The importance of Ice Stories derives from its creative use of the latest communications media to convey the latest polar research. By teaching scientists to communicate, by establishing a Web site devoted to polar research, Ice Stories humanizes science and brings it to a broad, diverse audience with unprecedented immediacy, thanks to the growth of digital media. This project comes when the stakes—posed by planetary warming— have never been higher, when the techniques of media production have never been more accessible, and when the potential audience—fueled by public concern and IPY activity—has never been larger. The Exploratorium will train scientists as correspondents, shape and channel their work, and create the Web site that will be a major international hub showcasing the range of IPY research and commentary. The training and production phases of the project were field-tested with polar scientists in 2006, and the museum is an experienced producer of Web and live programs from the poles. Ice Stories conceptualizes a new model of communication with great implications for informal science education. Scientists can now bring their research directly to the public, instead of having it filtered through traditional journalistic media. Ice Stories achieves this new model by organizing three innovative components: intensive media training for polar researchers; a museum-based production unit; and the project’s informal-education Web 2.0 portal. Scientist-produced video, audio, photo-essays and blogs will be accessed free via the Web site and such technology platforms as downloadable podcasts, vodcasts, RSS feeds and by posting on popular Web sites and by dissemination through journalistic media. Deliverables include (1.) Correspondent Training—week-long workshops in media for a minimum of 20 scientists in spring and fall 2008. (2.) Productions—STEM content from correspondents, each spending 5-10 hours a week producing from the field. (3.) Media Assets Database—fully accessible correspondent productions plus material from other polar projects and collaborating institutions. (4.) Exhibits—IPY Production Studio at the Exploratorium and project material used internationally in IPY exhibitions. The project design benefits from the museum’s 30 years of making science accessible to visitors, its 22 years of creating professional development courses for educators, and its use of scientists as research guides in previous Webcast projects. Project leaders have polar experience and have collaborative relationships with researchers. Instructors for media workshops include top professionals, and project partnerships encompass major projects at both poles.
Portal to the Public is a program designed to assist informal science education (ISE) institutions as they seek to bring scientists and public audiences together in face-to-face public interactions that promote appreciation and understanding of current scientific research and its application. Led by Pacific Science Center (WA), in collaboration with Explora (NM), the North Museum of Natural History and Science (PA) and the Institute for Learning Innovation (MD), the program model was implemented and evaluated at five additional museums and science centers during 2007-2011. The project goals were to create a flexible and scalable guiding framework that would support ISE institutions build relationships with their local scientific community, design professional development workshops for scientists, and create public program formats featuring scientists. The project included thorough research and evaluation of the guiding framework, dissemination process, and implementation at expansion sites. The Portal to the Public project team has produced an Implementation Manual as a guide for institutions planning to implement a Portal to the Public-type program, available for download at the project website (http://www.pacificsciencecenter.org/Portal-to-the-Public/portal). It includes the Catalog of Professional Development Elements, a practical guide to creating and facilitating professional development experiences for scientists.
