This project is a multimedia initiative designed to increase the public and youth understanding of how scientists work. Deliverables include "Pulse of the Planet" radio programs in both English and Spanish; related web news features and photo galleries at National Geographic.com; and formative and summative evaluations of the project. The project will select 27 scientists and citizen scientists (7 of them Latinos) to provide first-person "insider" stories of scientific endeavor using the "audio diary" format. They will be provided with minidisk field recording kits and digital cameras and given hands-on training by the PI. Excerpts from their diaries will be used on the nationally broadcast radio programs and website. Some of these will feature citizen science projects. The project's partners include The Self-Reliance Foundation and the Hispanic Radio Network that will produce Spanish-language adaptations of Pulse of the Planet programs; the National Geographic will create editorial features for its news website; and Citizen Science project partners including Cornell's Lab of Ornithology, and Earthwatch, among others will encourage direct participation in projects linked to the radio and web information. It is estimated that 1.25 million people will hear each of the radio programs and 50,000 unique visitors will read the stories on the web site.
The Ocean Institute (OI), in partnership with Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps), Capistrano Valley Boys & Girls Clubs (BGC) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), is developing "SeaTech," a multi-year, Youth-based ITEST program providing 120 female and minority middle and high school students from underserved populations with 391 contact hours of information technology (IT)-intensive oceanographic research experiences. SeaTech content focuses on understanding the acoustic behaviors of whales and dolphins, specifically, sound production, noise impacts and acoustic population census in California, the Bering Sea and the Southern Ocean. SeaTech offers a two-year core program for 13 & 14 year olds consisting of a "Breadth of Exposure" phase and a "Depth of Skills" phase totaling 299 hours. The core program has three distinct elements -- after-school clubs, field explorations and summer research institutes -- and is augmented with efforts before and after: an Early Pipeline Development phase (52 hours) for youth age 12, and Internships (40 hours) for youth age 15. The three-year ITEST grant will host three cohorts of 40 participants each. Each youth participant will receive 391 total contact hours. Through efforts directed at parents, SeaTech anticipates involving 60 parents in about 80 hours of activities each year. Coordinated through and with the expertise of Capistrano Valley BGC, recruitment will include orientation and information programs, a bilingual brochure and direct efforts by BGC staff. In addition, recruitment will happen from local schools. INTELLECTUAL MERIT: IT-based studies of marine mammal bio-acoustics will 'hook' student interest in after-school clubs, field explorations and summer research institutes. SeaTech advances understanding of the role of broader pipeline development in addressing chronic recruitment and retention problems in teen-targeted IT programs. BROADER IMPACTS: SeaTech programming has been meticulously and demonstrably integrated into the afterschool programming at the BGC. The SeaTech Club provides organizational structure to the teen activities at the BGC; however, the IT curriculum is also integrated into two nationally renowned extant structures called Career Launch and Club Tech. Findings from the project's examination of recruitment, retention and parental involvement will have broad implications to the field of informal science education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Harry HellingKelly ReynoldsJohn HildebrandCandice Dickens
SciGirls was a multimedia project to encourage and empower more girls to pursue STEM careers--the first PBS television series designed specifically for girls 8-13. Episodes were made available for distribution on the newest digital platforms, e.g., Vimeo and iTunes for downloads, free of charge. Strategic partners included the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) and The Franklin Institute. The NGCP links SciGirls with its network of 500 community-based science programs for girls. The Franklin Institute coordinated an affiliate network of science museums to implement outreach. The project also wored with the new "Girl Scout Leadership Experience" program.
