Talcott Mountain Science Center, in cooperation with the Urban Schools Learning Network (encompassing a variety of state, regional and national partners), seeks $698,141 in National Science Foundation funds under the Informal Science Education Program for a three year national model for increased minority interest and participation in Informal Science Education Program for a three year national model for increased minority interest and participation in informal science education. The title of this partnership is Project PROMMISE )Promoting Role Model Minorities in Science Education). Over the next three years, Project PROMMISE will produce and broadcast at least 30 distance learning programs for thousands of secondary level students in urban and disadvantaged communities throughout the U.S. These Project PROMMISE broadcasts will bring distinguished minority and women scientists, explorers, astronauts and other figures in touch with urban young people through interactive video programming. Broadcasts will be preceded and followed by hands- on informal science education activities. The project also will broadcast national career exposure, exploration, and mentoring programs to better inform urban minority students of academic and career enrollment in secondary and post-secondary math, science and technology studies and cultural isolation by urban students, teachers and urban informal science education institutions. Major national partners for reform and pre- college minority enrichment are participating in the project, including the Edna McConnell Clark Middle School Change Network, the Museum Satellite Network, PIMMS at Wesleyan, the CT Pre- Engineering Program (CPEP). Private sector support has been gained from United Technologies, CIGNA and Union Carbide.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Donald LaSalleGlenn CassisDaniel Barstow
The planning project, "Is Global Warming Just a Lot of Hot Air?," is a consortium of twenty (20) research institutions, science centers and environmental organizations which will plan exhibits and outreach programs to address climate change and its affect on communities and ecosystems of northern New England. Research scientists will work with informal science educators to develop innovative approaches to presenting what is known about climate change. The planning project will investigate strategies for helping the 1.85 million visitors in the region understand the issues in relation to the landscape and social environment. There is a wide-ranging group of advisors drawn from science, research, classrooms and informal learning centers to guide the 18-month planning project.
The Lawrence Hall of Science will host a follow-up conference to the January, 2004 conference of the National Coalition for Science in After-school. The goal of this 2nd conference is to take the emerging National Coalition for Science in After-school further, bringing in additional organizations and points of view, to take the vision the next step into action plans that will establish an infrastructure, a research agenda and framework, an advocacy campaign and a plan for sustainability that will include further networking among participants. The conference will contribute to the enhancement of science education for the more than ten percent of the Nation's youth who currently participate in after-school programs, many of whom are least well served in the formal educational system. The conference will bring together leaders in science education and after-school programs to combine their best thinking about ways to share current ideas and to create new partnerships, models, research initiatives and organizational structures to advance their work. The conference will allow current and potential leaders in STEM and after-school organizations to inform one another, share best practices and form strategic alliances. In addition to traditional dissemination mechanisms (website, listserv, conference report), the conference will result in an action plan that includes extending membership in the Coalition to additional organizations and its messages to new audiences, including those who work with students with disabilities, community organizations and parent advocates. In addition to Lawrence Hall, the lead organizations in the Coalition are the Exploratorium, TERC, the Children's Aid Society, the National Afterschool Association and The After School Corporation.
The WCS/Bronx Zoo, in partnership with the United States Coalition for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (USCDESD), will host a two-day summit targeting professional educators working for institutions that maintain living collections (such as zoos, aquariums and botanical gardens). The goal of the summit is to provide an opportunity for sharing of best practices and development of strategies and recommendations that these institutions can utilize in supporting the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). A key focus will be the fundamental role science has played and will continue to play in finding solutions to the challenges of sustainable development. The summit will involve staff from approximately 50 institutions across the nation and will result in a Recommendations Document and set of Action Plans that will guide the work of the participants, and the field, in the creation of science education programming focusing on sustainable development and the Decade.
WGBH Educational Foundation is requesting $1,261,934, or 33% of a total project budget of $3,835,236, to produce 20 new shows and new outreach and Web activities for" ZOOM." Targeted to kids ages 8 to 11, "ZOOM" is a daily, half-hour PBS series featuring an assortment of games, riddles, investigations, recipes and poems -- all based on materials sent in by its young viewers. Uniquely by and for kids," ZOOM" gives its viewers a chance to explore, experiment and share their creativity. "ZOOM's" science and math segments (30% of each half-hour show) give kids opportunities to explore scientific and mathematical ideas, concepts and phenomena. The goals for Season VI are to: (1) expand "ZOOM's" engineering curriculum; (2) develop two new content areas--Sports Science, and Perception and Sensation; (3) create new partnerships with FIRST LEGO League and Girl Scouts of USA; and, (4) conduct summative evaluation to continue to gauge "ZOOM's" effectiveness at teaching math and science to targeted audiences. Outreach for the project will include print materials for kids, families and educators. "ZOOM"-related activities at community-based organization include 590 ClubZOOM science afterschool programs and 21 ZOOMzone science museum exhibits. The 2,400-page interactive web site is updated weekly. "ZOOM" currently is carried by 170 public broadcasting stations and is viewed by close to 6 million children per week. The program receives 24,000 letters and e-mails per week; the web site attracts an average of 14,000 visitors per month.