This materials development project is the result of a joint effort by Miami University and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). The project will combine the resources of the Univeristy and the publication department of NSTA, to work with schools to produce an innovative science journal for children in grades 3-6, a teacher support manual, a parent support manual, and a supporting computer network that will connect children with scientists and university science students in scientific inquiry. The journal will be the first national journal devoted to research scientists and children with an outlet for publication of scientific investigations conducted by children. Given the strong record of accomplishment of the PI and the publications division of the National Science Teachers Association, the panel feel it is likely that the Dragonfly, Dragonfly Companions. the Dragonfly Net will be a quality product and recommends funding this project at a high priority level. The Program Officer agrees with the panel and recommends funding this proposal.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Christopher MyersPhyllis MarcuccioR. Hays CumminsChris WolfeCarolyn Haynes
Blackside, Inc. is producing a television series and an outreach component about minority scientists. The goals of the six-hour prime-time series, "Breakthrough: People of Color in Science," are to raise the consciousness of the general public that is largely unaware of the significant contribution of scientists of color and to provide role models that will encourage young people to consider science and engineering careers. The programs will feature the work of contemporary African-American, Latino and Native American scientists and engineers who are active in cell biology, astrophysics, applied mathematics and other fields of science. The stories of their scientific achievements will present both women and men, old and young, at different stages of their careers, and will explore the professional, educational and social worlds they live and work in. Viewers will have immediate access to a comprehensive follow-up effort that will connect them with local, regional and national opportunities in informal science education. Blackside will collect information from existing resources and institutions as well using source material from several extensively researched databases geared toward minority students. Using all of this information, Blackside will create a metadatabase that will connect teachers, parents, mentors, and students to a rich variety of educational programs: extracurricular classes, mentoring programs, national science contests, teacher training workshops, and a myriad of on-line services. To ensure immediate access and, where possible, to customize the information to viewers needs, Blackside will disseminate it through a variety of means: an 800-number with a direct fax-back capability, an on-line service, a CD-ROM, and a printed packet delivered by mail. A principal target audience is gatekeepers in students' lives: parents, teachers, and scientists interested in becoming mentors. The target audience also includes students from fourth th rough twelfth grades. Joseph Blatt will serve a PI for this project and co-executive producer for the television series. His previous experience include serving as executive producer of "Scientific American FRONTIERS" and as a producer/director for several NOVA programs. He also has been executive producer for three television series/college credit courses in mathematics. Henry Hampton will be the other co-executive producer. He was the creator and executive producer of the 14-hour, award winning series, "Eyes on the Prize," about America's civil rights movement. The principal educational consultant will be Ceasar McDowell, assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Michael Ambrosino, the original executive producer of NOVA, will be the principal science television consultant.
The Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC) at the University of California-Berkeley is designing an interactive web portal and public forum, Ars Synthetica, to communicate SynBERC's research on synthetic biology, an emerging field that builds on advances in molecular, cell, and systems biology. Synthetic biologists will soon design and fabricate biological entities to accomplish particular tasks. Biological materials properties (gene sequences, protein properties, natural genetic circuit design) must be formulated into a set of design rules that can be used to engineer new biological entities. These design issues raise ethical concerns among the public and will form the core focus of Ars Synthetica. The forum will use Omeka, an open source software platform that will afford research scientists and the public with the ability to engage in community-wide discussions and debates, and will be customized to utilize a variety of media, such as articles, photo essays, and video vignettes addressing key questions surrounding synthetic biology. The forum will provide numerous links to research articles, data, and relevant websites, including SynBERC's synthetic biology website and the Anthropology of the Contemporary websites. Video webcasts will include guest lecturers with diverse perspectives on synthetic biology aimed at both scientists and the public, which will be disseminated on social networks, such as YouTube, Flickr, and WordPress blogs. The forum has the potential to make a significant impact on public discourse on science, as well as provide an important new exemplar for public engagement in research that can be replicated in other fields of science and informal science education.
The New York Hall of Science is overseeing a complex, four-year applied research and traveling exhibit development project on "precursor concepts" to the theory of evolution. These concepts pertain to key ideas about life -- variation, inheritance, selection, and time (VIST) -- and are organized around the principle that living things change over time. The central research question is: Can informal, museum-based interventions prepare young children (5 -12) to understand the scientific basis of evolution by targeting their intuitive pre-evolutionary concepts? The work involves many collaborators -- museum personnel around the country, university researchers, exhibit designers and evaluators, web designers, the Association of Science-Technology Centers and a number of advisors in the biological sciences, psychology and in informal and formal education. The products include applied research studies that will add to the conceptual change knowledge base in cognitive psychology, a 1,000 square-foot exhibit plus discovery boxes, a section on the UC-Berkeley Understanding Evolution web site, extensive on site and online staff training opportunities for participating museums and others, several dissemination activities including two research symposia, and bilingual (English and Spanish) exhibit materials and family guides. The project is positioned as a new model in informal science education for integrating research, development and evaluation, with applicability beyond the life sciences to other STEM fields.
This project proposes using three complementary strategies to engage, inform and inspire large audiences. (1) A national tour called "Stories from a Changing Planet" that will include in-person presentations and hands-on activities by Polar scientists at science centers, museums, libraries and schools across the country. (2) the "HiDef video Science Story Capture Corp" team of professional videographers HD footage will be made available as public domain materials accessible to government research agencies, universities,science centers and others. (3) Video and Audio podcasts distributed throught iTunes, google, Yahoo and IPY websites. The project will have front end, formative and summative evaluations.
