The Addressing Gender Barriers in STEM through Theatre of Social Engagement project responds to the need to educate the public about the careers in computer and information science and engineering (CISE) fields by educating high school students, parents, teachers and counselors about the barriers to participation that confront women and other underrepresented groups. In this Communicating Research to Public Audiences (CRPA) project, a dramatic play is used to communicate the findings from the PI's work which resulted in a theory about gender and IT to explain and predict gender (under)representation in IT fields. The play dramatizes constructs of the theory, particularly the ways in which gender, ethnicity, and class affect identity and career and life decisions. Drawing from life history interviews conducted as a part of the research, the storyline of the dramatic play centers on three young women who are graduating from high school and making decisions about their futures and possible careers in IT. Situated squarely in the realm and literature of "theatre of social engagement," this play, and its staged readings and ancillary website, extend access beyond the scientific community to new scientific research on gender barriers in CISE. Learning goals for the project include: 1. Awareness and knowledge about possible computer and information science and engineering careers; barriers and stereotypes that affect CISE career choice among women; and "significant others" such as partners, family members, mentors and teachers who can make a difference at key inflection points in career decision making. 2. Attitude change about the CISE fields being open to everyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, race or class; how one's individual characteristics can be used to resist barriers to inclusion in CISE careers. 3. Intended behavior about learning more about CISE careers and educational opportunities; and responding to negative stereotypes related to CISE. Evaluation of the proposed project will include observations, talk-back sessions (focus groups) after readings of the play, pre-post surveys administered at the showings, and a second post-performance survey to be administered a certain amount of time after the showing. Dissemination will be through readings of the play for audiences in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, with partnering informal learning venues, and through an associated website which will allow visitors to download and stage the play themselves. Advertisement for the play and the website will take place through websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and websites that promote diversity in computing. In addition, the PI intends to contribute to the scholarly literature on theatre as an informal learning approach and on the findings of how audiences respond to the play itself.
The Sciencenter will develop Tech City Exhibition, a 2500 sq. ft. traveling exhibit that will promote awareness of engineering as a process and a career. The exhibit will consist of a set of twelve interactive exhibit stations presenting design tasks from various fields of engineering related to the human needs of a hypothetical community called "Tech City." The tasks will use engineering as an iterative process to meet design goals (e.g. building a structure strong enough to withstand an earthquake) while faced with constraints (e.g. a limited budget.) The primary audience will be youth in their late elementary and middle school years with a specific emphasis on women and other groups traditionally underrepresented in engineering. A broad menu of complementary activities will be developed that includes a hands-on program for visiting school groups, a teacher training technology unit, career speakers' bureau, "Engineering Day at the Mall" program, and activities especially created for families. The Association of Science and Technology Centers will manage the national tour of the exhibit. It is schedule to circulate for three years and reach an estimated one million individuals.
Alice is a traveling exhibition based on Lewis Carroll's beloved classic Alice in Wonderland. Alice will open in early 2001, first in San Jose and subsequently at mid-size children's museums and science centers across the country. It is projected that over the four years of traveling this exhibition around the United States, a target audience of more than two million people will view the project. The target audience for the exhibition is young children age 3-8 years old, with an emphasis on attracting girls and minorities, populations traditionally underserved in science and mathematics, together with their parents and teachers. Alice takes the link between curiosity and explanation as its rationale, using its eponymous heroine's dream-adventure as a framework for activities that will help children and adults build a shared foundation for mathematics and science literacy. The designer for the project will be Koem Liem, a recognized exhibit developer.
