The Science Museum of Minnesota will develop a series of "experiment benches" that are to be an unique feature of "labworks," a major new hall of physical science and technology. The small bench-top laboratory exhibits will allow visitors to create their own experiments and to become informally but directly involved in the experimental process. The target audience is junior highschool students, especially those who come as individuals and who are repeat visitors. Selected students will be trained as interns and will be paid to act as mentors for visitors. The project will include a published report, "a recipe book" for dissemination, and a subsequent conference of exhibit developers from other science museums.
This proposal will develop and disseminate locally developed STEM-rich audio programs for the traveling public, in particular vacationing families, using emerging traveler information technologies, traveling festival kits, and an interactive website. The project is linked to the 220-mile Eastern Sierra Scenic Byway that traverses a dramatic landscape, rich in natural resources and unique contributions to scientific research. Collaborators include the Eastern Sierra Institute for Collaborative Education and the University of California at Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Michael CollopyBarbara AndoJacque Ewing-TaylorSusan Szewczak Clark
The program producers at the World Media Foundation seek $550,000 over three years to produce and present to listeners vital stories about scientific inquiry and technological developments related to environmental change. These presentations, entitled Living on Earth, are broadcast weekly on more that 240 National Public Radio member stations in the United States. The producer intends to develop the program into a one-hour format from the current 30 minute broadcast. Audience participation will be encouraged through call-in question and answer sessions about science and ecology.
In this article, Eric Siegel, Director and Chief Content Officer at the New York Hall of Science, addresses examples of exhibitions that attempt to create experiences that communicate phenomena too big, small, slow, or abstract for normal sensory comprehension. This article also includes a case study by Gretchen Baker, Exhibition Development Manager at the Field Museum, and a case study by Tim Martin, Principal of Tim Martin Design.
NOVA'S CENTURY OF DISCOVERY is a series of five prime-time documentary specials to be shown nationally over the Public Broadcasting Service(PBS) during late 1997 or early 1998. Altogether the programs will tell a sweeping story, celebrating the end of a remarkable century of discovery when science advance further than in all previous centuries combined, and when every scientific discipline underwent a revolution. Yet the closing of the 20th century coincides with an ever-widening gap between what scientists know and what most of the public comprehends. To increase public understanding of science, scientists, and scientific methods, the series will provide a dramatic retelling and interpretation of the century's most enduring scientific endeavors. Each two-hour program will probe several related fields of investigation and application: views of the universe and of matter; origins of the planet and of life; health, medicine, and the human body; human nature and behavior; and technology and engineering. A marriage of scholarship and entertainment, NOVA'S CENTURY OF DISCOVERY will be created using all the tools at the command of its award winning production team including archival footage and stills; personal accounts; letters, dairies, and other primary sources; computer animation; and even dramatic re-creations. Indeed, the series will not only make a unique contribution to the public and historical record, but also offer viewers an unprecedented opportunity to view 100 years of scientific pursuits as a unified whole, to recast their perceptions of science and scientists, and to be intrigued, even inspired, by a view of science as a never-ending and very human quest for answers and solutions. A special outreach and promotion campaign will increase audience awareness of the series, particularly among nontraditional PBS viewers. In addition, carefully developed teaching and learning materials will extend the series' reach into formal and informal educational settings, including high school and college classrooms, and community and youth-serving organizations.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Paula ApsellTom FriedmanJon Palfreman
National Video Resources, in collaboration with the American Library Association and the History of Science Society, is developing and implementing six-week discussion programs at 100 libraries across the country. The "Research Revolution and the Shaping of Modern Life" discussions will illuminate the organization and goals of scientific-technical work, the critical outcomes of research and development, the material and social byproducts of such work, and the ethical issues that sometimes result. During the program participants will screen and discuss documentary films on topics such as: an introduction to the rise of organized laboratory research and its results; new developments in quantum technologies and nanotechnology; recent developments in materials science and how artificially created materials have defined a modern way of life; the impact of genetic engineering and the Human Genome Project; medical imaging from x-rays to MRIs and CT-scans; and the science of meteorology and the problems of global climate change. Discussions will be lead by local scholars from Universities and research laboratories located near a participating library.
Building on an institution-wide strategic initiative to interpret the process of science for informal learners of all ages, the Museum of Science will work over four years to develop, evaluate and implement a project to communicate the processes of science through weather forecasting. The project is based on the idea that processes involved in short-term weather forecasting are basic to the process of science. MOS proposes to create a 1,800 square foot exhibit, programs for students and teachers, an interactive website, and one-minute television spots aimed at helping people understand weather forecasting. The project is grounded in MOS strategic commitment to engaging people in the activity of science and the use of new technologies. The major component of the project is an exhibition of weather in which visitors will learn how to forecast the weather over the next few hours using different levels of technology, including naked eye observations, data from weather maps, and real-time images from space satellites and ground radar stations. Ancillary programs include educational materials for over 100 WeatherNet schools in New England, an interactive website that will reach several hundred thousand users, and television spots on the process of weather forecasting to be aired on WBZ-TV Channel 4. Over the course of its life the project will engage several million children and adults in the process of science.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Cary SneiderMishelle MichaelsDaniel Barstow
The Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California at Berkeley will develop the "Real Astronomy Experience (RAE)" in which science center visitors will explore the universe by controlling and viewing robotic telescopes via the Internet; by using image processing software to understand the images they capture; and by capturing images with a hands-on, functional telescope equipped with a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera to learn how a modern telescope image-capture system works. Guided by project materials, visitors learn about the cosmos, tools and methods of scientific research, data analysis and the general progress of modern astrophysics.
