The Hansen Planetarium proposes the creation, writing, and production of a 50-minute star theatre program, Cosmic Catastrophes: A Planet At Risk?, aimed at informally educating over a million individuals regarding the vulnerability of our Earth. The further production of four interactive exhibits is planned to accompany the program. This program will be marketed and distributed at a nominal charge to 250 national planetariums, with 50 additional production packets planned for loan. In this fashion, top-quality, accurate, and timely science education can be guaranteed to a large selection of audiences. Scientific research tells us that catastrophes of global and interplanetary proportions have happened in the past, there is evidence that they could occur in the present, and they pose an imminent danger in the future. The utilization of expert consultants, in conjunction with Hansen Planetarium staff, will insure this program presents the most current information available about these cosmic catastrophes. Its interactive format is designed to stimulate a proactive approach to problem solution on the part of the audience, especially in reference to ecological or environmental issues. The star show format, with its dynamic special effects, will make scientific theories surrounding cosmic catastrophes accessible and excitiong.
Acting on behalf of a group of academic, educational and public-service organizations the University of California-Santa Barbara proposes to improve aquatic science education in informal settings that include youth-service organizations such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, Boys and Girls Clubs and 4-H. The specific emphasis will be on the close interdependence between humans and the aquatic environment and on the need for enlightened social action in defense of that environment. The thrusts of the project will be to establish the California Aquatic Science Education Consortium; to develop multiple copes of sets of instructional materials on topic of aquatic science appropriate for informal educational settings; and to develop a program for training a cadre of trainers who in turn will train volunteers in the use of the materials. The program has a significant potential for broader national application.
A collaboration of staff from the University of California at Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science, School of Education, and the Cooperative Extension Service (4-H) will develop and implement SERIES (Science Experiences and Resources for Informal Education Settings), a state-wide informal science education program for the California State 4-H system. Over a three year period they will adapt existing science curricula and generate new materials for use in informal 4-H settings around the theme of science relevant to societal concerns, with an agricultural technology focus. They will design and test a comprehensive training model using the materials to insure their effective use by volunteer leaders, and develop an extensive cadre of CES staff and volunteer trainers skilled in training volunteer teachers in the use of the curriculum materials. The resulting curriculum and training materials will be published and made available at cost to all 4-H clubs. The project will directly benefit 100 paid and volunteer trainers, 1800 volunteer leaders and 12,600 youth participants, and will indirectly benefit the more than 60,000 youth enrolled in California 4-H programs each year.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Richard PonzioLaurel DeanHerbert Thier
The Field Museum of Natural History proposes to design and construct an Animal Resource Center of 24,000 square feet in the context of its encompassing larger exhibit, "Diversity and Survival in the Animal Kingdom." The Center will capitalize on the museum synoptic collections of animal mounts and models and will interpret these irreplaceable specimens in ways that will introduce central biological themes in ecology and evolution. The exhibit conjunctively will use a wide variety of learning techniques to appeal to the varied audience. The museum anticipates that the exhibit will serve fifteen million visitors over the next twenty years and that it may serve as a cost-effective model for other natural-science museums.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Michael SpockDebra MoskovitsBarbara Becker
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History is developing an innovative exhibit and teaching laboratory called INTERACTIONS. The unique feature of INTERACTIONS is the combination of an exploratory, interactive natural science exhibit with an adjacent live-insect-rearing laboratory. The exhibits will give the visitors some of the exploratory tools and experiences of the scientist and involve them in the process of scientific discovery. The laboratory will provide visitors with direct experience with scientists and involve them in the scientific process. Ecological in scope, INTERACTIONS will communicate environmental issues. The museum's plant and insect halls, designed over thirty years ago, will be renovated totally. In their place, a single, large exhibit and teaching laboratory will be created focusing on the interactions of insects and plants. The exhibits, videos, computer stations, and adjacent insect rearing laboratory will invite visitors to participate, question and examine. This combination of exhibits, hands-on activities, video, and laboratory will increase the retention of information, stimulate interests in natural science, and give vitality to the museum experience. The total cost of renovation, modernizing, exhibit construction and installation is $1,340,000 with $1,000,000 raised by a vigorous capital campaign. This request is for the balance of $340,000 to complete the exhibit construction.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Dennis PowerCatherine WoolseyNorman IkedaJohn Torkington
The Florida Museum of Natural History proposes to prepare two versions of a traveling exhibit in the context of the Columbus Quincentennary. The purposes of the exhibit are to show the natural history of the Caribbean at the time when Columbus arrived and to describe the rapid modification of those natural environments for European economic gain. The exhibit will manifest two components, both of which will travel to other museums. One exhibit of approximately 3000 square feet will originate at the Florida Museum of Natural History and then will move to eight other museums around the country. Another exhibit of about 1000 square feet will travel to a different series of smaller museums, libraries and college galleries.
