The Peninsula Nature and Science Center (PNSC) in Newport News, Virginia, has been serving the informal science education needs of the Virginia Peninsula region for the past 17 years. As a "living museum" it is a combination of a natural history museum, zoological and botanical garden, nature center, aquaria and science center. By means of living plants and animals, the PNSC plans to develop a series of comprehensive indoor and outdoor exhibitions explaining, interpreting and providing participatory experiences for visitors about the Atlantic Coastal Plain area. The Commonwealth of Virginia has allocated a million dollars toward construction of the proposed facility expansion and the PNSC has raised an additional $502,560 for facilities and exhibits. The National Science Foundation grant will provide funds for the indoor exhibits which include: "A Walk in the Past," covering the geology of the area, a time line wall with touch specimens, the earth's formation and the Dismal Swamp; "How Life Survives," covering food gathering, protection, shelter and living space and propagation along with a microscope station; and the "World of Darkness," where activities of nocturnal animals can be observed. The PNSC has an extensive teaching program with the elementary schools in the region. They plan to expand these activities and, additionally, expect to have a statewide impact since they will be a prime informal science education resource in the state. They also have the potential of becoming a model for the 1600 nature and science centers in the U.S.
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History in Albuquerque will design and construct a 6,250 square foot permanent exhibit on the geology and biology of the intracontinental Cretaceous Period seacoast environment of New Mexico. Using more than 20 interactive exhibits as well as modern and extinct plant and animal species, visitors will experience and explore this ancient, yet familiar world and develop a sense of the relationships between past and present, living and dead, extinction and survival as well as the continuity of natural processes. The Museum will also construct related traveling exhibits for statewide display and install semi-permanent satellite exhibits in four communities that have relevant geologic and paleontologic resources. Exhibition designs will be based on formal and informal studies of exhibit effectiveness, systematic study of learning styles of visitors to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, and interaction with schools throughout New Mexico. This new natural history museum has an impressive staff, a record of institutional development and of state-wide community service, and a clear plan for carrying out informal science education with regional themes that serve the varied populations of New Mexico. The museum presently receives about 375,000 visits a year, of which 70,000 are in organized school groups with 45% Hispanic and/or Native American children. There is a substantial outreach program and extensive relationships with teachers and schools throughout the region. This $1.6-million exhibit project is supported by $840,000 of state funds and $500,000 in private contributions. A National Science Foundation award of $298,886 for FY87 is recommended.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Michael JuddCaren WaltJeffrey GottfriedDavid Gillette
The Cincinnati Museum of Natural History is moving from a long established site to a new 175,000 square foot facility in a rehabilitated downtown railway station. The opening permanent exhibition, "Cincinnati: The Pleistocene Legacy," will comprise 20,000 square feet of natural history exhibits that present in depth the geologic, climatic, and biological phenomena of the Ice Age in Ohio. In addition to large scale, dramatic "walk-through exhibits" and dioramas and substantial use of collections, a large number of interactive exhibit components will illustrate different features of the Pleistocene period. NSF support be concentrated on these interactive components and on work to insure effective handicapped access for the entire exhibit. This highly regarded project will cost $2.8 million, matching NSF funds seven times over. It will generate an annual audience of 875,000 visitors including more than 120,000 school group visitations.
The San Diego Natural History Museum (San Diego, CA) is developing a new permanent Minerals Hall that will present San Diego geology and mineralogy to visitors through displays of outstanding mineral specimens and through interactive exhibits on the physical properties of minerals. This NSF award will support the design, construction and evaluation of the interactive exhibit components. In addition to the permanent exhibits at the San Diego Natural History Museum, an additional set of exhibits will be prototyped, tested, and installed in a new Great Lakes Exhibit at the Cranbrook Institute of Science (Bloomfield Hills, MI). The two institutions will collaborate on exhibit design and development and carry out parallel evaluations with their respective museum audiences. NSF support will be approximately 45% of the project total.
The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, with partial support from NSF, will develop science, mathematics, and technology components for a new, permanent 17,000 square foot exhibition on the Pacific. Broad in scope and dramatic in its impact, this exhibition will cut across many fields and disciplines in presenting a coherent, integrated view of the Pacific regions. Topics from anthropology, geology, biology and geography will be combined using collections, reconstructed objects, large scale models, and interactive components in this landmark exhibition. The project will make extensive use of leading researchers, educators, and an evaluation consultant, and will utilize a variety of prototyping and formative exhibit development techniques. The science, mathematics and technology portion will cost $ 1.9 million, of which approximately one third is requested from NSF. The complete 17,000 square foot exhibition will cost $ 3.3 million and will be seen by at least 10 million adults and children over its 20 year life.
The ETV Endowment of South Carolina, in an international co-production with Channel Four, London, will produce, promote and distribute a PBS television series "Spaceship Earth", consisting of ten 30 minute programs and an accompanying book on world geography, presented from the perspective of a global understanding of planet Earth. Geography will be viewed as an integrating science, treating physical, biological, and cultural components as interrelated parts of a whole. The series will present a satellite's eye view of the earth, utilizing the best available imagery from satellite, photographic coverage, maps, animation, and computer generated imagery. Program topics will include global systems and remote sensing, patterns of settlement, geologic processes, local impacts of global markets, climatic zones and climatic changes, oceans of the world, rivers and lakes, forests of the world, feast or famine, and ethnicity and technology. The Producers, Nigel Calder and Nicholas Barton, are experienced writers and producers of science book and films. They will be supported by an internationally recognized team of senior consultants and advisors. SPACESHIP EARTH will be complemented by educational materials packages for wide use in formal and informal settings, and U.S. precollege teachers will have unlimited three year off air tape and reuse rights to the series. This series promises to be an engaging and fresh approach to science through global views of geography, with substantial appeal to educators and schools as well as at home viewers. NSF's contribution will be 13% of the total.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ruth SproatNigel CalderNicholas Barton
The Museum of Northern Arizona proposes to initiate a two-part project in natural-science education on the Colorado Plateau, with a strong focus on the Native Americans of the region, and especially their children. The project involves, one, the installation of modern geology and biology exhibits that are highly relevant for understanding the natural history of an important area and, two, the development of two closely associated new educational outreach programs, one based on well designed kits for school use and the other involving the training of teachers in the use of those kits.
