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.
The Association of Science-Technology Centers, in partnership with the Franklin Institute Science Museum, requests $360,523 from the National Science Foundation in support of a major hands-on traveling exhibition about global climate change. The 3,500-square-foot exhibition will provide a broad public with accurate, balanced scientific information about global warming and insight into its economic and social context. In so doing, it will help to spark interest in science and mathematics among the many young museum visitors who are concerned about the future of our environment. Approximately 2,000,000 citizens will visit the exhibition during its two-year tour of 11 U.S. science museums. Workshops conducted at each site before the exhibition arrives and educational materials to supplement program planning will assist host museums in broadening the exhibition's impact. ASTC and the Franklin Institute have a history of highly successful collaborative traveling exhibition projects. We will be assisted by a group of eminent advisors, a leading developer of hands-on science exhibits, and the Museum's experienced team of exhibit evaluators. The exhibition may serve as a model for other museums that are now developing permanent exhibitions about environmental issues and other topic issues in science.
Produce an exhibition that will lead visitors, particularly 140,000 school children each year, to explore and understand modern audio technology. The exhibition capitalizes on the great popularity of recorded music (every student seems to carry a Walkman tape or disc player), to encourage hands-on exploration of audio technologies from microphones to compact disc players. Further visitor inquiry, using a computer-based system developed by the Hall of Science, will encourage an understanding of the underlying principles. The prototype of this "Science Link" system, now in use, has already drawn replication inquiries from 84 science-technology centers, educational institutions, and advertising agencies. Develop additional exhibit techniques that will allow the hands-on investigation of phenomena that cannot be directly observed. Techniques linking computer simulations directly to the physical exhibits will encourage investigation of phenomena that cannot be directly observed. While contemporary electronic technology has become more and more pervasive, its inner workings have become less and less accessible to the layman. In addressing audio technology as typical of this challenge, the project will have applications to many fundamental and applied topics, and will find wide use in science centers and other settings.
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.
The National Science Outreach Network will provide school children, teachers, and the general public with highly accessible interactive exhibits dealing with popular topics in science and technology. The network, initiated as a partnership between regional science centers and public libraries, will be modeled after the highly successful statewide Oregon Library Exhibits Network established in 1987. Through this smaller network, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, a nationally recognized pioneer in science exhibitry and outreach programming, circulates small hands-on exhibits to rural population centers through installations in public libraries, where school groups and families have free and convenient access. This national dissemination project will be initiated in five regional sites across the country (Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Tennessee, and Oregon) to further establish the model in rural, inner-urban, economically disadvantaged, and culturally diverse regions. With support from both the NSF and the regional networks, The National Science Outreach Network will design and duplicate six exhibits for circulation to dozens of local communities in each designated region. Over the next seven years, over six million individuals, many of whom do not currently frequent a local science center, will be introduced to popular science in a non-threatening, resource- rich setting. This will encourage further exploration and possible future visits to an accessible science center, and ultimately establish an ever-expanding network of museum and non-museum partners providing science and technology learning opportunities to millions of individuals each year.
The Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, OH and the Science and Technology Interactive Center in Naperville, IL collaboratively plan to develop a series of interactive exhibits on nuclear and particle physics that will convey to a wide audience an understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe and of the basic rules that underlie that universe. The purpose is to lead the visitors from the perceived complexities of our surroundings to an unperceived simpler features of the subnuclear world. The collaborators propose to develop two duplicate copies of eight exhibits, with one copy for display at each of the two institutions. They also look to making the plans available to other science centers inexpensively and on a copyright-free basis. An added feature of the project is the collaboration between the Center of Science and Industry, an established science center, and the Science and Technology Interactive Center, an emerging one.
The National Zoological Park, a component of the Smithsonian Institution, proposes transforming three traditional zoo exhibit buildings into centers for informal science learning. Based on current knowledge about learning, the proposed project will feature interactive elements as well as the greater use of human interpreters to help visitors examine animals, handle objects and play games. The project is to be a collaborative effort by the National Zoological Park, the Dallas Zoo and Zoo Atlanta, with the National Zoo developing the materials and making and shipping copies to Dallas and Atlanta as centers for tryout and evaluation, with the results of the studies going to other zoos in way of encouraging them of the importance of interactive science education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Judith WhiteJames MurphyDale MarcelliniJeffrey Swanagan
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
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The American Association of Museums will conduct during 1989 and 1990 a comprehensive survey and data collection program on the status of American museums, establishing a baseline of data that will allow future comparisons on a consistent basis. Nearly every aspect of museums' organization, finances, and activities will be examined by this survey, guided by peer advice from each of the museum types, a national Steering Committee, and by consultants with substantials survey experience. The final products will include a public database, a summary report and accompanying technical reports, and a press release on the findings. The survey will encompass the universe of American museums, including a wide variety of science and technology related institutions and will complement the NSF-funded AS-TC science technology center survey of 1987-8. Independent scholars will be asked to carry out secondary analyses of the data, and in future years the survey will be updated with examinations of specific topics for further investigation. NSF support will amount to less than 10% of the total cost.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Twila LiggettLee RockwellJack McBride
The St. Louis Science Center, originating in the Academy of Science of St. Louis, founded in 1856, is today a major American science center attracting more than 670,000 visitors each year. A 34 million dollar facility expansion will open in late 1991. As part of that expansion, the science center will develop two unique sets of interactive science exhibitions that will encourage visitor interaction with concepts and ideas through "multiple-outcome participatory exhibits." These experimental exhibitions will be developed in two clusters totalling 2,000 to 3,000 square feet of exhibits that will be integral parts of larger, themed galleries. In the first cluster visitors will explore misconceptions and personal assumptions about science, using exhibit modules that address popular myths about science. Exhibits will demonstrate experimental phenomena contrary to naive views and allow visitors to replace existing ideas with more general and more powerful scientific principles. Approximately 15 exhibits on misconceptions in newtonian mechanics and classical optics as well as other areas will be developed. The second of the two clusters will allow free, open exploration by visitors of a variety of scientific phenomena and principles of explanation. Visitors will measure as well as observe, using modern laboratory instrumentation that can be successfully operated by visitors with minimal supervision. The topics of light, motion, sound, energy, and physiology will be covered with six lab stations in each. These experimental exhibit units will be developed with the assistance of outside advisors and consultants, will involve prototyping and formative evaluation of visitor response to trial units, and will include formal evaluation at the conclusion of the project. A unique cooperative agreement with the Science Museum of Minnesota will allow exchange of audience research data, staff exchanges, and frequent consultation between the two groups. This project will explore new modes of exhibit based learning and the potential in exhibit research partnerships. Cost sharing equal to the award will be provided by the St. Louis Science Center. The resulting exhibits will be seen by more than a million visitors each year in the new science center facilities.