Led by Washington University, Making Natural Connections: An Authentic Field Research Collaboration (DRL-0739874), is a series of two field-based informal science education programs in environmental biology targeting St. Louis area teenagers. The project aims for engagement of science research institutions and career scientists in the execution of informal science education programming, bringing real and dynamic context to the science content and allowing for deep and transparent career exploration by teenage participants. Project goals include (1) providing a model for integration of informal science education into the research and restoration projects at biological field stations and nature reserves, (2) communicating current environmental biology research to audiences outside the research community, and (3) influencing the entry of pre-college students into the science career pipeline. The project is a collaborative partnership between Washington University’s Tyson Research Center and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve. The Shaw Institute for Field Training (SIFT) program trains St. Louis area high school students in scientific exploration of the natural world at Shaw Nature Reserve. During a one-week training session in June, teens are introduced to a variety of Missouri ecosystems and gain skills necessary to conduct field research, including plant and animal identifications, biotic sampling and census techniques, testing of abiotic factors, and training in the use of maps, compass and GPS. During the rest of the summer and school year, teens are involved in important research and restoration activities at Shaw, Tyson Research Center and other field research sites in the St. Louis area. Fieldwork opportunities may include invasive species management, prairie reconstruction, plant and animal inventories, and prescribed burns. The Tyson Environmental Research Fellowships (TERF) program places high school students as summer interns on ecology and environmental biology research teams at Tyson Research Center. Selected teen participants have successfully completed the SIFT program and apply their field skills to ongoing research projects at Tyson and other partnering research sites. During the summer, the four-week program provides teens with exposure to a variety of field science experiences and skills. TERF teens work alongside university scientists, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduate students. The TERF program provides a cultural apprenticeship in university-based environmental biology research and training in scientific communication. It is an advanced summer experience modeled on the undergraduate research internships offered at Tyson. During the following school year, participants work on posters and presentations for symposia at Washington University and Tyson and at community fairs, and their posters are displayed at Shaw Nature Reserve. A national dissemination workshop for informal science educators, high school biology teachers, and research scientists provides the necessary materials and background to replicate the project design in other locales. The summative evaluation will address impacts on teenage participants (engagement, cognitive and emotional support, competence, career viability, experiential learning) and professional audiences (implementation of teen program, program components, impacts on mentoring scientists). The strategic impact of this project results from the integration of teenage immersion experiences into research activities at a university-based facility. This model of informal science training activities leading into participation in authentic research may be transferable to other STEM disciplines.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Phyllis BalcerzakPeter RavenSusan FlowersKim Medley
Nebraskans for Public Television are producing three programs in the "Reading Rainbow" series that focus on mathematics and developing and implementing a special math outreach effort aimed at parents with a secondary audience of teachers. The programs will take a literature-based approach to mathematics which helps make it possible ". . . for children to have the same authentic experiences with math that they are coming to have with language, social studies, science and the arts." (Read Any good Math Lately? by Whitin and Wilde). The goal of the project is to expand the impact of the "Reading Rainbow" series by: - integrating quality math-oriented books with science and literary selections into the series, and - making quality children's math-oriented books more visible to parents, public librarians, and teachers and to engage children's interest in reading about and exploring math in the real world. The outreach effort will develop a special math effort directed to parents, children, and teachers. A special publication for parents and a teacher guide will be created for the new math-focused programs. The producers will work with the Family Math Project at the Lawrence Hall of Science in training parents and children and will also direct community outreach efforts towards economically and socially disadvantaged families. This effort will engage these families in math related activities through partnerships with community-based organizations and local public television stations involved in PBS's Ready to Learn Project. Partnership organizations include the National Council for Teachers of Math, Girls Inc, The Connecticut Academy for Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, EQUALS Family Math Project, and the Weekly Reader Corporation. "Reading Rainbow" partnerships also have been established between three SSI's -- Louisiana, Michigan, and Ohio -- and PBS stations in those states.
