Several years ago, Kansas City leaders decided to boost future economic growth by developing science and engineering skills in the area’s work force. There was a problem though: Kansas City’s workers and students weren’t very interested in science and engineering. So, five organizations, including a library and museum, founded KC Science, INC to improve science literacy in the bi-state Kansas City metropolitan region. Partners included the Johnson County (KS) Library as the lead partner; Science City, the region’s premier science museum; KCPT, the local public television station; Science Pioneers, a group that produces educational materials and activities for teachers and students; and Pathfinder Science, an online collaborative community of teachers and students engaging in scientific research. The group received a 2006 Partnership for a Nation of Learners* grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) because the community partnership’s focus on science-related careers and lifelong learning helped build a foundation for an informed citizenry.
This Communicating Research to Public Audiences (NSF 03-509) project in partnership with the American Museum of Natural History seeks to increase public understanding of research being conducted at the Pierre Auger Observatory that will be shown in 22 science centers and available on the web, as well as live interactive presentations by the lead researchers.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Angela OlintoMark SubbaRaoJames CroninRandall LandsbergVivian Trakinski
This report presents findings from a joint study carried out by the Museum of Science, Boston Research and Evaluation Department (MOS) and Art Beyond Sight (ABS, formerly Art Education for the Blind) with museum visitors who are blind or have low vision. The purpose of this study was to gather information that can inform the development of pilot museum programs that meet the needs and interests of visitors who are blind or have low vision and to provide professional development for museum professionals. Focus groups were used as the primary data collection method, as they enable idea sharing
The Milwaukee Public Museum will develop Adventures in Science: An Interactive Exhibit Gallery. This will be a 7250 sq. ft. interactive exhibit with associated public programs and materials that link the exhibit with formal education. The goal of Adventures in Science is to promote understanding of biological diversity, the forces that have change it over time, and how scientists study and affect change. The exhibit will consist of three areas. "Our Ever-Changing World" will feature "dual scene" habitat dioramas that will convey at-a-glance how environments change over time. "The Natural History Museum" will be a reconstruction of a museum laboratory and collections area to protray behind-the-scenes scientific and curatorial activities that further the study of biological diversity, ecology and systematics. An "Exploration Center: will bridge these two areas and will be designed to accommodate live presentations, group activities and additional multimedia stations for Internet and intranet access. Using interactive devices, visitors will be encouraged to make hypothesis, examine evidence, compare specimens, construction histories of biological and geological changes, and develop conclusions about the science behind biodiversity and extinction issues. Visitors should also come away with an increased understanding of the role of systematic collections in understanding biological diversity. Information on MPM research programs will be highlighted in "The Natural History Museum" section and will be updated frequently. Annual Teacher Training Institutes for pre-service and in-service teachers will present strategies for using the gallery's multimedia stations, lab areas, and Web site links. Special attention will be given to reaching new audiences including those in the inner city and people with disabilities.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Allen YoungJames KellyPeter SheehanSusan-Sullivan BorkinRolf JohnsonMary Korenic
This Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) is a collaboration among Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California—Santa Barbara, and the Museum of Science—Boston with participation by Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), the University of Basel (Switzerland), the University of Tokyo (Japan), and the Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and the Sandia National Laboratories. The NSEC combines "top down" and "bottom up" approaches to construct novel electronic and magnetic devices with nanoscale sizes and understand their behavior, including quantum phenomena. Through a close integration of research, education, and public outreach, the Center encourages and promotes the training of a diverse group of people to be leaders in this new interdisciplinary field.