The Anchorage Museum of History and Art, working with the Calista Elders Council, will develop a 5,000 sq ft traveling exhibition presenting 19th-century Yup'ik Eskimo technologies, their contemporary applications, and the underlying scientific processes. Featuring Yup'ik artifacts, it will integrate indigenous knowledge into the teaching of basic science principles as well as demonstrate the role played by science in everyday life. The exhibition will be organized around seasonal activities practiced in the past and retaining modern relevance. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) will develop the comparative exhibits on modern science and technology, and the Imaginarium will develop complementary educational programming. Primary audiences will include rural Alaska Natives, both youth and elders, non-Native Alaska residents and visitors, as well as venues outside Alaska. By demonstrating how indigenous knowledge can be related to modern science, this exhibition provides a model for the informal science education field on how to incorporate cultural aspects of their own communities into museum exhibitions and programs. In addition, it demonstrates how artifacts and hands-on science activities can be combined effectively to create engaging educational experiences.
ASTRONOMY - HOW DO WE KNOW? is a 4100 sq. ft. exhibit and program package for Discovery Place that will: 1) interpret the physical and chemical nature of astronomical bodies in the Universe, highlighting the scientific processes used in their discovery, 2) interpret, through interactive exhibits and programs, the basic technologies of the scientific study of astronomy, and 3) function as the complementary exhibition area to the new Spitz Space Voyager Planetarium system and its multi-dimensional program capabilities. ASTRONOMY - HOW DO WE KNOW? will make the science of astronomy more accessible to the public by demonstrating the above objectives through the fundamental concepts of Gravity, Light, Motion and Distance. Visitors will leave with a greater understanding of the process of learning about the Universe. Discovery Place will utilize the formative evaluation process in developing these exhibits to assure a product that will not only appeal to a broad audience, but will also meet a variety of identified needs within that audience. The exhibit and program package will open in October, 1992, with an anticipated yearly attendance of 700,000. The exhibits will be a permanent part of the museum and will be renewed through the general operating budget of the museum.
As the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico attracts thousands of visitors each year, of all ages and from many countries. Pride in the Observatory has caused local Puerto Rican organizations to contribute the funds necessary for the construction of the new Arecibo Observatory Visitor and Educational Facility. Cornell University, in behalf of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, is requesting $774,463 form the NSF-ISE over a two year period to develop and implement the exhibits and educational programs which will give life to the Educational Facility. Within the facility, we propose establishing an educational program centered on the theme "More Than Meets the Eye", which will reflect the general idea that we can study our world with tools which extend our direct sensory experience. The proposed program will explore the unseen sky and, in particular, the objects that fall under the scrutiny of a radio telescope. Specifically, the program will introduce the visitors to the electromagnetic spectrum as a means of exploration, will offer a framework of basic astronomy and atmospheric science, and will provide understanding of the function and operation of the Arecibo radio telescope. Some of Arecibo's most exciting new discoveries in the fields of radio astronomy, solar system radar astronomy and astomospheric science will be presented so that visitors can experience the dynamic nature of science.
The Children's Museum is requesting $910,088 from the National Science Foundation to create an exhibition to go in an Urban Environmental Center to be built on a barge anchored in Fort Point Channel, a 500-foot-wide Boston Harbor waterway in front of the Museum. Our goal is to create exhibits which broaden public access to the process of science while extending each person's awareness of an engagement in this particular waterfront environment. Barge exhibits are focused on water, which has universal appeal to children and is the central feature of our location; atmosphere -- birds, sun, solar radiation, shadow, light refraction and diffraction, heat, wind, and clouds; built environment -- architecture, engineering, buildings, technology -- and their relationship to living things. We will provide a wide menu of entry-level approaches to the environment that are not given in school. The exhibits will take a visitor from where s/he is at the beginning of the visit to a new level of curiosity and concern. Through observation and direct experimentation, children will see what varies with the tides, what flows into the Channel from street run-off, where different creatures nest, what is emitted into the atmosphere from cars and buildings, and many other things. Some exhibits invite a playful experience, involving the senses and whole body; others offer a more focused exploration to uncover principles of a phenomenon. All encourage practice in such scientific processes as observing, collecting, recording, and comparing data.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Signe HansonDorothy MerrillDiane Willow