The National Easter Seal Society is engaged in a project to introduce young people with disabilities and their families to science, to provide them with access to science, and to familiarize them with the wide range of career options which depend on science and technology. Easter Seal affiliates serve as project sites, and a sub-contract with the American Association for the Advancement of Science led to development of a family-centered activity-based science program. The three major project components are: Family Science events, including hands-on activities, visits by "role models," take home activities, and field trips; an Activity Manual containing twelve themes to be used as the basis of Family Science workshops; Staff Training for Easter Seal staff. Target audiences are elementary and middle school age youth with disabilities and their families.
Georgia Public Television is producing and evaluating one pilot program and accompanying ancillary material for a series of 30-minute television quiz shows for 8 to 10 year olds. The series would be designed to entertain a home audience while educating them about issues and facts relating to nature and the environment. The primary goals of the project are to increase knowledge about the world around us, to develop a concern for the conservation of wildlife and wild places, and to encourage critical and creative thinking skills in relation to the environment. The television programs and the formal and informal ancillary materials and activities will engage viewers in use and development of science process skills: observation, classification, measurement, prediction, inference, identification and manipulation of variables, interpretation of data, formulation of models, experimentation, construction of hypotheses, and drawing conclusions. The project is being developed in collaboration with the Zoo Atlanta, whose staff will have responsibility for content development, and with educational advisors who will help assure that age- and developmentally-appropriate skills are exercised and the topics have the maximum relevance to elementary and middle school science. The senior producers would be Carol Fisk, a producer with Georgia Public Television and previously a news producer and correspondent in Great Britain and with the BBC in Washington, and Nancy Lebens, a Georgia Public Television staff producer. Cindy Horton, a zoo education program coordinator with Zoo Atlanta, will be the host.
The Wildlife Conservation Society will use this one year award to move forward their planning for the "Rain Forest Trail and the Living Treasures of the Congo Gallery." This is the first phase of an ambitious $29M, 6 acre outdoor exhibit area focusing on the Congo Rain Forest and an indoor Environmental Education Complex. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) conducts extensive field research in a number of central African sites and has an important living collection of tropical African wildlife in the New York facility. The Congo Rain Forest/Environmental Education Center will include three major interpretive areas and an educational resource area. NSF is being asked to support two components of the Congo Rain Forest complex which are the Rain Forest Trail and Living Treasures of the Congo Gallery. The Rain Forest Trail, with both indoor and outdoor elements, will be a total immersion exhibit where visitors will be surrounded by a replication of an African rain forest and will have the opportunity to encounter a variety of its living inhabitants, and experience how its ecosystem functions. They will have the experience of making scientific observations thus gaining insight into how scientists work. The goal of this design technique "is to move beyond the limited scope of traditional zoo exhibits (which simply portray the 'animal as object')", toward a presentation of animal and plant communities as they interact within an ecosystem. The Living Treasures Gallery will be a 4000 sq. ft. space which is dedicated to the introduction of the diversity of rain forest inhabitants, their environmental adaptations, and complex interrelationships. The gallery will be divided into four areas: Adaptations for Survival, The Forest of the Megavertebrates, The Interconnected Forest, and Seeing the Unseen. Numerous interactive devices will be developed to engage the visitor in hands-on activities and materials will be developed that link the themes of the exhibit with the agenda of formal education for both teacher and students.
The Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (WETA) is producing and disseminating "Green Technology," a multimedia project that promotes active learning about environmentally beneficial technologies for the home, the workplace, and the community. The objective of the project are to change or consolidate the public's concepts about the fundamental relationships between the environment and technology at the grassroots pocketbook level, to enhance their understanding of the pertinent science and technology, and to provide them with practical information about how to take action for oneself and in the fulfillment of a wider civic responsibility. The components of the project include: o Three one-hour prime time television programs o Community Outreach through the National Community Education Association and their affiliates in 40 states. o Development of community education material including a 30-minute highlight tape to serve as a discussion springboard with accompanying discussion and resource guides. o A Viewer's Newsletter for each program which will include short articles on the basic science and technology explored in the program and a "What You Can Do" section. o A CD-ROM for use by parents and children at home and by students in school. o On-line information clearing house the SOLSTICE, the digital library of energy and environmental resources operated by the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology. o Teacher enhancement materials and activities for middle schools to be disseminated through the Teacher Educator's Network of the Association of Science-Technology Centers. o The National Academy of Engineering will identify engineers who can serve as "on-line consultants" to students and teachers involved in examining specific environmental issues. Richard Thomas, previously Executive Producer for "Mystery of the Senses" and "The World of Chemistry," will be PI and Executive Producer. Principal Content Advisory will be S. William Gouse, chief scientist and President of Energy Systems and Technology at MITRE. William McDonough, Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, will be the host of the television series.
The California Museum of Science and Industry requests $1,103,410 over three years to work in a partnership with the National Council of La Raza to develop two content-rich "discovery rooms" in the Museum that are supportive of further learning in the larger museum context and that guide parents from culturally diverse backgrounds in supporting their children's science learning at the museum and in the home. A major component of the project is the "Our Place Academy," a comprehensive education program that will train Latino parents of preschool and school-age children to serve as learning facilitators in the discovery rooms. The curriculum of the Academy will focus on skills that will both serve Latino parents as partners in their children's science education and as leaders and disseminators within their own communities. A training guide entitled, "Making it our Place" will be developed as a practical guide for building a trained staff from the parents in a community to facilitate learning in a discovery setting. Target audience is parents with preschool and school-aged children.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ann MuscatSylvia ConnollySharon SchonhautCarol ValentaRoxie EsterleMaria Bonillas
The Science Museum of Minnesota will prepare and circulate a 2500 sq. ft. traveling exhibit of the physical science activities from their successful "Experiment Gallery" exhibit, previously supported by NSF. Visitors studies indicate this gallery is the most popular and most visited of the museum's science halls. The activities cover five areas of physics; sound and saves, light, mechanics, weather, and electricity. It will include more than 25 activities and will go to a minimum of eighteen mid-sized and smaller museums over a six year period. Complementary activities include the development of a recipe book describing eleven volunteer-mediated science experiment activities developed by Experiment Gallery staff. The tour will be managed by the Science Museum's Touring Exhibits Department.