The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center entitled New England Nanomanufacturing Center for Enabling Tools is a partnership between Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the University of New Hampshire, and Michigan State University. The NSEC unites 34 investigators from 9 departments. The NSEC is likely to impact solutions to three critical and fundamental technical problems in nanomanufacturing: (1) Control of the assembly of 3D heterogeneous systems, including the alignment, registration, and interconnection at three dimensions and with multiple functionalities, (2) Processing of nanoscale structures in a high-rate/high-volume manner, without compromising the beneficial nanoscale properties, (3) Testing the long-term reliability of nano components, and detect, remove, or prevent defects and contamination. Novel tools and processes will enable high-rate/high-volume bottom-up, precise, parallel assembly of nanoelements (such as carbon nanotubes, nanorods, and proteins) and polymer nanostructures. This Center will contribute a fundamental understanding of the interfacial behavior and forces required to assemble, detach, and transfer nanoelements, required for guided self-assembly at high rates and over large areas. The Center is expected to have broader impacts by bridging the gap between scientific research and the creation of commercial products by established and emerging industries, such as electronic, medical, and automotive. Long-standing ties with industry will also facilitate technology transfer. The Center builds on an already existing network of partnerships among industry, universities, and K-12 teachers and students to deliver the much-needed education in nanomanufacturing, including its environmental, economic, and societal implications, to the current and emerging workforce. The collaboration of a private and two public universities from two states, all within a one hour commute, will lead to a new center model, with extensive interaction and education for students, faculty, and outreach partners. The proposed partnership between NENCET and the Museum of Science (Boston) will foster in the general public the understanding that is required for the acceptance and growth of nanomanufacturing. The Center will study the societal implications of nanotechnology, including conducting environmental assessments of the impact of nanomanufacturing during process development. In addition, the Center will evaluate the economic viability in light of environmental and public health findings, and the ethical and regulatory policy issues related to developmental technology.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Ahmed BusnainaNicol McGruerGlen MillerCarol BarryJoey Mead
Janet Iwasa, Harvard University, is a Discovery Corps Postdoctoral Fellow for the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years. This fellowship will bridge between a Chemical Bonding Center (CBC) and the Boston Museum of Science by providing scientifically accurate, dynamic molecular visualizations. The audience for these visualizations spans from researchers to the general public. Iwasa's key goal will be to present chemical evolution in a clear and engaging way to the public. This Discovery Corps Postdoctoral Fellowship is supported by the Division of Chemistry and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities. The Discovery Corps Fellowship Program is a pilot program seeking new postdoctoral and professional development models that combine research expertise with professional service. Discovery Corps Fellows leverage their research expertise through projects that address areas of national need. Their projects enhance research capacity and infrastructure and contribute to workforce development and job creation. The Discovery Corps Program supports both Postdoctoral Fellows and Senior Fellows.
This collaborative project aims to establish a national computational resource to move the research community much closer to the realization of the goal of the Tree of Life initiative, namely, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of all organisms. This goal is the computational Grand Challenge of evolutionary biology. Current methods are limited to problems several orders of magnitude smaller, and they fail to provide sufficient accuracy at the high end of their range. The planned resource will be designed as an incubator to promote the development of new ideas for this enormously challenging computational task; it will create a forum for experimentalists, computational biologists, and computer scientists to share data, compare methods, and analyze results, thereby speeding up tool development while also sustaining current biological research projects. The resource will be composed of a large computational platform, a collection of interoperable high-performance software for phylogenetic analysis, and a large database of datasets, both real and simulated, and their analyses; it will be accessible through any Web browser by developers, researchers, and educators. The software, freely available in source form, will be usable on scales varying from laptops to high-performance, Grid-enabled, compute engines such as this project's platform, and will be packaged to be compatible with current popular tools. In order to build this resource, this collaborative project will support research programs in phyloinformatics (databases to store multilevel data with detailed annotations and to support complex, tree-oriented queries), in optimization algorithms, Bayesian inference, and symbolic manipulation for phylogeny reconstruction, and in simulation of branching evolution at the genomic level, all within the context of a virtual collaborative center. Biology, and phylogeny in particular, have been almost completely redefined by modern information technology, both in terms of data acquisition and in terms of analysis. Phylogeneticists have formulated specific models and questions that can now be addressed using recent advances in database technology and optimization algorithms. The time is thus exactly right for a close collaboration of biologists and computer scientists to address the IT issues in phylogenetics, many of which call for novel approaches, due to a combination of combinatorial difficulty and overall scale. The project research team includes computer scientists working in databases, algorithm design, algorithm engineering, and high-performance computing, evolutionary biologists and systematists, bioinformaticians, and biostatisticians, with a history of successful collaboration and a record of fundamental contributions, to provide the required breadth and depth. This project will bring together researchers from many areas and foster new types of collaborations and new styles of research in computational biology; moreover, the interaction of algorithms, databases, modeling, and biology will give new impetus and new directions in each area. It will help create the computational infrastructure that the research community will use over the next decades, as more whole genomes are sequenced and enough data are collected to attempt the inference of the Tree of Life. The project will help evolutionary biologists understand the mechanisms of evolution, the relationships among evolution, structure, and function of biomolecules, and a host of other research problems in biology, eventually leading to major progress in ecology, pharmaceutics, forensics, and security. The project will publicize evolution, genomics, and bioinformatics through informal education programs at museum partners of the collaborating institutions. It also will motivate high-school students and college undergraduates to pursue careers in bioinformatics. The project provides an extraordinary opportunity to train students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as postdoctoral researchers, in one of the most exciting interdisciplinary areas in science. The collaborating institutions serve a large number of underrepresented groups and are committed to increasing their participation in research.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Tandy WarnowDavid HillisLauren MeyersDaniel MirankerWarren Hunt, Jr.
