for students and teachers. Throughout the production, audience research and field testing will ensure that the programming is effectively meeting these goals. The series features a remarkable teacher, Ms. Frizzle, who takes her class on equally remarkable field trips. While other teachers may go to a museum, Ms. Frizzle leads her class onto a yellow school bus that shrinks (along with its students) to the size of a cell to journey through the human body, rocket into outer space, or travel into the eye of a hurricane. Thus, the series makes science tangible and relatable for an audience of children who are still concrete thinkers. We will create a broad outreach program, utilizing the publishing and distribution resources of Scholastic Productions' parent company, Scholastic Inc., (the largest publisher of children's materials in the English-speaking world), and other targeted organizations. Through viewer guides, series publicity and promotion, magazine editorials, community and after-school programs, we expect to reach a large and culturally diverse audience, including minorities frequently not served by PBS.