Kansas State University is producing a two-hour television documentary on the Tallgrass Prairie of the Flint Hills of Kansas, the last remnant of what was once the largest biome in North America. This area has survived only because its rocky soil was too much of a match for the farmer's plow. New scientific research is now beginning to ascertain just how valuable grasslands are to humankind: their salutary role in global climatology and how they provide laboratories for study of soils, species interactions, biodiversity, and ecological processes. A significant amount of this research as been conducted for more than twenty years at the Konza Prairie Research Natural Area, the longest continuous Long-Term Ecological Research site of the National Science Foundation. The scientific data that have been compiled at Konza will form the backbone of the film's content as it examines: the geological and human history of the Tallgrass Prairie, especially the displacement of the bison and the introduction of European cattle and row crop farming; the contemporary culture and economy of the Flint Hills regions which the prairie has formed; and the ecological impact of various approaches to range management, as well as various scientific and social aspects of the debate over how to glean as much value as possible from the grasslands while preserving them for future generations. The PI for the project will be David Hartnett, Professor of Biology and Director of Konza Prairie Research Natural Area. The film will be co-produced by Aimee Larrabee, an independent filmmaker who has co-produced several award-winning documentaries with the BBC, and John Altman, an independent filmmaker who has produced for PBS, A&E, Bravo, and the Discovery Channel. The 19 member advisory committee will be lead by Dr. Hartnett and by Alan Knapp, Project Director of the Konza Prairie Research Natural Area LTER program and Professor Biology at Kansas State University, and John Blair, Associate Professor of Biology at Kansas State University and nationally recognized leader in the field of soil ecology and grassland nutrient dynamics.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David HartnettAlan KnappJohn AltmanJohn BlairAimee Larrabee
WGBH will develop, produce, and distribute a comprehensive project that will review science of the twentieth century. The major components of the project will be a series of five, two-hour, prime time documentary programs for PBS, an outreach campaign to involve the public through informal and formal science education institutions and organizations, material for use in formal classrooms, and a science museum component. The focus of the series will be to review the science of the twentieth century by telling the dramatic story of the struggle to understand ourselves and our world over the past 100 years -- a time when science advanced further than in previous eras combined and when scientific discipline underwent a revolution. However, because at the close of the century there is an ever-widening gap between what scientists know and what most of the public comprehends, the series will explore the century's most enduring scientific endeavors with each two-hour program probing several related fields of investigation and application: views of the universe and of matter; origins of the Earth and of life; health, medicine, and the human body; human nature and behavior; and technology and engineering. It will offer viewers an opportunity to view 100 years of scientific pursuits as a whole, to recast their perceptions of science and scientists, and to be intrigued and inspired by a view of science as a never-ending and deeply human quest for answers and solutions. The outreach component of the project include: Video-based Components - videocassettes of the series, video modules selected for classroom use, level one videodiscs, and a prototype for a CD-ROM for home learning. A Discovery Challenge Activity - a national campaign targeted primarily for girls and boys 11-14 years of age. The two-phase activities will be offered through middle school science and social studies classes; through youth groups such as Girls Inc., Family Science Programs, 4-H, and Girls and Boys Clubs; at museums and science centers; and through other informal education outlets. Activities will be designed so they can be undertaken by youth with a wide range of interests, learning styles, and skills. Print Components - teacher's guide, video module activity guide, videodisc guide, poster, and a companion trade book. On-line Component - an electronic bulletin board and e-mail center related to the project. Public access sites will be established in libraries, community centers, and schools throughout the country and members of the public with home computers will be able to connect to WGBH at no cost. Service and activities offered on-line will include the ability of viewers to critique programs, ask questions of the production team, download educational materials, and ordering project material. The bulletin board will provide an electronic forum for educators to exchange strategies and ideas as they use the project's resources and enable participants in the Discovery Challenge to tap into the on-line resources and share information. The on-line component will be managed and controlled at WGBH. Museum Component - consisting of a museum tool kit and activities to be incorporated Science-by-Mail. Paula Apsell, executive producer for NOVA and director of the WGBH Science Unit, will serve as executive-in-charge of production. Jon Palfreman will be executive producer and will head up a project team consisting of the executive editor, Thomas Friedman, a senior producer, and two producers. Outreach activities will be the responsibility of Beth Kirsch, Director of Educational Print and Outreach, and Simone Bloom, Outreach Manager.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Paula ApsellThomas FriedmanJon Palfreman
Soundprint Media Center is producing a series of 13 public radio documentaries entitled Exploring Space Science. The series will target a range of audiences: public radio listeners; listeners to radio reading services; visitors to planetariums, public libraries, and museums; teachers seeking additional information for core science subjects; and the parents and students who visit space science education centers. The programs will survey scientific inquiry into and from space. The series will include the architectures of the universe, the origins of the planets, global climate and atmospheric changes, and microgravity's effect on the human biomedical systems. A range of science will be covered including astrophysics, astronomy, planetary science, space policy, climatology and earth science, biomedical science, and the history of science.
Jim Metzner Productions is producing a national radio designed to reach a diverse audience with compelling, current information about our environment, the science which underlies it, and the people who explore and explain it. The short-format series consists of 780 daily, 2-minute programs designed for commercial and public radio stations and delivers timely information on a full spectrum of seasonal natural phenomena, drawing supportive scientific background from biology, earth science, astronomy, and cultural anthropology. The series will make extensive use of ambient sound and interviews with scientists and knowledgeable spokespersons to present a "daily almanac" of events taking place on the day of broadcast. The series will be developed and produced by Jim with additional production support from the American Museum of Natural History. The Science content Director will be Michael Templeton and an advisory committee of eleven scientists and educators will assist in selecting specific topics for the daily programs and assure the scientific accuracy of program content.
