Pacific Science Center (PSC) proposes Out of the Lab and Into the Spotlight (OLIS) a five-year project to bring current and fascinating information about health science research to Pacific Northwest audiences. Through a series of showcases that change content every six months the Research Focus Gallery will highlight cutting-edge local research. The Gallery a combined exhibit and program space will feature multimedia displays research artifacts hands-on exhibits and a presentation area where local researchers will communicate their work to visitors. An annual three-day research festival and monthly Science Cafes in three locations will complement the programs presented in the Gallery and will provide multiple venues for a variety of audiences to meet face-to-face with local researchers and learn about health science and related careers. Out of the Lab and Into the Spotlight will further the goals of the Science Education Partnership Award by 1) connecting the community to NIH-funded research and 2) increasing the awareness of young people in the Puget Sound region about careers in scientific research. An in-depth evaluation conducted by the external evaluator Center for Research Evaluation and Assessment will measure the effectiveness of the project in reaching the following outcomes: * The extent to which the program informs PSC visitors about the wide variety of NIH-funded research being performed in the region; specifically whether PSC visitors have an increased understanding of the various research areas presented. * The impact of the program on over 100 scientist participants; specifically scientists’ ability to communicate research ideas to the public and their interest in future participation. * The ability of PSC program developers to develop a future-ready space; specifically if the developed showcases and templates are adaptable to future content areas. The proposed project will draw upon our established relationships with local research organizations that together receive close to one billion dollars annually from NIH. The project leverages and deepens relationships that already exist between each of these institutions and PSC to enhance science learning in our community in novel ways. The primary audience for OLIS will be families and school groups ages eight and older drawn from over 800000 annual visitors. As a standalone element within the new Wellness exhibit due to open in 2011 we anticipate the Gallery will reach three to four million visitors during the grant period and up to five million additional visitors in the subsequent five years. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): Individuals need to obtain process and understand basic health information to make appropriate health decisions (Healthy People 2010). The proposed project Out of the Lab and Into the Spotlight will provide opportunities for the general public to increase their understanding of current health information and increase their awareness of cutting-edge research taking place in their own backyard. By engaging with research scientists in several venues the public will be exposed to NIH funded research and health science careers.
The Studio is a small change-ready exhibit space embedded within the Wellbody Academy, a 7,000 ft2 permanent exhibit on health and wellness. The Studio showcases up-to-date research on topics like genetics, epidemiology, and allergies and features the labs and work of scientists in the Seattle area.
The purpose of the cohort study was to provide objective feedback to exhibit developers as they experimented with finding the best balance of information and interactives for the space considering the time and budget available. This poster explains a bit about The Studio exhibits that were
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded OMSI funding during the spring of 2011 to create a 2,000 sq. ft. bilingual (English/Spanish) traveling exhibition exploring current research on the human microbiome and the impact of our resident microorganisms on our health. The exhibition was developed with the support of the J. Craig Venter Institute and other national experts in microbiome research. More information about the exhibition can be found at http://omsi.edu/exhibitions/zoo-in-you/. The Zoo in You Project Goals are to (1) Educate museum visitors and program participants about what
The connections among neuroscience, educational research, and teaching practice have historically been tenuous (Cameron and Chudler 2003; Devonshire and Dommett 2010). This is particularly true in public schools, where so many issues are competing for attention—state testing, school politics, financial constraints, lack of time, and demands from parents and the surrounding community. Teachers and administrators often struggle to make use of advances in educational research to impact teaching and learning (Hardiman and Denckla 2009; Devonshire and Dommett 2010). At the Franklin Institute, we
Like many who started out as an ‘assistant curator’, I came to work in museums after years of academic study. Evolving some and swapping other habits formed whilst at university has mostly suited my aptitudes and appetites. But a puzzle emerged: how might I hang on to the invigorating, indeed intoxicating practices of research? After a quarter century of being involved with projects that attempted working solutions to this museological conundrum, the following speculations outline a more considered response. On taking over as its director, Ian Blatchford bravely criticised previous decades of
Medical photography collections often remind us of the inescapable reality of human suffering and pain, and at the same time they oblige us to deal with questions of ownership and privacy. Medical photography collections are thus considered ‘sensitive’ collections within the museum context. This essay investigates privacy issues involved in the curating of historical photographic collections in museum spaces. When medical photography entered into non-medical domains privacy issues emerged. It is these privacy issues that cast a shadow of sensitivity on the medical material. But the
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This brochure provides overview of work accomplished during the one-year planning grant period, and includes a proposed research agenda related to whole body interaction. The Move2Learn planning effort was a collaboration between museum practitioners and researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom, who represented the spectrum of science education, embodied learning, interactive exhibit designers and technology specialists. The overall goal was to begin the process of identifying relevant research questions related to the design of physical and digital exhibits for young children
This will be a dynamic digital wall that will allow visitors to interact with three-dimensional, high-resolution images of historic artifacts that mark transformative moments from the American medical past. These artifacts will respond to the user’s touch, turning, opening, and -- when activated -- enlarging to provide stories, exciting events and contexts, and digitized film and audio. Each of these objects will connect the viewer to additional objects and the stories they tell about how doctors, patients, innovators, philanthropists, and the wider community came together to make medicine modern in the United States. The interactive display will demonstrate how medical innovations forever altered the American experience of health and medicine.
