The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) will develop Window on Catalhoyuk: An Archaeological Work in Progress. The project will include a 4,500 sq. ft. exhibit, a World Wide Web site, an exhibit cookbook for archaeology interactives developed for the exhibit, and a suite of related classroom activities. Catalhoyuk is currently the most important archaeological site in Turkey and among the most significant cultural heritage monuments in the world. It consists of two mounds located on either side of an ancient river channel. The larger mound has Early Neolithic age occupation levels (9000 and 7500 years ago) and represents one of the largest known Neolithic settlements, holding links to the beginnings of agriculture, animal domestication, and the rise of urban complexity. The smaller mound consists of more recent occupations (7500 to 5000 years ago). Together they may record nearly 10,000 years of human occupation. SMM has been a partner, along with the Turkish team, in the Catalhoyuk Research Project since its inception in 1993 and has the responsibility of developing public programs and for bringing the research findings before a worldwide audience. Unlike a traditional approach where the results of archaeological research appear years after the excavations, this project will focus on the process of archaeology giving visitors the opportunity of learning about the workings of contemporary archaeology and the nature of scientific inquiry, along with the important insight into the beginning of Mediterranean civilization. The exhibit will be updated annually for two years to reflect new results of ongoing fieldwork. The project addresses the National Science Education Standards, particularly those related to science as inquiry and to the history and nature of science.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Donald PohlmanNatalie RuskOrrin Shane
The Education Development Center, Incorporated, requests $2,081,018 to create informal learning opportunities in science, mathematics, engineering and technology utilizing the study of the ancient African civilization of Nubia as context. Educational activities and resources will be developed based on the extensive ongoing archeological research on historical Nubia. The two main components of the project are a traveling exhibit with related educational materials and a website that will provide the target audience an opportunity to access extensive on-line resources and activities. The project will provide community outreach and professional development for educators in museums, community groups, schools and libraries. The project is designed for thirty-six months' duration. In year one, a network of collaborators in the Boston area will focus on research and development; in year two, project materials will be piloted and evaluated in six cities, and on-line professional development programs will be conducted; and in year three, project materials will be disseminated directly to 60 sites and more broadly via the internet.
The Wildlands Project is producing a four-hour television series for PBS and the CBC. The television series, "The Sacred Balance," will feature geneticist and environmental scientist David Suzuki as he examines a new vision of the human place in nature. The series aims to enrich and expand the scientific world view by looking at traditional knowledge, myth, literature and art, and by incorporating aspects of human spirituality into the insights presented by science. The aim of the project is to show that the world-view human beings have celebrated since ancient times is reemerging, transformed, from the laboratories of modern science. Moving away from reductionist techniques, researchers from many different disciplines are studying diversity, whole organisms, systems and relationships that begin in the individual cell and extend to the entire planet. The television series is designed to change the way the public acts in the world by demonstrating that what we do to the Earth we do to ourselves. Dr. Suzuki will work closely with an advisory committee in shaping the series. The members of this committee include: Lane Lubchenco: Professor of Marine Biology and Zoology, Oregon State University David Schindler: Environmental Ecologist, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta E. O. Wilson: Biologist, Harvard University Sylvia Earl: Marine Ecologist and "Explorer in Residence" at the National Geographic Society, Washington, DC James Parks Morton: Former Dean, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, currently at the Interfaith Center of New York The television series will be supplemented by a new, interactive Sacred Balance website and a teachers guide. Ancillary material also will include Dr. Suzuki's trade book, "The Sacred Balance."
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David SuzukiRobert LangAmanda McConnell
Independent Communications Associates will develop a five-part television public television series on light, optics, and perception, entitled "Light and Mind." The series explores both the outer, physical world of light and optics and the inner world of the mind that processes visual information. The programs examine the history of the subject as well as the frontiers of current research. The project is designed to be accessible to a wide range of audiences: the series is planned as a PBS primetime special aimed at adults while the ancillary educational materials are targeted to high-school students. During the first phase of planning the producers will work with their advisors, research and write a fuller treatment of the five episodes and a full script for the first program, create a budget, and develop an educational strategy and outline of the educational materials.