NACME will produce a three year public service advertising campaign designed to shape the educational choices children make in junior high and high school with respect to mathematics and science. The ads, featuring actor/director Spike Lee, will aim to increase the number of children in grades three through eight who understand the relevance and value of mathematics and science to life in the adult world. The campaign also will be directed towards parents with the goal of helping them recognize the importance of learning mathematics and science to their children's future. The components of the project will be: For each of the three years of the project, development and distribution of one 60, one 30, and one 10 second television spot; For each of the three years of the project, development and distribution of three 60, three 30, and three 10 second radio spots; Annual development of print ads and marketing materials to be delivered to selected consumer magazines, educator's publications, in-school magazines, newspaper "kid pages," comic book companies, and bus shelter and transit card carriers; Annual development and distribution of 100,000 full-color student brochures to reinforce the concepts outlined in the campaign; Annual development and distribution of 100,000 brochures for parents to engage them in their children's science and mathematics education; Establishment of a toll-free 800 number for students to call to request information. Each caller will be sent both the student and the parent brochure; Development of promotional materials including buttons, games, science experiments, math puzzles, T-shirts, etc.; Annual public relations campaigns including press conferences, media tours, in-school demonstrations, and personal appearances; Annual evaluation of the project including monthly reports of fulfillment of requests received via the 800 number. Development, production, and distribution of the campaign will be the responsibility of a task force consisting of: Ronni Denes, NACME's vice president for communications and public affairs; George Campbell Jr., President of NACME; Lea E. Williams, executive vice President of NACME and formerly served as vice president, educational services, of the United Negro College Fund; Catherine Morrison, director of research; and Ismael Diaz, director of precollege programs. The ad agency for the NACME/Ad Council campaign is Tracy-Locke. Rob Britton, manager of Advertising and Direct Marketing for American Airlines will serve as campaign director.
"3-2-1 Contact," the nationally broadcast award winning children's public television science series, has been reaching children aged 8-12 with daily half hour science programming since 1980 with support from both the National Science Foundation and the U. S. Department of Education. In seven seasons of production, CTW has produced 225 regular and two special shows, generating an estimated 633 million viewings by the target audience and more than 1.66 billion viewings by viewers of all ages. With completion of primary show production, the series will begin repeat broadcasts in the fall of 1989 drawn from the library of existing programs. This final award will support continued broadcast of the series and insure the widest possible distribution and utilization of "3-2-1 Contact." CTW will implement a Transition Plan to sustain series broadcast, establish series access as a VCR based science resource, and insure permanent access for teachers, schools, and out of school resources to the "3-2-1 Contact" program library. Broadcast activities will include supporting a portion of the costs of residuals for rebroadcast for a five year period, production of five "3-2-1 Contact EXTRAS" -- single topic half hour specials with high visibility -- and encouraging increased off air taping of the series by teachers. Support for school use of the series will be strengthened with the development and distribution of topic indexing software and teacher guides, the creation of short "3-2-1 Contact" segments specifically tailored to the classroom needs of teachers and a series blockfeed to schools to create a permanent archive of shows. Community outreach partnerships will be strengthened and home video opportunities explored as well. This five year award will allow millions of American children the continued opportunity to view science programming after school on a regular basis, and will assist their teachers in making effective use of "3-2-1 Contact" program materials in classroom settings.
The MIT Media Laboratory, in collaboration with six museums, will develop the "Playful Invention and Exploration (PIE) Network," with the goal of engaging a broader audience in science inquiry and engineering by enabling more people to create, invent and explore with new digital technologies. PIE museums will integrate the latest MIT technologies and educational research into their ongoing public programs. The museums will organize MindFest events, modeled after a two-day event at MIT in 1999, at which youth, educators, artists, engineers, hobbyists and researchers came together to collaborate on invention projects. The PIE Network will disseminate PIE ideas and activities to educators and families nationally.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mitchel ResnickNatalie RuskBakhtiar MikhakMike PetrichKaren Wilkinson
This project creates and implements a national parent engagement and education campaign. It provides a framework for all parents to explore existing and alternative forms of assessment within the context of changes in current classroom math curriculum and practices. The campaign also provides a mechanism for enhancing communication between teachers, schools and parents in order to ensure support for math strategies and practices by all members of learning communities nationwide. Project products include: * A thirty-minute documentary on mathematics reform and assessment, to be broadcast by public television stations, that will also include a viewer's guide and local publicity materials. * A Community Education Kit containing a Leader's Guide, Parent's Handbook, and short videotapes. Project materials and activities are designed for parents of elementary-age children, with a specific emphasis for materials on grades 3-5.
Miami University - Ohio/Project Dragonfly is developing "Wild Research," a multi-faceted collaborative project with the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden and with a consortium of ten zoos and aquariums around the country, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, the Society for Conservation Biology, and Conservation International. Project deliverables include a centrally-located 4,500 square-foot Wild Research Discovery Forest exhibit and six Wild Research Stations around the Cincinnati Zoo, a Wild Research Consortium and Wild Research Leadership Workshops for zoo professionals, conservation scientists and educators, a Wild Research Web site with visitor password access to exhibit data they collected, and 90-second radio pieces for the 90-Second Naturalist program. Institute for Learning Innovation is conducting the formative and summative evaluations. The Ohio Assessment and Evaluation Center is conducting a separate evaluation focused on this extensive institutional collaboration process. The primary public impact is to explore new ways zoos and aquariums can incorporate inquiry-based activities on site and to help visitors understand the work of conservation scientists. The project also aims to improve the practice of zoo and aquarium professionals nationwide in inquiry-based experiences and communicating about conservation science.