The Children's Museum proposes to develop two versions of an interative physical.science exhibit dealing with wave mechanics and the related actions of vibrating and oscillation systems. One version will be a permanent exhibit that is to be a central component in the new science area of the museum, while the other will be a traveling exhibit that will tour the country under the auspices of the Association of Science.Technology Centers. The purpose of the exhibit is to heighten the interest of children in scientific experimentation, with learning taking place at three levels including sensory.motor, perceptual.operational and intutitive.conceptual. Materials for teachers will supplement the exhibit, and an internship program will train largely minority middle.school students in basic concepts and then use them as "explainers" for the general public. The request to the National Science Foundation represents 73% of the total cost of the exhibits, with the remainder coming from institutional and other sources.
The American Psychological Association, in cooperation with the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), will develop a series of exhibits on psychology using a discovery room/science laboratory approach. The exhibition will, for the first time, offer museum visitors a first hand opportunity to explore the tools, methods, and concepts of psychology in such areas as thinking and feeling, dreaming and sleeping, perceiving and communicating. The exhibition will travel to eight museums over 30 months through the ASTC traveling exhibition service and will reach over a million visitors. A wide selection of additional materials and resources such as films, seminars, lectures and workshops will be offered to the participating museums to extend the impact of the exhibition. Plans of the exhibits will be made available to other museums. NSF support represents less than 50% of the total cost of the project.
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.
The Mississippi Museum of Natural Science proposes to build on its program of activities that involve children in science and bring them into contact with the approaches, objects and equipment that scientists use, with each activity designed to stimulate thinking and heighten interest in science. Cardinal features of the program are the development of hands-on exhibits, science kits for classroom use and a studied tie with the children's television program, "3-2-1 Contact." The goals are to coordinate these activities with hands-on science activities for students in grades 3-6, and to coordinate classroom activities with those at the museum, which conducts "3-2-1 Contact Days" throughout the year when students come to the museum and take part in experiments, observations and enrichment lessons and actively manipulate museum objects. The museum now will refine the program components, including improvement and duplication of the hands-on kits, continuation of the workshops for elementary teachers and development of new participatory exhibits dealing with insects and endangered species, and will present them to an expanded audience. One-third of the children in the state live below the poverty level, and fifty per cent represent minority populations. As most of these children lack such out-of-school experiences these informal science activities are particularly meaningful.
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.