Cornell University, Seavoss Associates, Inc. and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) developed two citizen science projects and related research: 1) "Project Nestwatch" including "Virtual Nestwatch," an online exhibit and data collection project that enables individuals to participate in data collection from their home computers; 2) "National Nest Registry," field-based and focused on species that participants may find in their backyard or local community. The projects increased public understanding of bird biology, ecology, life cycles, environmental issues and the research process while encouraging careers in science.
The Exploratorium is testing new methods of using Internet-based programming to increase the public understanding of current scientific research. Exploratorium staff, working with a group of advisors, will assess the current status of projects that focus on conveying information about research. They then will develop and test a prototype website. The exploratory research will examine such questions as: What information about research is important and critical to convey to the public? How do you build a Web presence that can rapidly accommodate new findings? What is an appropriate oversight process to assure inclusion of appropriate research? What are sufficient update intervals? How does such a Web site build an audience? How can the Web effort be coordinated with other PUR projects? How can the Web site provide opportunities for public input and discussion? How do you develop buy-in and participation from researchers? Is the additional interpretation/annotation sufficient to give the public a deeper level of understanding? These planning and prototyping efforts will be coordinated with other simultaneous Public Understanding of Research planning projects.
EarthTalk Incorporated is producing and distributing 282 "Edge of Discovery" radio programs. Each of the 90-second programs will explore an area of on-going research and will feature "actualities" or recorded voices of scientists explaining their work. The programs will be carried on 700+ public and commercial radio stations. The broadcast programs will be supplemented by an "Edge of Discovery" web presence that will contain the radio programs themselves plus a "More Info" section for each program that includes references to printed articles and links to other web sites on the day's topic as well as supplementary background material such as transcripts of interviews with scientists. The "Edge of Discovery" web page also will feature a "Meet the Scientists" section in which a new scientist will be profiled each month, and it will feature live online "chats" with scientists six times each year. The producers/hosts for the series are Deborah Byrd and Joel Block who created, produced and hosted the highly successful radio series Earth and Sky. The Senior Producer is Marc Airhart who will be primary liaison with the team of researchers and writers. Review of all material developed for the projected will be done by the project's review committee of 95 scientists.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Deborah ByrdWilliam BrittonMarc AirhartBarbara Flagg
Project Enhanced Science Learning (PESL) offers learning partners opportunities to engage in authentic scientific inquiry through apprenticeship. Such inquiry is often enabled by dynamic interactions among learning partners in physical proximity. Yet scientific and business practice using Internet and broadband services recognizes that not all partners necessary to an interaction can be co-located. Our vision uses new technologies to extend the collaborative "reach" of PESL to include diverse expertise among remote learners, teachers, and scientists. This work, in atmospheric sciences, extends collaborative media beyond asynchronous text-only email to shared workspaces and two-way audio/video connections that allow for collaborative visualization of science phenomena, data, models - What You See Is What I See (WYSIWIS). Tools for local- and wide-area networked learning environments will enable highly interactive, media-rich communications among learning partners. Research on these learning architectures will provide pedagogy and social protocols for authenticating the science learning experience in classrooms and other spaces. Greater motivation to learn and enhanced science learning in terms of more valid, performance assessments should result from students' participations. The next decade brings widespread, networked multi-media interpersonal computing. This project will provide a blueprint to inform the effective use of interpersonal collaborative media for science education.
EarthTalk, Inc. will develop and air 24 90-second shows per year for three years on the subject of nanotechnology on the Earth & Sky radio program. They will partner with Nano Science and Technology Institute (NSTI), Boston; Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility (CNF), Cornell University; and Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN), Houston to identify researchers, advisors and program ideas. Program categories will be Nano 101; Innovations that Could Change the World; Science or Science Fiction; Implications and Ideas; Nano and the Environment; and Listener Questions. The Earth & Sky program currently airs on 685 stations nationwide, making 323 million gross impressions each year; new shows will create some 64 million gross impressions. They will be supplemented by related material on Earth & Sky Online, which receives up to one million page views/month, and a composite of the nano programs onto CD mailed directly to 10,000 teachers yearly.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
William BrittonDeborah ByrdBarbara Flagg