Houston PBS with Windward Media is planning to develop a one-hour documentary for NOVA entitled "Trouvadore, the Last Voyage of an African Slave Trader." The film will chronicle the scientific archaeological excavation of an illegal slave ship that wrecked in the British West Indies in 1841. Planning activities will include archival research and consultation with archaeologists, DNA and curriculum specialists and local descendents of the slave ship. Deliverables will include an advanced treatment for the documentary and script outline. The Trouvadore will be the only slave ship ever recovered that was actually carrying slaves at the time it sank in 1841. The project will show how modern science can help uncover and interpret this event as well as the trans-Atlantic slave trade of which it was part. The PI will work with archaeologists from Ships of Discovery (Corpus Christi, Texas) and the Turks and Caicos National Museum. DNA studies of possible descendents will be carried out in cooperation with the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. Because NOVA has indicated its support for this project, the documentary that results from this grant will have the potential to reach significant audiences. In addition, the products of this planning process will further efforts to produce a web site, a traveling exhibition and ancillary materials. A report summarizing the results of the research during this phase will make the findings available to others as well.
Rosemarie Reed is producing a one-hour documentary film about the life and accomplishment of Lise Meitner, the Austrian born physicist whose pioneering work in nuclear physics contributed to the discovery of nuclear fission, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Rosemarie Reed Productions, Ltd., is requesting a planning grant of $50,000 to conduct research, secure visuals, develop a treatment, and do preliminary formative evaluation of the treatment for this film. An examination of Meitner's life and work will help correct the inaccuracies and injustices that have distorted the legacy of one of the founders of the modern nuclear age and address the need for the recognition of women in science. The film will also offer stufents insight into the social, political and scientific events of the first half of the twentieth century and will introduce audiences to the work and thought of such key figures as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Niels Bohr, Max Planck and Otto Hahn. The project will be informed by an advisory board comprised of leading experts in Meitner studies and theoretical physics; formative evaluation will be conducted by Georgia Institute for Technology.
MacGillivray Freeman Films is producing and distributing "Greek Odyssey," a large-format film presenting archaeology as a sophisticated, precise science that utilizes highly advanced technologies to reconstruct the past. The film will examine research in Athens, the Greek islands and beneath the Aegean Sea where archaeologists, geophysicists and conservationists collaborate to solve and record the mysteries of ancient civilizations. Audiences will discover the process and importance of scientific research to our understanding of Greece's past and its extraordinary influence on our world today. Outreach will include a Museum Resource Guide, Family Fun Sheet, Teacher's Guide, Website and a Scientist Speaker Series. Greg MacGillivray will serve as Co-Producer/Director/Director of Photography, Alec Lorimore will be Co-Producer, and Stephen Judson will be the film editor. The Lead Science Advisor is Mark Rose, a member of the Archaeological Institute of America and Managing Editor of Archaeology magazine. Science advisors include: George Bass, Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Texas A & M University; Sandy MacGillivray, Co-Director of Palaikastro excavations on Crete; and Floyd McCoy, Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Hawaii.
WGBH Educational Foundation is producing a four-hour documentary special, "Fire," to be broadcast as a NOVA special. The series will present the story of fire as an important but often overlooked key to understanding the natural world and our shared environmental history. Humans have used fire in virtually every aspect of our existence: for heat and light, as a tool and a source of power, for the private rituals of spiritual life and the monumental reshaping of entire landscapes. Fire acts as a significant agent of change in our world today, and the interaction of fire and humans is now acknowledged as a significant part of global climate change research and of biodiversity and ecosystem health studies. Fire will examine these and other powerful and fundamental scientific questions related to fire being explored today. The project will integrate fire history with an understanding of the scientific principles of fire chemistry and behavior, and it will link that knowledge with ecology, agriculture, forestry and resource management. An integrated outreach campaign will accompany the television series. It will be built around a resource kit, offered in both print and CD-ROM formats, with activities and other resources for families and youth organizations at the late elementary and early middle school level. There also will be special web pages within NOVA's award-winning web site that will include the "Fire" resource kit materials. The PI and Series Producer will be Judith Vecchione whose credits include the NSF-supported series on women scientists today, "Discovering Women." Paula Apsell, Executive Producer for NOVA, will be Executive-in-Charge. The Film Director will be Kirk Wolfinger whose prior NOVA productions include "Submarine!," "Titanic's Lost Sister," "Daredevils of the Sky," and "To the Moon." The Series Senior Advisor is Stephen J. Pyne, Professor of History at Arizona State University. Dr. Pyne is an environmental historian and author of the five-book "Cycle of Fire" suite. Other advisors include: Norman L. Christensen, Dean of the Nicholas School of Environment at Duke University; Johann Georg Goldammer, Senior Scientist and leader of the Fire Ecology and Biomass Burning Research Groups of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry; Robert Huggins, Servicewide Education Coordinator for the National Park Service; Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago; Marcella Russell, Regional Liaison for the Massachusetts Parent Involvement Project; and Brian Stocks, Senior Fire Research Scientist at the Canadian Forest Service.