This planning activity will produce a prototype film on Spanish horses and conduct 10 focus group discussions to determine: audience interest, background knowledge, what viewers would like to see in this documentary, language barriers, cultural barriers, and how the film could be structured to help the public and teachers interact with children. The focus groups will target the follow groups: (1) middle school teachers, (2) elementary school teachers, (3) families with young children, (4) Hispanic families, (5) American Indian families, (6) youth ages 13-19, (7) horse lovers and those involved in horse activities, (8) senior citizens and individuals with disabilities, (9) documentary, museum exhibit and website production professionals, and (10) media and museum marketing professionals. The effort is intended to guide development of a PBS documentary, an interactive website, a companion book, and a museum exhibit on the origins, evolution, migration and impact of Spanish horses. STEM content in mathematics, genetics, paleontology, chemistry, evolution, and animal behavior, integrated with history, will be incorporated into the scripts for this diverse array of media platforms. The project also presents an opportunity to present in a very interesting and real sense the scientific process used for discovery. In addition to producing the prototype film and conducting focus group discussions, this planning grant will help to: clarify the responsibilities of all of the participants, especially the international participants; clarify the contributions from each discipline and scientist; plan in detail ways to achieve the greatest understanding with the anticipated diverse audiences; select the best geographic region, graphics, media, and animation; and establish realistic budgets and elements for production and post-production. Collaborators include: New Mexican Horse Project, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Habitat Media, University of New Mexico and Institute for Social Research, Cambridge University, Texas A &M University, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Selinda Research Associates, and PBS.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) will carry out a museum-wide initiative to distribute exhibits and programs about new science and research among its core exhibits. The project goal is to redefine science for visitors as a dynamic human endeavor that is rich in discovery and relevant to their lives, as well as to position SMM as a resource for complex science and science issues. The project includes Current Science Central (500 sq ft) plus three Current Science Zones (250-300 sq ft) distributed among existing galleries (Mississippi River, Human Body, Experiment). Standardized formats (e.g., newscast scripts, quiz questions, multimedia kiosks, bulletin/graffiti boards) will provide frameworks that simplify the constant need for updating content and increase the ability to respond quickly. Target audiences are families, school groups, teachers, teens and lifelong learners from among the 850,000 annual visitors; involvement of the Youth Science Center will engage underserved audiences. Project collaborators are researchers (University of Minnesota, Augsburg College, Gentra Systems, 3M and JPL), as well as media (Physics Today, television and radio). The science museum field will benefit from the experience gained through this project.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Liza PryorCari DwyerMark DahlagerPaul Martin
In this project, the Education Development Center and Campbell-Kibbler Research Associates Inc., are researching the impact of a set of after-school biology materials on under-represented middle school youth at the Boston Nature Center and two University of New Hampshire 4H Clubs. In response to a general need in the field to examine the relationship between learning in informal science programs and learning in school, this project studies the potential of informal contexts to enhance student engagement in the phases of inquiry, giving special attention to the role of visual representations in the early stages of inquiry. The research identifies how visual representations are directly involved in the ability of young people to discern patterns and externalize their own thinking and how these two abilities impact their science confidence and basic knowledge of the biology content in the units. To identify the potential impact of this strategy on in school learning, the in school learning of participating youth is compared to a similar group of children who do not participate in the program. Secondarily the project identifies how the results of this research influence the work of after-school program developers' use of visual tools. The program goal is to provide a rich foundation of out of school experiences for young people upon which they can more readily grasp concepts that are also introduced in the school context. Deliverables include a peer reviewed research paper, two extended biology units using digital and hand made visual representations, and a manual for developing similar programs. The summative evaluation measures the impact of the deliverables on the professional field. The curriculum will be used at hundreds of after school programs and the manual and research paper will impact program developers field-wide by influencing future programs they develop.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Bernard ZubrowskiBryan WunarPatricia CampbellKerry Ouellet
WGBH is producing a PBS television series, with accompanying web and outreach activities for 9- to 12-year-olds, to inspire a generation of budding engineers. Design Squad: Nate's Roadtrip (working title) will be a 10-part television series that is building on WGBH's prior award-winning work. The series goal is to engender enthusiasm and promote understanding of, and interest in, engineering and technology. Behind the fun that this lively show envisions is a serious educational purpose--to get kids to think like engineers and understand how to use science and technology to solve real-life problems. The television programs will be complemented with an extensive companion web site, as well as materials and training for engineers to mount Design Squad events in public venues and run workshops in schools, afterschool programs and libraries. The web site will create a platform for an online community where young participants will share their own projects, see what others have made, and send in questions to the host. Outreach activities will be supported by WGBH's ongoing relationships in the educational and engineering community, including the Girl Scouts, International Technology Education Association, NASA, and the Intel Computer Clubhouses. Viridian inSight will conduct summative evaluation of the project to measure project impacts including knowledge of science and engineering concepts and the design process; attitudes towards engineering; awareness of and interest in engineering career opportunities; and the extent to which kids perceive engineering as creative, rewarding, and socially relevant. Design Squad: Nate's Roadtrip Video Blog is slated to premiere February 2010 and the television show is slated to premiere in October 2010.
This project will research distributed, online fantasy basketball games, which are quite popular with many kinds of players, including informal science education under-represented groups, and which entail some degree of informal statistical reasoning and decision-making strategies. The game is not playing basketball per se, but taking on the role of a team owner or coach who needs to decide how best to compose a team given necessarily limited resources. The research team will provide a method for framing and researching statistical understanding and decision making of expert and novice players, then, based on the research, will develop scaffolded techniques for helping players become more reflective on and adept with the statistical knowledge and decision making strategies they use.