The National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED) is a Science and Technology Center focused on understanding the processes that shape the Earth's surface, and on communicating that understanding with a broad range of stakeholders. NCED's work will support a larger, community-based effort to develop a suite of quantitative models of the Earth's surface: a Community Sediment Model (CSM). Results of the NCED-CSM collaboration will be used for both short-term prediction of surface response to natural and anthropogenic change and long-term interpretation of how past conditions are recorded in landscapes and sedimentary strata. This will in turn help solve pressing societal problems such as estimation and mitigation of landscape-related risk; responsible management of landscape resources including forests, agricultural, and recreational areas; forecasting landscape response to possible climatic and other changes; and wise development of resources like groundwater and hydrocarbons that are hosted in buried sediments. NCED education and knowledge transfer programs include exhibits and educational programs at the Science Museum of Minnesota, internships and programs for students from tribal colleges and other underrepresented populations, and research opportunities for participants from outside core NCED institutions. The Earth's surface is the dynamic interface among the lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. It is intimately interwoven with the life that inhabits it. Surface processes span environments ranging from high mountains to the deep ocean and time scales from fractions of a second to millions of years. Because of this range in forms, processes, and scales, the study of surface dynamics has involved many disciplines and approaches. A major goal of NCED is to foster the development of a unified, quantitative science of Earth-surface dynamics that combines efforts in geomorphology, civil engineering, biology, sedimentary geology, oceanography, and geophysics. Our research program has four major themes: (1) landscape evolution, (2) basin evolution, (3) biological sediment dynamics, and (4) integration of morphodynamic processes across environments and scales. Each theme area provides opportunities for exchange of information and ideas with a wide range of stakeholders, including teachers and learners at all levels; researchers, managers, and policy makers in both the commercial and public sectors; and the general public.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Efi Foufoula-GeorgiouChristopher PaolaGary Parker
The importance of reporting current science to the general public is more important now than ever before. The best way to ensure enthusiastic support for science is to engage the general public as directly as possible. Unlike schooling, learning in a museum is self-motivated, self-directed, and can be lifelong. The partnership between Columbia University's MRSEC (Materials Research Science and Engineering Center) and the New York Hall of Science will do this in an exciting manner by development of innovative 'rolling exhibits' (Discovery Carts) that are visually attractive, intellectually stimulating and demonstrate current research. This project will unite a dynamic University research faculty, dedicated graduate students, and high school teachers from one of the largest and best known teacher research experience programs in the country. NY Hall of Science, specialists in public science education, have developed exhibitions, over the past 20 years, for school and family group visitors in biology, chemistry and physics. Most recently, the Hall opened an 800-foot biochemistry discovery lab featuring ten experiments that teach visitors about the role of molecules in everyday life. The lab is facilitated by an explainer, and hundreds of families use the lab throughout the year. All exhibits and programs have rigorous science presented in an engaging manner in an educationally non-threatening environment. Columbia University is one of the premier research institutions in the country. Columbia's MRSEC is engaged in multi-faceted educational outreach activities in the New York metropolitan area, including a close working relationship with Columbia's 16 year old RET program. Together these institutions are well situated to involve the research community in public education activities that will inform the public about the current advances in science. Teachers and graduate students who have worked in MRSEC labs will assist in bringing new skills and ideas to the development of museum programming and exhibits. The teachers have experienced both the research projects first-hand and have had the experience in translating the research into meaningful classroom activities for their students. The graduate students have worked alongside the teachers, assisting them in making the research meaningful to high school students. Broader Impact: Highly skilled educators who can improve a young person's chances for success are like gold for the nation's schools, which are under pressure for tough accountability standards. Teachers will influence over a thousand students during the course of their careers. The Hall's Explainers are of high school and college age. These two groups will have positive impacts on our society for years to come. They will benefit from participation, and the tens of thousands of visitors to the museum will learn about cutting edge research.
Quarked!™ is a collaborative physics education project at the University of Kansas that provides engaging and educational science experiences for youth ages 7 and up, educators and the general public. This multimedia project material focuses on concepts of scale and matter, and presents subatomic particles as relatable characters in both human and quark or electron form that explore science through story-driven adventures. It includes a comprehensive website with a range of materials including animated videos, games, apps, FAQs and lesson plans, as well as hands-on education programs at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. Initially, funded through an NSF EPSCoR grant (Grant No. EPS-0236913 and matching support from the State of Kansas through the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation and EPP-0354836), this projects continued to grow and new resources have been added through funding from the Kauffman Foundation, Google grants and other NSF awards. Quarked.org attracts more than 75,000 unique visitors annually, local PBS television stations in Kansas and Missouri broadcast the 3D animated videos, and the museum programs have reached more than than 5,000 school participants and continue to be offered.
A range of sources support science learning, including the formal education system, libraries, museums, nature and Science Centers, aquariums and zoos, botanical gardens and arboretums, television programs, film and video, newspapers, radio, books and magazines, the Internet, community and health organizations, environmental organizations, and conversations with friends and family. This study examined the impact of one single part of this infrastructure, a Science Center. This study asked two questions. First, who in Los Angeles (L.A.) has visited the California Science Center and what factors