The Project Jason Museum Network, comprising a group of some 10 science museums throughout the United States and represented in this proposal by the Franklin Institute, requests partial support of a major experiment in the use of electronic field trips organized by Dr. Robert Ballard and associates at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Over a two week period in May 1989, a series of satellite television transmissions will provide more than 150,000 students at some dozen museums with live, two way interactive TV coverage of a significant underwater archaeological expedition in the central Mediterranean Sea carried out by Dr. Ballard's group. The research expedition will be widely publicized, with public interest and attention similar to that obtained during his explorations of the Titanic. A variety of archaelological, oceanographic, and technological programs will be provided to museums through a Project Jason Satellite Network established for the purpose; participating schools, teachers and school children will already be familiar with the project and its methods through curriculum materials developed by NSTA with support from NSF's Instructional Materials Development program. An extensive evaluation program will accompany the first year's effort, and the Network plans to continue providing material from Project Jason for several additional years. In addition, other forms of distance learning will be investigated and developed using the infrastructure developed for Project Jason. Overall, more than a million individuals will view programs provided by the network in live presentations or later videotapes. Direct cost sharing by the Network Members is more than $3 million, with similar amounts contributed by Dr. Ballard's group at Woods Hole.
Discovery Place in Charlotte, NC is planning and coordinating a visit by Chinese delegates to designated United States Science Museums toward identifying cooperative endeavors related to public understanding of science. Planning also will be done for a separate delegation of informal educators from Japan. Discovery Place will work with the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) to assist in planning and arranging portions of each delegation's visit in order to help science center professionals from all three countries meet and learn more about each other's institutions, programs and priorities. Through this networking, U.S. institutions will be encouraged to participate in exchanges and cooperative projects. The meetings also will help all sides identify potential partners and develop the relationships necessary to pursue joint activities such as staff exchanges, cooperative development of exhibits and programs and design of workshops. Specific planning activities to be undertaken by Discovery Place include: Identifying appropriate museum and media production sites for the Chinese delegation to visit; Coordinating the purposes of the visit with these sites; Working with The Institute of Pacific Asia (IPA is the NSF grantee that is handling the administrative aspects of the Chinese and Japanese visits) to develop a specific agenda for each site visit; Coordinating with ASTC to arrange such activities as: Presentations by members of the Chinese and Japanese delegation in ASTC conference sessions, Participation by members of the Chinese and Japanese delegations in ASTC conference events and sessions, and Assisting IPA in developing an agenda for a one-day US/China delegation meeting immediately following the conference. This project provides rare opportunities for informal science educators and policy makers to explore a wide range of program options for the United States, China and Japan to inform the public and build support for science.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Freda Nicholson
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Boston Children's Museum will collaborate with Action for Boston Community Head Start Programs and Evergreene Research and Evaluation on an integrated research-to-practice project whose focus is science learning by pre-school age children. It will produce the following deliverables: a research-based Adult-Child Interaction Inventory (ACII) cataloging a spectrum of nonverbal and verbal interactions that occur during science engagement between parents, grandparents, or caregivers and young children; an ACII User Guide for museum professionals detailing how the inventory can be used for exhibit and professional development; a 2,800 sq ft Peep's World permanent exhibition informed by the ACII research; and a best practices survey highlighting effective strategies for eliciting positive adult-child interactions derived from a Community of Practice established by this project. The project will apply the research findings on nonverbal adult-child behavior to designing exhibits eliciting interactions supporting early childhood STEM learning. Project outcomes will benefit museum exhibit and program developers, preshool educators and families with children ages 3 to 5.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Gail RingelTimothy PorterAnn Marie StephanLorrie Beaumont
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Washington propose a conference, conference proceedings, and book that will build capacity and new collaborations at the intersection of the learning sciences and informal science education. These activities continue to expand on the outcomes of several recent conferences, publications, and projects related to research on the learning sciences and their application to varieties of educational settings. Fifty participants in this initiative will include both emerging and established researchers and practitioners, as well as international professionals.
The Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences plans to conduct a 5 year project to train 150 mentor teachers (30 teachers/year) and their principals, who will then train the remaining 1100 elementary teachers in the Buffalo Public School System. The training would include two 5-week summer sessions (in a Magnet school that is physically incorporated into the Buffalo Museum of Science) and 4 in-service workshops during the academic years following each of the summer workshops. This innovative leadership project is a collaborative effort between the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences (including both education and curatorial/science staff persons) the Buffalo Public Schools, and individuals from local colleges and universities. The setting of the project is enhanced by a Science and Math Magnet School which is housed within the museum, and by the school/museum's location in a largely inner city environment with easy accessibility to minority persons. The project is designed to provide mentor teachers with a strong science background in pedagogy and content over a two-year period of summer and academic-year workshops, and to prepare and support these mentors as they inservice their colleagues. Project staff from the museum, public schools, and the academic community will provide strong support through academic-year workshops, site visits and telecommunications networking. Principals will be appropriately involved, and will work with mentors to develop a science inservice program tailored to meet the needs of their individual schools; as a consequence, virtually all of the 1100 K-6 classroom teachers of science in the Buffalo Public Schools will have been prepared to teach investigative, hands-on science to their students. Non-NSF cost sharing is approximately 27.9% of the amount requested from NSF.