The Science Museum of Minnesota plans to design, construct and circulate a five-thousand square-foot multidisciplinary exhibit whose purpose is to stimulate public interest in Antarctica and to increase understanding on the continent--its physical history, characteristics and geographies, and the approaches and tools that scientists use to help decipher and understand it. Because of the importance of Antarctica in relation to global environmental systems the exhibit will explore the physical connections between the continent and the rest of the world, as well as some of the scientific, political and economic issues and choices that will affect its future and ours as well. The exhibit will contain traditional displays of geological, biological and other museums specimens, historical and contemporary photographs, models, dioramas and descriptive text, as well as interactive displays and video. The museum will develop the exhibit in association with the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative, among whose eight members the exhibit will circulate beginning in the spring of 1991.
Field Museum requests $1,033,456 from NSF for the geological and biological science portions of the new, 14,000 square-foot multidisciplinary exhibit on Africa. This $3.45 million permanent reinstallation will capitalize on Field Museum's extensive African collections. We intend to use these collections and other presentational strategies, broad scientific and community input to develop a sensitive and appealing exhibit that will advance central scientific themes in anthropology, geology, ecology, and conservation. A variety of techniques will be used to appeal to the individual interests, needs and learning styles of our diverse audience. Project director will be Michael Spock, Vice President for Public Programs at Field Museum. Co-developers will be Karen Hutt and Fath Ruffins. Exhibit consultants and advisors include Field Museum scientists and educators, and experts in the fields of biology, zoology, and conservation from outside the Museum. An estimated 14 million children and adults will be reached by this ehibit over the next 20 years, and extensive documentation of the exhibit development process will serve as a model for development of other comprehensive exhibits throughout the world.
The Staten Island Children's Museum requests support for an interactive exhibition for children on the topic of water. WATER WATER EVERYWHERE will open in April 1991 and remain on view for three years; a smaller replica of the exhibition will be ready to travel in the Spring of 1992. The first year will allow an initial evaluation period during which both design and content can be improved. The exhibition has dual goals: to provide family audiences, focusing on children, with the materials and context that encourage experimentation and learning, and to educate visitors about an essential and widespread constituent of our world. WATER will present different aspects of this varied subject in six sections: the many forms of water in our world; the properties of water; how living things use water; how water works for us; experiments with water and local water issues. The exhibition will engage children imaginatively, inform, provide opportunities to experiment and learn, and stimulate creativity. Museum public programs and activities will be offered in conjunction with WATER to both extend and enrich the project. WATER will contribute to both children's and inter- generational learning. Its desired outcomes include further development of the Museum's critical thinking skills program, expansion of our renewed Informal Science Education Program, extension of our community service programs and heightening our participation in community issues, such as the environment, through the ecological aspect of the exhibition. By touring the exhibition and producing educational materials based on WATER, the Museum will extend its impact in learning skills, science education and environmental awareness to a scale that is potentially national.
In spring of 1992, Scripps Institution of Oceanography will open a new Aquarium-Museum. The enlarges facility will include a 3700 sq. ft. gallery, the Scripps Hall of Oceanography. Funding is requested for a new exhibit in this gallery, Exploring the Blue Planet, which will offer visitors an overview of the ocean sciences -- to our knowledge, the only major exhibit on oceanography in the United States. The exhibit first introduces visitors to our water planet, followed by a walk through the history of oceanographic research. Visitors are then invited to explore the ocean world as if they were oceanographers themselves, making discoveries as they follow the theme of "water" through the hall, adding components one-by-one to build a global system: first water alone (water chemistry and movements), then adding air (climate and weather), next adding land (seafloor spreading and plate tectonics), and finally adding life (adaptations of organisms to the marine environment). Through interactive exhibits on scientific concepts, coupled with exhibits on related Scripps research projects, visitors gain an appreciation for the process of science and its application to their everyday lives. The conclusion of Exploring the Blue Planet brings together the four realms of water, air, land and life to emphasize the nature of Earth as an interrelated global system. Visitors learn that oceanography, an interdisciplinary science that is global in scale and often international in practice, lends itself to a balanced and comprehensive investigation of global change and our future on earth.
This proposal requests partial funding for the development of a new paleobiology hall at the University of Nebraska State Museum. This project will give students and the general public a dynamic view of the period of time known as the Age of Reptiles. It emphasizes experience with interactive exhibits that focus on concepts of geologic time, how species adapt and change, relative size, scale and time, the activities of scientists as role models, and it provides reinforcement of these experiences for students in the classroom. This project includes the first use in a museum of SemNet, a software program designed for concept mapping and the representation of knowledge networks, which will be used with a videodisc. Prototypes of all interactive exhibits will undergo formative evaluation to establish maximal audience accessibility, ease of use and educational effectiveness. The exhibit concepts will be disseminated throughout the state of Nebraska through mini- versions, teachers in-service training, and scientist-in- residence programs. This project will also be used as a teaching laboratory for the University of Nebraska's graduate program in Museum Studies.