The Science Museum of Minnesota proposes to create a national traveling exhibit on grizzly and black bears. Marked by an interdisciplinary approach that will address scientific, ethical, social, and economic issues, the exhibit will deal with research on bear biology, historical ecology, habitat destruction, declining populations, myths and bear encounters. The project will combine objects and specimens, research findings, interactive displays, film and video, and interpretive programs. Because it will travel to a number of other museums, the exhibit promises to serve a wide audience number at least two million people.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History will construct a new 9,000 square foot Bird Hall utilizing interactive exhibitry in a unique combination with original mounted specimens. The exhibition will cover avian biology in a comprehensive fashion, including the physiology of flight, adaptation, behavior, ecology and species diversity as well as traditional systematics. The exhibition will be directed at all levels of visitors, from small children to well informed adults; birds represent a familiar and powerful vehicle through which modern biology can be presented. A broad range of educational techniques will be used, including specimens, interactive exhibit stations, electronic media, and modern walk through habitat groups. Substantial formative evaluation and audience surveys will precede detailed design and construction, and leading ornithologists will serve as advisors and consultants. More than 80% of the total $3.2 million cost of exhibition development will come from county and private sources, and the exhibition will be seen by more than 1,000,000 visitors a year.
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.
The ETV Endowment of South Carolina, in an international co-production with Channel Four, London, will produce, promote and distribute a PBS television series "Spaceship Earth", consisting of ten 30 minute programs and an accompanying book on world geography, presented from the perspective of a global understanding of planet Earth. Geography will be viewed as an integrating science, treating physical, biological, and cultural components as interrelated parts of a whole. The series will present a satellite's eye view of the earth, utilizing the best available imagery from satellite, photographic coverage, maps, animation, and computer generated imagery. Program topics will include global systems and remote sensing, patterns of settlement, geologic processes, local impacts of global markets, climatic zones and climatic changes, oceans of the world, rivers and lakes, forests of the world, feast or famine, and ethnicity and technology. The Producers, Nigel Calder and Nicholas Barton, are experienced writers and producers of science book and films. They will be supported by an internationally recognized team of senior consultants and advisors. SPACESHIP EARTH will be complemented by educational materials packages for wide use in formal and informal settings, and U.S. precollege teachers will have unlimited three year off air tape and reuse rights to the series. This series promises to be an engaging and fresh approach to science through global views of geography, with substantial appeal to educators and schools as well as at home viewers. NSF's contribution will be 13% of the total.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ruth SproatNigel CalderNicholas Barton
The Museum of Northern Arizona proposes to initiate a two-part project in natural-science education on the Colorado Plateau, with a strong focus on the Native Americans of the region, and especially their children. The project involves, one, the installation of modern geology and biology exhibits that are highly relevant for understanding the natural history of an important area and, two, the development of two closely associated new educational outreach programs, one based on well designed kits for school use and the other involving the training of teachers in the use of those kits.
The Science Museum of Minnesota plans to design, construct and circulate a five-thousand square-foot multidisciplinary exhibit whose purpose is to stimulate public interest in Antarctica and to increase understanding on the continent--its physical history, characteristics and geographies, and the approaches and tools that scientists use to help decipher and understand it. Because of the importance of Antarctica in relation to global environmental systems the exhibit will explore the physical connections between the continent and the rest of the world, as well as some of the scientific, political and economic issues and choices that will affect its future and ours as well. The exhibit will contain traditional displays of geological, biological and other museums specimens, historical and contemporary photographs, models, dioramas and descriptive text, as well as interactive displays and video. The museum will develop the exhibit in association with the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative, among whose eight members the exhibit will circulate beginning in the spring of 1991.