The objective of this project is to provide a complete package of KIDSPACE hands-on science experiences to small and developing science centers across the country through the National KIDSPACE Partnership Program. This project will allow twelve (12) selected science centers to implement a complete, proven education package geared toward young children at a fraction of the cost of starting one from scratch. This project will provide comprehensive training to a large core of educators within the science center field, and will support continued research into the informal science education of young children through an original Research Study and the formation of a national User's Group. Best of all, this project will generate a wellspring of invaluable science-play connections for hundreds of thousands of children to tale with them into adulthood.
"The Connecticut Museum Collaborative for Science Education" is teacher enhancement program that will serve approximately 5,000 middle school teachers (and their students) from throughout Connecticut over a three-year program period. The proposed program has been developed cooperatively by four of Connecticut's Science Museums and Centers (The Discovery Museum, The Maritime Center at Norwalk, Mystic Marinelife Aquarium, and Talcott Mountain Science Center), in consultation with the school districts they serve and the Connecticut Academy for Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology, the State's leadership organization solely devoted to enhancing education in mathematics, science, and technology. The Collaborative seeks to enliven and enhance the teaching of science, mathematics, and technology by drawing upon the resources of Connecticut's science-rich institutions and related businesses and industry. The proposed project will provide direct services to a core group of 72 middle school teachers and their students in eight urban and suburban school districts at the four participating museums and in their classrooms, as well as teacher training, curriculum development, and networking activities. Larger numbers of teachers and their students will be served through a planned series of interactive video teleconferences. A theme-based approach will be followed in which the unifying theme of "Earth Resource Monitoring" will serve to connect the activities at the four cooperating museums. The central concept of the project is collaboration among museums throughout the state to provide a bridge between science-rich institutions and the schools for teacher enhancement, curriculum improvement, and student enrichment. Special program components involve the participation of business and industry through "Video Field Trips", and parents through a "Family Science" activity. The involvement of the Connecticut Academy for Education in Mathematics, Science and Technolo gy as a member of the "Connecticut Collaborative" provides a direct link for integration of project activities into Connecticut's NSF-funded Statewide Systemic Initiative.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, in collaboration with the Association of Science-Technology Centers and several science centers, has requested $837,958 in NSF support of a project to make science museums more accessible to minority groups. In the project, AAAS and ASTC propose to provide technical assistance and staff training to science museums on equity issues, with emphases on institutional self- assessment, developing effective science education programs reaching minority audiences, and working effectively with community organizations and other institutions serving minority groups. Several museum sites will be involved initially in the development of the four program components: 1. development of guidelines for an equity self-assessment in museums; 2. science equity training for all museum staff; 3. the development of relationships between museums and community groups and schools and colleges and universities that serve minorities; and 4. a national effort to create awareness among minority groups of employment opportunities in science museums. Additional dissemination will be provided through training workshops and sessions at museum conferences. A "how-to" guide and video will be developed for museums on conducting an equity self-assessment.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Yolanda GeorgeShirley Malcom
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education initiated the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship program in 1990. This program provides outstanding secondary mathematics and science teachers with an opportunity to serve in the national public policy arena. NSF funding will support an Einstein Fellow in the Informal Science Education (ISE) program. The Fellow will bring practical insight derived from being a classroom teacher to ISE and contribute to the program development and management. The ISE program supports large regional and national projects targeting informal learners that include linkages to formal education. The Einstein Fellow can contribute feasible suggestions on how those linkages can occur, while learning about the proposal development, submission, peer review and award process. The 11-month experience will enable the educator to learn about the field of informal science education from a national perspective through direct interaction with practitioners and participation in professional development. Collegial exchange occurs monthly as Fellows serving in other Federal agencies meet to discuss their experiences. Additionally, participants are required to submit three written reports to document their experiences.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
J. Patrick White
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Association of Science-Technology Centers, the Institute for Learning Innovation, University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments, the Visitor Studies Association and other collaborators stewarded development of an Informal Science Education Resource Center (ISERC) to support ongoing improvement of the national infrastructure for informal science education. Activities included a clearinghouse for ISE-funded awards to enable others to learn from and build upon prior work, identification of practices and findings, and leadership development, with emphasis on increasing diversity in the field.
The Ecological Society of America will host an Ecology and Education Summit in the fall of 2010. It will bring together leaders of diverse national ecology and environmental education organizations and scientific societies, as well as organizations of teachers, technology experts, and the business sector, to disseminate best practices that will advance Environmental Literacy for a Sustainable World, reduce duplication of efforts, and coordinate strategies to build capacity and pathways of support for green careers for the next generation. In this effort, strategies to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities and women into the ecological and environmental agenda are of critical priority. By bringing the best in science, educational practice, and technology development to one event, the Summit aims to accelerate the transformation of teaching and learning among K-20+ audiences in both formal and informal settings in response to the urgent and complex environmental challenges faced today.
Dr. Lenore Blum and associates at Mills College plan to explore the use of an interactive videodisc environment for elementary education in mathematics using existing materials from SQUARE ONE TV. The project will use a prototype interactive computer learning system that uses icons embedded within an exploratory environment to allow learners to select their own activities. The system allows videodisc materials to be easily combined within an interactive computer environment and includes browsing, lesson selection, open exploration, practice problems, and extended activities keyed to the SQUARE ONE TV material. They will produce a videodisc with source materials provided by Children's Television Workshop, design the interactive environment, and evaluate its effectiveness with trial groups of teachers, students, and others in formal and informal settings. This modest proposal will extend the range of utilization of SQUARE ONE TV and provide valuable information on its potential use in non-broadcast settings.