PEEP and the Big Wide World, produced by WGBH, is an award-winning daily half-hour math and science television series for 3-5 year old children, complemented by an outreach campaign designed to encourage greater family involvement in children's math and science exploration. PEEP's three intended impacts are to: (1) empower families to feel more equipped, more confident, and more inclined to facilitate science and math exploration with their preschoolers; (2) engage preschoolers in science explorations that promote positive attitudes and inquiry skills; and (3) provide project partners with appropriate educational resources for both the English- and Spanish-speaking families they serve. The project's deliverables include: - Ten new animated PEEP stories in Spanish and English, which will introduce a new bilingual character to bring to life PEEP's science and math-based curriculum for Spanish speakers; - Ten new live-action segments in Spanish and English, which will show children, their siblings, parents, and grandparents actively engaging in "Anywhere Math and Science"; - Collaborations with the project's long-standing partners (National Head Start Association, National Education Association, and National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies) and with new groups that specialize in delivering science content and messaging directly to Latino families (Self-Reliance Foundation, National Latino Children's Institute, and Hispanic Communications Network).
This proposal builds upon the current NSF funded POLAR-PALOOZA project (#0632262) extending the "Stories from a Changing Planet" to learners around the world. This project is a tour of seven nations (China, Malaysia, South Africa, Norway, Canada, Mexico, and Australia) featuring stories told by a diverse team of polar researchers who are also compelling storytellers. A museum or science center in each country serves as the host institution and local coordinator for a suite of 1-2 days of additional education and outreach activities. There are presentations for large general audiences, supplemented by small group interactions with community leaders and local media, providing opportunities to interact directly with polar experts in order to learn about these little-understood regions and to appreciate why the Poles and polar research are relevant to their lives. Special workshops for teachers, undergraduates or other audiences take advantage of the researcher's presence on site. At any one international site, no more than 2-3 of the presenters will be Americans with the rest of the team made up of researchers from the region and host nation. In addition to the personal interactions the project will leverage the already-funded POLAR-PALOOZA deliverables, and provide museums and science centers with online access to a growing set of HD videos.
Led by Washington University, Making Natural Connections: An Authentic Field Research Collaboration (DRL-0739874), is a series of two field-based informal science education programs in environmental biology targeting St. Louis area teenagers. The project aims for engagement of science research institutions and career scientists in the execution of informal science education programming, bringing real and dynamic context to the science content and allowing for deep and transparent career exploration by teenage participants. Project goals include (1) providing a model for integration of informal science education into the research and restoration projects at biological field stations and nature reserves, (2) communicating current environmental biology research to audiences outside the research community, and (3) influencing the entry of pre-college students into the science career pipeline. The project is a collaborative partnership between Washington University’s Tyson Research Center and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve. The Shaw Institute for Field Training (SIFT) program trains St. Louis area high school students in scientific exploration of the natural world at Shaw Nature Reserve. During a one-week training session in June, teens are introduced to a variety of Missouri ecosystems and gain skills necessary to conduct field research, including plant and animal identifications, biotic sampling and census techniques, testing of abiotic factors, and training in the use of maps, compass and GPS. During the rest of the summer and school year, teens are involved in important research and restoration activities at Shaw, Tyson Research Center and other field research sites in the St. Louis area. Fieldwork opportunities may include invasive species management, prairie reconstruction, plant and animal inventories, and prescribed burns. The Tyson Environmental Research Fellowships (TERF) program places high school students as summer interns on ecology and environmental biology research teams at Tyson Research Center. Selected teen participants have successfully completed the SIFT program and apply their field skills to ongoing research projects at Tyson and other partnering research sites. During the summer, the four-week program provides teens with exposure to a variety of field science experiences and skills. TERF teens work alongside university scientists, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduate students. The TERF program provides a cultural apprenticeship in university-based environmental biology research and training in scientific communication. It is an advanced summer experience modeled on the undergraduate research internships offered at Tyson. During the following school year, participants work on posters and presentations for symposia at Washington University and Tyson and at community fairs, and their posters are displayed at Shaw Nature Reserve. A national dissemination workshop for informal science educators, high school biology teachers, and research scientists provides the necessary materials and background to replicate the project design in other locales. The summative evaluation will address impacts on teenage participants (engagement, cognitive and emotional support, competence, career viability, experiential learning) and professional audiences (implementation of teen program, program components, impacts on mentoring scientists). The strategic impact of this project results from the integration of teenage immersion experiences into research activities at a university-based facility. This model of informal science training activities leading into participation in authentic research may be transferable to other STEM disciplines.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Phyllis BalcerzakPeter RavenSusan FlowersKim Medley
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