South Carolina Educational Television Network will secure rights for one additional PBS broadcast plus three additional years of off-air recording for educational purposes. In 1990, NSF awarded $367,430 to the South Carolina Educational Network toward production and dissemination of a television series entitled, "Spaceship Earth." The series takes a satellite's-eye view of the Earth, providing a unified look at the rich variety and interdependency of life and land on our planet. Topics considered in the programs include: an overview of a new global geography, population, earth's crust, world markets, weather, seas and oceans, rivers, forests, food, and "the watchkeepers," Earth's inhabitants who are responsible for its well-being. That series was completed and broadcast over a three year period. During that time it attract large general audiences and was widely used in schools. There is continued interest is use of the series, however, broadcast and off-air taping rights have expired. South Carolina Educational Television also will develop and disseminate promotional material to alert audiences and teachers of the continued availability of the project.
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.
KQED is requesting funds to produce weekly radio science news reports, a weekly television magazine program, a dynamic online website that supports and extends the broadcast material and to create and maintain an active consortium of 13 participating STEM organizations. The project's working title is "Quest: Exploring Our Natural World." Quest's goals are to raise the profile of STEM issues that affect or occur throughout the Northern California region and activate citizens to discuss and investigate STEM issues. STEM content will include research fields that include Physical Sciences, Life Sciences and Earth Sciences. Most of the stories will include content about the technology and engineering used to support scientific endeavors. The KQED Educational Network EdNet will administer the community and educational outreach initiatives, including creating viewer/listener guides, developing and delivering workshops, and providing information built around Quest media. The project design involves innovative use of multiple platforms and collaborative partnerships with local informal educational institutions. The project's collaborators include the Bay Institute, California Academy of Sciences, Chabot Space and Science Center, East Bay Regional Park District, Exploratorium, Girl Scouts, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Hall of Science, Oakland Zoo and The Tech Museum of Innovation. Rockman Et Al will conduct the evaluation of the Quest initiative.
This planning grant award addresses the subject of cosmology using contemporary film technology. A screen play and film prototype will take viewers from the historical Big Bang phenomena to contemporary thinking on dark energy and matter. STEM disciplines incorporated within this project are mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry and geology, in addition to astronomy. An additional significant issue in this award will be the effort to form a network of dome and planetarium theaters. Such an organization could facilitate promotion and evaluation of this project and future projects. In the future, the network will be positioned to assess the differences in educational impact from large format flat screen, large format dome screen and planetarium dome presentations. Collaborations on this project include The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, the Mathematics Science Research Institute, and advisors George Smoot and Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Barbara Flagg is the project evaluator. Specific needs for the planning grant are to: 1. gather formative evaluation on audience parameters; 2. develop a short prototype film and a first draft of the screen play; 3. complete the advisory team; 4. translate the deliverables into Spanish language; 5. evaluate and bid the computer animation facilities; and 5. identify a network of dome and planetarium theaters for their evaluation.
Over three years, Science Central is producing 624 television segments that will present current, ongoing research through local newscasts on ABC and NBC stations nationwide. In addition to the regular research segments, ScienCentral will produce six "sweeps" series per year focusing on important new fields of research including: nanotechnology, genetics/genomics, ocean science, global climate change and brain sciences. An advisory board of scientists, teachers, science journalists and public information officers help inform the producers about individual stories and evolving fields of research, and they provide access to scientists and field research. They also provide scientific input and check the stories for accuracy. To facilitate production and to assure that research is covered on an international basis, ScienCentral will establish a footage consortium to exchange science news video with major Canadian and European newscasters. They also will provide the news stories to science centers for use in their interactive exhibits and web sites.
Rutgers University is developing a large-format, scientific, documentary film about the evolving scientific investigation of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Volcanoes of the Abyss (working title) will be produced in conjunction with Volcanic Ocean Films and produced/directed by Stephen Low. It will examine the communities these vents support and their relationship to the surrounding environment. It also will consider the implications vent discoveries have for our understanding of the evolution of life and our search for life elsewhere in the Cosmos. Much of the filming will be done from on board the Alvin deep ocean research vessel. The companion Educational Outreach Program will reach students in middle and secondary schools and at the college level. Print-based and web-based material also will be designed for use by families. The film and the outreach materials together will be the basis of a substantive educational effort to inform the public about the intricacies and significance of the fascinating, but largely unknown, ecosystem.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Richard LutzAlexander LowStephen LowBarbara Flagg
WHALES, SHARKS & THINGS IN THE DARK - A 70MM IMAX FILM is the first science museum and aquarium film in the 70MM large-screen format to present the diversity of life in the oceans in a science context. Through a unique collaboration of a national environmental education group, a leading non-profit science center, and with the co-operation of a federal agency, the project's main objective is to convey to a general and school- age audience a view of the richness and range of life in the underwater realm -- from the deep sea creatures to whales and sharks and other marine life. Narratively, the film will proceed through the water column and selected food webs, showing the relationships in the complex skein of life--including human. The audience will be guided by explorers and role-model scientists, such as Dr. Sylvia Earle, an enthusiastic and well- known oceanographer, and three other sets of characters involved in marine science and exploration. The content will highlight a range of scientific disciplines, including marine biology, engineering, geology, physics, and oceanography, and it will shed light on the entire study of the oceans as a career path, and as an area for further investigation. Accompanied by a educational package delivered and supported by all three groups, this film will have wide impact, reaching a projected 8 million U.S. viewers within two years.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Christopher PalmerDavid ClarkLeighton TaylorPaul Hanle
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