The Science Museum of Minnesota, in collaboration with Discovery Place and Science North, is producing a pilot stage for a large format film on the life work of Dr. Jane Goodall; her principal research site, Gombe National park in Tanzania; and her study subject, chimpanzees. The film will be a journey into the world of the wild chimpanzee with Dr. Jane Goodall, the best know living woman scientist among adults in the United States. It will chronicle Goodall's life work as well as the work of other researchers in Gombe. Accompanying educational material will include a companion kiosk exhibit, a leadership institute for museum educators, an online program, and women-in-science classes for children and parents. During this pilot stage, the project team will produce large format test footage in Gombe and will further develop the script for the film. The principal science advisor for the project will be Dr. Anne Pusey, professor and director of the Jane Goodall Institute's Center for Primate Studies at the University of Minnesota. She will serve as a Co-PI along with Mike Day of the Science Museum of Minnesota; Freda Nicholson, CEO of Discovery Place; and Sue Griswold, VP for Programs and Education at Discovery Place. Mike Day also will co-executive produce the film with Jim Marchbank, CEO of Science North.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mike DaySue GriswoldAnne PuseyFreda NicholsonBarbara Flagg
The Exploratorium will develop "The Math Explorer Activity Book," a project designed to build interest in math among youth ages 11 to 14, particularly girls and minority youth; and to engage youth group leaders, parents, and caregivers in math outside the classroom. The project includes a national campaign to raise public awareness among youth and adults of the critical difference that achievement in middle school-level mathematics makes in the life opportunities of students as well as to publicize a new book of math activities, the heart of the project. The new book, tentatively titled "The Math Explorer," will describe how to do activities at home or in nonschool settings with common, inexpensive materials. The experiences and activities in the book will give middle school-aged youth opportunities to see the relevance of mathematics to their lives and to experiment with math outside the social pressure of school. After testing and evaluation, the Exploratorium will publish the book in collaboration with a commercial publisher for wide dissemination.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, PA, in collaboration with the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, the largest voluntary organization for girls in the world, requests NSF support for the National Science Partnership for Girl Scout Councils and Science Museums. This three-year project establishes partnerships between seven Girl Scout councils and six science-technology museums in six regions across the nation to promote science interest and knowledge in young American women. The project provides hands-on science activity kits and training workshops for Girl Scout leaders that assist them in conducting science activities with their troops. The science activities are directly linked to the existing Girl Scout badge program and help Brownie and Junior Girl Scouts (ages 8-11) fulfill science-related badge requirements. Each council/museum partnership will develop a specific program that involves the local underserved populations in Girl Scout science activities. during the three years of federal support, the National Science Partnership will develop a specific program that involves the local underserved populations in Girl Scout science activities. During the three years of federal support, the National Science Partnership will directly serve 11,500 leaders and 138,000 Girl Scouts. Extensive project dissemination will encourage the involvement of new partnerships and the institutionalization of the National Science Partnership by GSUSA, councils, science museums, and other formal education organizations so that the project has the potential to reach the more than 2.3 million Girl Scouts and 780,000 leaders across the United States.
NEON, Inc. a not-for-propfit corporation, proposes a television series for children, initiallyu 30 programs, suitable for daily or weekly broadcast, for home viewing via PBSA (with appropriate availability elsewhere). Program length: 30 Minutes. The premise: Three Wufniks--creatures from the cartoom world--draw their way into our world and with the help of children, undertake the adventure of finding our what it's all about. Thesek characters (played by adult professional performers in structurally sophisticated fantasy/animal costumes), move from dthe uncertain world of animated film into a range of encounters with ourrock-solid environment, get to know children and adults, scientists and laypeople, and must continually reconstruct their naive theories and their image of life on earth. The concept, designed to appeal to five- to nine-olds, combines education with entertainment (and is inclusive of other age groups, such as parents, to enhance educational effect). School and other non-broadcast distribution of program elements is planned, plus ancillary materials including computer software and print. The educational approach is interdisciplinary, with emphasis both on content and the development of positive attitudes towards science and mathematics; sub-objectives geography and history. The Principal Investigators are a television producer experienced in science programming for children, and a scientist with extensive children's educational television background. Program appeal for girls and minorities is integarl to the design; project staff will also cover a broad spectrum. Encouragement of science-and math-related audience activities is a project objective. Planning includesds extensive outreach and promotion related to the show premise.