The San Jose Children's Discovery Museum will develop an exhibit "Take Another Look." A semi-permanent version will be installed at the Children's Museum and a 600-750 sq. ft. traveling version will be developed and circulated under the auspices of the Association of Science and Technology Centers Traveling Exhibition Service. Consisting of 14 individual elements, the exhibit is to communicate the essential role and significance of observation in the human experience and its more purposive character in science; the role and importance of instrumentation in scientific observation; and the importance to science of observing and interpreting phenomena in different ways. "Take Another Look" is aligned with nationally developed science education goals as outlined in Goals 2000, the AAAS Benchmarks, and with the California's Science Framework. The project targets the adult/child unit (parents and teachers with children age 2 to 10 that they accompany). Particular attention is being paid to reaching traditionally underserved audiences including Latino, Asia, and African American. Complementary materials include a Teacher's Guide, a Family Activities Guide, and a free/low cost "take-away" card with suggested activities and recommendations for other activities. It is estimated that in four years it will reach over two million children and adults both at the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum and host museums of the touring version.
The Tech Museum of Innovation developed a prototype of "Innovation," a proposed permanent 8,000 sq. ft. exhibit, which will be one of four major exhibit theme areas and will incorporate approximately 80 hands-on, interactive experiences which promote critical and innovative thinking, invention and problem solving. The exhibit is designed to introduce visitors of all ages to advanced technology and the process of innovation from idea to usable product. The exhibit will use engaging techniques such as "immersive environments," "story lines," "open-ended elements," and the "challenge approach." The target audience is the general visitor of all ages.
This funding is for a planning phase of the Genome Radio Project, a multifaceted project that will produce 17 1/2 hours of radio programming, plus a variety of printed and electronic ancillary materials, exploring the science and social implications of human genetic research. The planning grant will enable the project team to develop further five key areas: o To work with advisors to define their process of editorial oversight and their involvement in the program ppoduction process; o To produce a half-hour documentary pilot program; o To use the pilot program to solidify distribution agreement with networks and major market stations; o To develop ancillary materials to accompany the pilot program and to determine mechanisms for the distribution of these materials; and o To conduct focus group evaluation of the pilot program and to define specific evaluation plans for the broader series.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Barinetta ScottMatt BinderJudith Thilman
Under the Small Grants for Exploratory Research Guidelines, Serrell and Associates will do "A Meta-Analysis of Visitor Time/Use in Museum Exhibitions." The research will examine the long considered and debated questions revolving around visitors expenditure of their time (duration and allocation) in science museums exhibits. Serrell will undertake the largest, systematic study of its kind. Using a large number of systemically made observations of visitors time/use, baseline data will be developed that will answer some of the fundamental questions about visitor's movements in an exhibit. This work builds on and expands, considerably, the current data base of observations from 48 exhibits to over 100 exhibitions. This is not a new research topic but it is one that deserves more attention because it has not been studied systematically. Researchers generally assume a positive correlation between time spent on task and learning but beyond that there are a number of provocative questions and unverified theories. Many questions lack sufficient data to draw conclusions. This study will provide statistical correlations between variables observed and will be absed on large, methodologically similar database, which does not currently exist.
The Burke Museum at the University if Washington will develop Pacific Voices, a 5500 sq. ft. exhibit that will focus on the issue of cultural identity. It will encourage visitors to examine the definition of American cultural identity, the integration of diverse cultural elements within American communities, and questions regarding interactions between Native peoples and Euro- Americans. Four themes (Teachers, Elders, and Authority; Language; Oral Traditions; and Ceremonies) will be developed to help visitors understand cultural identify, tradition and change in the context of Pacific Region cultures. The extensive collections and professional resources of the Burke Museum will be used and the exhibit will be used. Building on established linkages between the Seattle school systems and the museum, the Burke staff will introduce new teacher/student guides and a varied menu of teacher training activities including for-credit courses and in-serviced programs that will address the social science literacy benchmarks of Project 2061. Other outreach activities will include traveling study collections, weekend family programs, a resource bank in the museum's Department of Education and locally and nationally disseminated radio and television news and feature programs related to the theme of Pacific Voices.
Under the Planning Grant Guidelines, the Arizona Science Center will explore "Using Narrative to Introduce Science Concepts to Diverse Audiences at a Science Center." By bringing together a group of experts to review key questions about the uses and structure of narrative, the staff of the science center will 1) develop a strategy and range of approaches to science storytelling, 2) develop ideas for story premises and texts to interest visitors representing diverse populations and including women, people in non-technical occupations and minority families, 3) conduct research to determine visitor's attitudes to these materials in order to learn about the appeal and effectiveness of the narratives. Finally, they will synthesize and broadly disseminate their findings. The discussion will be focused on a comprehensive set of 120 exhibits entitled "How We Live With The Sun." The topics include light and optics; heat, cooling, and convection; weather, electricity; and technologies for harnessing solar energy. These topics represent the physical science that underlies the way people adapt to the desert and the ways in which Arizonans have applied knowledge of science fundamentals to useful ends.