The St. Louis Science Center is a major metropolitan science museum serving a population of 2.3 million people. One year ago they moved into a new facility at a new location and attendance at the museum has tripled, reaching 600,00 visitors this past year. The center will develop a "Science Playground" in order to teach basic science principles and process through a series of 45 outdoor participatory exhibitions around the major areas of motion, energy, light, sound and the natural environment. The physics of motion will be explored through exhibits such as a friction slide, lunar gravity swing, double-axis human pendulum, etc. Energy exhibits will provide experiences with watermills and water power, fulcrum leverage and solar energy. Light exploration includes a solar column, prisms and rainbows, soundwheel and whisper discs. A weather station will have a rain gauge, anemometer, a variety of barometers, etc. This contemporary playground concept was developed as a response to limitations of indoor facilities and to extend use of outdoor space in a creative manner. The exhibit will be a model for extending science learning opportunities for schools, parks, other science museums and similar institutions. The center surveyed 31 science centers, 82 parks and 85 school districts to gauge interest in use of science playground exhibits, and found a clear interest in this type of project by all sectors surveyed. Exhibit designs will be published and furnished at cost to any facility wishing to replicate all or any part of the exhibition.
WGBH Boston and its NOVA production group will produce a series of eight one hour television programs titled "Life: Cracking the Code". The series will cover recent advances in molecular biology, the record of personal quest and achievement of many of the biologists who have contributed to these advances, the social costs and benefits that have resulted and the ethical questions that new knowledge and new abilities in biology have generated. Individual programs will include "The Language of Life" on the discovery of DNA's role in molecular biology, "Molecular Machines" on proteins; "Designing the World to Order" on practical consequences of the new biology, "When Cells Rebel" on the processes involved in cancer, and "Between Self and Other" on the immune function. The series will be produced for prime time PBS evening broadcast to an audience of more than twelve million individuals by a co- production by the NOVA science unit at WGBH and the Chedd-Angier Production Company. Scientific advice and consulting will be provided by Harvard's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and a project advisory committee composed of seven distinguished scholars chaired by Prof. David Baltimore. The series production budget will be approximately $ 4.2 million. This new science series on DNA, molecular biology and its new technologies will cover one of the great intellectual achievements of our time. It will provide timely information about an area of scientific discovery that is rapidly transforming many aspects of our life. The series will, in addition, document the rich recent history of molecular biology with the participation of many of the original researchers who are still alive and active in their fields.