KCTS, the public broadcasting station in Seattle, WA, is producing and distributing15 new half-hour episodes for the children's television series, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Topics being considered for these programs include: Caves Jungles Animal Behavior Entropy Home Demo Lakes and Ponds Felines Convection Smell and Taste Life Cycles Minerals Adhesives Atoms and Molecules Organs Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors The project also will include outreach to viewers, teachers, and parents by providing the following materials: A teachers kit to be distributed to 150,000 fourth-grade teachers nationwide Fifty thousand free copies of a printed parents' guide and 15-minuted video distributed through an off-air off and community partner groups Meet a Way Cool Scientist national print contest in which children will be invited to write and illustrate a profile of a scientist in their community Nye Labs Online, a Web site with series information, science topics, hands-on experiments, and an e-mail connection to Bill Nye and the production team Conference Presentations and workshops about the project's approach to science education for PBS stations, teacher groups, and the three partnering organizations, Girls Incorporated, the National Urban League, and the National Conference of La Raza Rockman Et Al will conduct a summative evaluation to extend the understanding of the show's impact on children's attitudes toward and understanding of science. It also will examine the size and composition of the in-school audience, and will assess the use and value of the outreach materials.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth BrockJames McKennaErren GottliebWilliam Nye
The Franklin Institute Science Museum will develop, install and evaluate "The Franklin Air Show," a 5,000-sq. ft. interactive, permanent exhibition that explores the science and technology of aviation and aeronautics. Taking advantage of nationwide interest in the 100th anniversary of powered flight occurring in 2003, and the institute's collection of Wright Brothers Aeronautical Collection (including a restored 1911 Model B Flyer), "The Franklin Air Show" presents aviation and aeronautical technology as a vehicle for demonstrating basic science principles and the practical application of scientific and technical knowledge through invention, innovation and design. To extend the reach of "The Franklin Air Show," the Institute will disseminate parent and teacher curriculum guides through partnerships with the American Association of Physics Teachers and the Federal Aviation Administration. The exhibit is supported by innovative World Wide Web programming on The Franklin Institute Online, including "Flights if Inspiration" and digitized artifacts from the Wright collection.
Visitors to the Science Museum of Minnesota provided feedback on the books, How Small Is Nano? and Is That Robot Real? in order to assess the books and their ability to impart knowledge of nanoscience. The visitors, 63 adults in all, read one of the books to the child or children accompanying them, then answered a series of questions about their experience including their interest in and enjoyment of the book they read, as well as the age appropriateness of the book. The report compares and contrasts the two books throughout.
The Space Science Institute of Boulder, Colorado in partnership with the Franklin Institute Science Museum and the Electric Producers Research Institute will develop a 3000 sq. ft. traveling exhibit entitled Electric Space: Exploring Our Plasma Universe. Visitors to the exhibit will be introduced to the physics of the sun and the polar aurora. They will learn about the effect solar variability has on technology and humans working in space. The exhibit is divided into seven sections: Space is Not Empty; SkyWatchers; Plasma: the Fourth State of Matter; The Dynamic Sun; Planet Earth: a Great Magnet; Reaching Toward the Starts: the Heliosphere; and The Cosmic Connection. Its design is guided by the desire to create a total immersion environment that will allow visitors to explore the many realm of the plasma university from Earth's upper atmosphere to distant galaxies. It is the developers intention to demystify science by concentrating on process rather than facts, to create a stimulating informal learning environment, to reach a diverse audience, to motivate young people to pursue science as an interest and a career, and to have the exhibit serve as an interface between the scientific community and the general public. In addition to the exhibit, supplemental curriculum modules using an inquiry-based approach will be developed in cooperation with the Science Discovery Project at the University of Colorado. These materials will provide teachers, students, and parents the opportunity to explore the concepts presented in the exhibit. An extensive evaluation plan will be carried. The exhibit will open at the Maryland Science Center the summer of 1995. It will then travel to nine major US cities reaching an estimated two million adults and children who represent a great diversity of ages and education an ethnic backgrounds.
Individuals are at an increased risk to drop out of the STEM pipeline if they are female or Latino, and during certain periods including high school. Families are a potential untapped resource of support for high school students. Based on the expectancy-value model, we examined if a variety of parental behaviors predicted students’ ability self-concepts in and value they placed on biology, chemistry, and physics. Self-report surveys were collected from 988 9th grade Latino boys, Latina girls, Caucasian boys, and Caucasian girls. The findings suggest that, as early as the beginning of high
The Exploratorium's Going APE project (APE=Active Prolonged Engagement) developed 30 exhibit designs to encourage visitors to become more cognitively engaged with exhibits--to use exhibits as tools for self-directed exploration, rather than as authoritative demonstrations. To do this, the staff drew on work in the fields of education, visitor research, human factors engineering, computer interface design, and interactive exhibit development at other museums. The project also integrated evaluative research into exhibit development to maximize possibilities for visitor-authored questions
Educators, docents, and interpreters are considered integral to the learning experiences at many museums. Although there is growing recognition that these staff members need professional development to effectively support visitor learning, there has been little research to describe their work or identify effective facilitation strategies. To address this need, we explored the nature of unstructured staff-facilitated family learning at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, OR, videotaping and inductively analyzing 65 unstructured staff-family interactions. The analysis
The Education and Outreach (EO) program is an essential part of the CRISP MRSEC located at Yale and SCSU. CRISP offers activities that promote the interdisciplinary and innovative aspects of materials science to a diverse group of participants. The objective of the program is to enhance the education of future scientists, science teachers, K-12 students, parents, and the general public. CRISP’s primary informal science activities include public lectures, family science nights, New Haven Science Fair and museum partnerships.
The mission of QESST public outreach is to provide a platform for engaging the community; students, parents, teachers, and the general public; in discussions about solar energy. Although there is a growing interest in advances of solar energy, many misconceptions prevail amongst the general community. Community outreach serves as a mechanism for engaging people and drawing them in. It is often the hook that creates interest in parents who pass that interest onto their children, or lures young students into more formalized QESST programs. Our outreach events range in scale from small workshops, large university wide open houses, and participation in educational television.