The Educational Film Center (EFC) is developing a science, engineering, and technology careers exhibit for distribution to science museums and technology centers. The core of the exhibit kiosk, with related career graphics surrounds, is SET/QUEST, an interactive multimedia program for both Macintosh and PC/Windows using CD-Rom as the full motion video source. Teens and preteens will enter an interactive exploration of thirty careers with first person video profiles of people in science and engineering; animated/reality video simulations of a work experience in these fields, decision screens, and a database of over 200 more science and math-based professions. The documentary profiles, database, and a personal interest career match component will also be developed in alternative media formats (video, audio, print) for broad distribution to community and youth education networks, schools, and libraries. Specific emphasis in this project is being placed on reaching and attracting female, minority, and disabled youth. A parent outreach component has been developed and will be implemented by the Directorate of Education & Human Resources Programs of AAAS. The concept of the parent effort is to work directly with and through the national offices of four major national organizations with different institutional community roots -- Science Museums, Public Libraries, Schools, and Community Based Organizations -- to involve parents and families with SET Project materials and to provide them with information with which they can foster their children's pursuit of science and math education and careers in these fields. Initial efforts will be conducted in 18 cities. The project is a collaborative endeavor among three organizations: The Educationa l Film Center which will be responsible for management and development/production of the software and documentary video profiles; The New York Hall of Science which will be responsible for the exhibit kiosk and graphics, will design and develop the student workbook and user installation print, will serve as the principal test site for the exhibit, and will advise on software, interactive multimedia design, and installation options; and COMAP which will be responsible for direct involvement of the Advisory Board, for selecting and hiring content consultants, for assuring the accuracy of the science and math content, for formative and summative evaluation, and for developing and preparing community leader and school users guides for publication. Stephen Rabin, President of EFC, will serve as PI for the project.
Digital image processing offers several possible new approaches to the teaching of a variety of mathematical concepts at the middle-school and high-school levels. There is reason to believe that this approach will be successful in reaching some "at-risk" students that other approaches miss. Since digital images can be made to reflect almost any aspect of the real world, some students may have an easier time taking an interest in them than they might with artificial figures or images resulting from other graphics- oriented approaches. Using computer-based tools such as image processing operators, curve-fitting operators, shape analysis operators, and graphical synthesis, students may explore a world of mathematical concepts starting from the psychologically "safe" territory of their own physical and cultural environments. There is reason to hope that this approach will be particularly successful with students from diverse backgrounds, girls and members of minority groups, because the imagery used in experiments can easily be tailored to individual tastes. The work of the project consists of creating detailed designs of the learning modules, implementing them on microcomputers, and evaluating their effectiveness in a variety of ways, using trials with students at Rainier Beach High School, which is an urban public high school having an ethnically diverse student body and a Macintosh computer laboratory.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Steven TanimotoMichele LeBrasseurJames King
The award winning, computer animated, broadcast quality videotapes on a number of mathematics topics developed at California Institute of Technology under two previous NSF grants are the basis of this project that produces interactive multimedia lessons distributed on CD-ROM. The videotapes use live action footage to relate mathematics to the real world and the interactive, multimedia version moves these materials more firmly into the hands of students.