WGBH Educational Foundation is producing a prime time television series and informal education outreach component entitled 'A Life of Science.' Each of the six one-hour programs in the series will profile a contemporary woman scientist: Lydia Villa-Komaroff, biologist; Melissa Franklin, physicist; Misha Mahowald, computational neuroscientist; Marcia NcNutt, geologist; Lynda Jordan, biochemist; and Patty Jo Watson, archaeologist. The stories will present their scientific quests and careers but also will be about scientific lives. An outreach plan, which centers around a national campaign called 'The Missing Persons Investigation,' will target two primary constituencies: girls and boys 11-14 years of age and their adult teachers and youth service community leaders. The project will serve these audiences in formal school-based settings as well as in the informal settings of community-based organizations and institutions. Beyond these immediate target groups, the outreach project will reach a broad and diverse national public through related activities including demonstrations exhibits, community campaigns at local public television stations, and media partnerships. A comprehensive promotion plan has been devised to inform the public of both the series and the outreach component of the project.
The University Museum at the University of Arkansas is conducting preliminary planning for expansion of their 1994 pilot project entitled "Women in Science." During this planning phase, the staff will meet regularly with experts and teachers to design an exhibit about non-academic female scientists in Arkansas that will travel throughout Arkansas, outline a workshop for teachers that would help them encourage their female students to participate in math and science, and develop a program that enables female scientists to work with groups of students. At the end of the three and a half month planning stage, a final report will present a plan for the exhibition, gender workshop, and scientist program which identifies personnel, gives models/prototypes, and a budget for each facet of the proposed project.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Nancy McCartneyGloria Young
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This project is aimed at perfecting and testing a new instructional method to improve the effectiveness of introductory physics teaching. the methods has two chief characteristics: 1) a systematic challenge to common sense misconceptions about the physical world, and 2) an emphasis on models and modeling as basic to physical understanding. Two versions of the method will be tested. The first version is designed especially for high school physics. It emphasizes student development of explicit models to interpret laboratory activities. After an initial test, this version will be taught to high school physics teachers in a summer Teacher Enhancement Workshop, and its effect on their subsequent teaching will be evaluated. Teachers with weak as well as strong backgrounds will be included. A special effort will be made to include females and minorities. The second version will be tested in a special college physics course designed to prepare students with weak backgrounds for a standard calculus based physics course. It emphasizes modeling techniques in problem solving. This project is jointly supported by the Division of Materials development, Research and Informal Science Education and the Division of Teacher Preparation and Enhancement.
The Mississippi Museum of Natural Science (MMNS) will develop a program over the next two years aimed at teachers and students in grades 3-7. The project will develop teacher kits and "hands-on" exhibits tied to the new state curriculum and to the science television series "3-2-1 Contact". The MMNS is a division of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Conservation and is designated as the official natural science museum by the State Legislature. The Museum has been in operation for 50 years and, since its inception, has served as a resource for classroom teachers. Mississippi has approximately 500,000 public school students attending about 1,000 schools. One third of these children are considered to live below the poverty level and 50 percent are from minority groups--a priority for the NSF. The MMNS has had success with a small pilot project which coordinates science concepts taught in the television series "3-2-1 Contact" with exhibit programs at the Museum. Over the next two years MMNS will expand their "hands-on" exhibits and develop science kits for use in the classroom in coordination with the new state curriculum and the television series. The kits will include museum objects, suggested activities and a teacher's guide. During the first year a series of "Contact Days" will be held with teachers and students across the state to develop and test the effectiveness of the project along with a lecture program by minority and women scientists. During the second year the exhibits will travel to schools across the state.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum will, over a three year period, develop a regional Girl Scout leader training programthat provides science education experiences for Girl Scouts. The Girl Scout Council of Greater Philadelphia and the Washington Rock, NJ Council will be primary partners and the source of volunteer leaders and the target audience of member girls. Science Education kits will be developed and tested for Brownies and Juniors, training materials for staff trainers and volunteer leaders developed, leaders trained, and several post.training support mechanisms developed. Program materials are designed for continued use by the Girl Scouts; more than 2,000 leaders will be trained and 20,000 girls will participate in project activities during the three year period. This project is directed at the substantial under representation of women in many science and engineering fields by working with girls in informal settings to overcome patterns of science and mathematics avoidance. Replication and dissemination will be undertaken both within the Girl Scout Council system and among museums, youth organizations, and other informal educators. The proposers are contributing nearly $250,000 in resources to the project; NSF support will be 55% of the project total.