WGBH is producing four, two-hour programs on the lives of scientists. These programs will be the initial programs in a continuing series of television portraits of distinguished scientists to be broadcast as regular features in the prime-time science series NOVA. The scientists to be covered in the first four programs are Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, and Percy Julian. By illuminating the lives and scientific careers of these important figures, the programs will enhance public understanding of such basic scientific concepts as evolution, the solar system, the chemical bond and the structure of the atom. Ultimately, the programs will give viewers a new perspective on the process of scientific discovery. Ancillary educational support for the programs will include enhanced content on the web site at NOVA Online and classroom support material in the NOVA Teacher's Guide that is mailed to 60,000 teachers nationwide. WGBH also has formed an outreach partnership with the American Library Association to create informal educational resources for use by families, youths, and adults. The core of this special outreach plan is a set of Library Resource Kits that will be available to all 16,000 public libraries. Paula Apsell, Executive Producer for NOVA, will serve as PI for the project. Members of the advisory committee include: Evelyn Fox Keller, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, MIT; Kenneth R. Manning, Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and of the History of Science, MIT; Noami Oreskes, Associate Professor of History, University of California, San Diego; Daniel I. Rubenstein, Chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University; and Neil D. Tyson, Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium.
Chabot Space and Science Center is developing an exhibit of Chinese astronomical artifacts and organizing a United States tour of the exhibit. "Dragon Skies: Astronomy of Imperial China" consists of 31 exhibit pieces, including seven large astronomical instruments, chronographs, stone carvings and star maps. Many of these artifacts have never before left China. In order to increase the awareness and understanding of students, teachers and the public about Imperial China's rich astronomical achievements, Chabot will develop a variety of interpretive materials and programs that address interests and learning styles, present scientifically and historically accurate information, and serve both informal and formal educational audiences. These materials will include a planetarium show, an audio tour, special signage, multimedia animations/interactive kiosks, a web site, student activities, community events, a science drama program, activities for the general public and a variety of printed materials. Many components will be developed in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alexandra BarnettCynthia AshleyMichael Reynolds
The Anchorage Museum Association, in collaboration and partnership with the Yup'ik Calista Elders Council, will work in one year to plan exhibits, educational programs and a web site for a traveling exhibition of 19th century Yup'ik technology. The exhibit will combine masterworks from the Berlin Ethnographic Museum with Yup'ik technology from the Smithsonian Institution and present them in ways that will allow Native and non-Native visitors to gain new under-standings of Yup'ik technology from the Yup'ik point of view. The planning process will bring together with Yup'ik elders, scientists and museum professionals for a series of planning meetings, demonstrations of Yup'ik technology and workshops on raw materials and traditional manufacturing techniques, culminating in a exhibit development workshop integrating front-end evaluation, learning goals and design parameters, and formative evaluation planning.
Screenscope, Inc., is producing three programs in the PBS series, "Journey to Planet Earth." The series has the goal of helping the general public understand and cope with the difficulties of developing a global agenda that addresses the environmental concerns of the next millennium. The series will examine the earth using the latest satellite imagery as well as from providing a more closeup view through the eyes of people who inhabit the many different regions of the world. It will use intimate personal portraits to show how people's every day lives are affected by both local and global environmental pressures. The series will link the sciences with economics, politics, geography, and history. Each episode will feature four to five related stories and case studies selected from different geographic regions and about people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The television series will be supported by an informal, community-based outreach program in science museums and neighborhood centers, activity kits and teaching guides, interactive workshops on the World Wide Web, and strategic partnerships with environmental organizations to raise public awareness of the series and the outreach activities. The Co-PIs and producers of the television series are Marilyn and Hal Weiner. They will work closely with a group of advisors including: Chet Cooper, Battelle/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Edward Frieman, Director Emeritus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Vice Chancellor of the University of California; Nay Htun, United Nations Development Programme; Tom Lovejoy, Counselor to the Secretary for Biodiversity and Environmental Affairs, Smithsonian Institution; Per Pinstrup-Andersen, International Food Policy Research Institute; and Maurice Strong, Chairman of the Earth Council and former Secretary-General of the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. In addition, each episode will have two research scientists who are experts on specific disciplines being featured. Outreach will be developed in association with the Chicago Academy of Sciences.