Implementation of “Jews, Health, and Healing,” a major exhibit with related publications, programs, website, and outreach. For centuries, Jews have considered medicine a calling -- an occupation of learning and good deeds, vital to all communities and worthy of high respect. At the same time, Jewish bodies and behaviors have been the subject of medical scrutiny and debate. Some experts diagnosed the entire community as diseased, while others held it up as a model of health. The exhibit will examine how medicine has shaped the way Jews are seen, and see themselves. Building on recent developments in the medical humanities, “Jews, Health, and Healing” is the first exhibit to use the social and cultural history of medicine as a window into the Jewish experience in America. The exhibit will show how medicine has been, by turns, a vehicle for marginalization, acculturation, and the strengthening of Jewish identity.
The Mütter Museum will develop a new interactive online exhibit that explores the important role of medicine in American history through its unique collections. In keeping with the museum's broader medical humanities focus, the online exhibit will be presented thematically in a life cycle sequence. Representative objects will include obstetrical forceps, an iron lung, a surgical kit, William Harvey's book on blood circulation De Motu Cordis, eyeglasses, a tooth extractor, and an embalming kit. The museum will also develop a curriculum that addresses national secondary school education standards in history, science, and health by utilizing narrative stories, specimens, models, medical tools, photographs, and texts from collections. Exploring historic events and their health and medical underpinnings through an interesting narrative lens will engage audiences in critical STEM topics by connecting personal stories to the objects actually used to understand disease and heal people.
John J. Tyler Arboretum will develop visitor programming that will provide educational opportunities in its Edible Garden Center focused on the benefits of growing and eating fresh fruits and vegetables. The center will include a food gardening exhibit that addresses urban gardening issues such as raised beds, container gardens, rooftop gardening, holistic sustainable gardening practices and technologies, and traditional vegetable gardening techniques. Cooking demonstrations, healthy eating programs, and dedicated gardening activities will allow for hands-on learning about health and sustainability. The garden will also include a play space for children, art performances and art installations to create a visitor experience that is dynamic, educational and forward-thinking.
The project "Microetching of the Human Brain" endeavors to create the most comprehensive illustration of the human brain that has ever existed. Investigators will utilize reflective microetching, a process combining mathematics and optics to create an art piece that evolves based on the position of the viewer. Microetching allows the depiction of very complex brain activity at incredibly fine detail. The final piece will be a wall-sized piece of fine art experienced by a diverse population of thousands daily at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Additionally, this project is an educational opportunity for undergraduate students through direct involvement in the creation of the piece. As this project spans many scientific and artistic disciplines, students will be given an opportunity to learn about fields apart from their own, to broaden their skill set, and to learn how to communicate scientific concepts effectively. This project is a collaboration between neuroscientists, engineers, physicists, and artists to address the question of whether art can be used in the dissemination of scientific understanding to new audiences in a way that gives a visceral sense of the underlying concepts. The human brain is massively complex and challenging to portray clearly. Conveying a sense of its complexity through art may inspire an interest in the brain's scientific content and inspire a new generation of neuroscientists. To produce a piece of fine art capable of sufficient detail to depict the brain at near full complexity, the piece will be executed by a technique called reflective microetching. Microetching is a high-resolution lithographic process that patterns a microtopography of periodic ridges into the surface. These ridges are engineered to reflect a point-source illumination toward a viewer when standing at a specific angle relative to the painting. Similar to darkfield microscopy, this can yield incredibly fine detail. Additionally, the angular dependence of the light adds an extra dimension that can be used to convey time, depth, or motion as the viewer walks past. The piece will feature neurons, glia, vasculature, white and gray matter, and reflectively animated circuit dynamics between areas of the brain corresponding to neural processes involved in visual self-recognition. This will infuse the piece with additional meaning, as the circuits activated within viewers' brains will be the same that are depicted in the artwork.