The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in Texas will develop a 4,000 square-foot traveling science exhibit on FORENSICS: The Science of Criminal Investigation for circulation to eight major U.S. Cities through the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative (SMEC). FORENSICS will examine the scientific methods and technologies used in today's crime labs. Core science areas are: DNA profiling; Fingerprinting; Firearms Identification; Evidence Collection; Composites; Forensic Anthropology; Forensic Entomology; Forensic Geology; Odontology; Pathology; Serology; toxicology; Trace Evidence. The development of FORENSICS will draw from the expertise of a distinguished panel of forensic scientists, law enforcement officers, and science educators. FORENSICS will foster science process skills, problem-solving, and deductive reasoning by challenging visitors to solve a crime mystery. A Teacher's Resource Guide to the exhibit will promote indepth classroom investigations of forensics for middle grade (5-9) science lessons. The exhibit will open in Fort Worth in May of 1993, and then tour nationally to eight major U.S. cities, serving over 2.5 million American citizens during its SMEC travel itinerary.
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.
WNET/Thirteen will produce a series of 10 one hour public television programs, "CHILDHOOD" that will explore how children grow and develop,and how parents and societies have raised children throughout history and across cultures. Extensive use of current research and scholarships from the disciplines of developmental and cognitive psychology, anthropology and sociology, education, history and culture will be used to create a coherent and revealing view of childhood development. The series will be heavily promoted on public television, will be accompanied by a trade book and viewer's guide, and should generate audiences of more than 10 million viewers in its first series airing, based on prior experience with the producers prior series, "The Brain"; the accompanying trade book sold more than 150,000 copies. The producers of this series are highly skilled at the interpretation of complex scientific subjects on television, with a number of award-winning series to their credit. They have assembled an prestigious international team of advisors and consultants. WNET has a realistic plan for raising the $7.5 million necessary to complete the project from the PBS/CPB Superfund, corporations, and co-production agreements. An award of $200,000 in FY 87 and continuing funding of $200,000 in FY 88 based on satisfactory progress is recommended.
WQED and the Pennsylvania State University have created a new archeology series titled Time Travelers: Rediscovering the Past. This eight part series will present in compelling terms the recent scientific innovations in archeology and how new techniques have added startling insights into past civilizations. The programs are aimed at the general public and will reach an estimated 7,000,000 people. The series is thematically organized around vital issues such as: New Worlds; Great Spirits; Scribes and Subscriptions; The Artisan; Power and Prestige; The Hearth; Realms of the Maya; and Collapse. A major traveling museum exhibition will parallel the series and a trade book will be developed. The Annenberg/CPB project has authorized $2 million towards production and development of instructional materials for use as a college level course. WQED has an outstanding track record in development of television series. They have won over 100 national awards in the past ten years including ten Emmys and a Peabody award. The have a distinguished Advisory Committee to oversee accuracy of content. This series is a well designed, comprehensive and effective presentation of a most "visual" discipline. Reviewers were all enthusiastic about the series and characterized the production as innovative and thoughtful.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jay RayvidWilliam SandersJoanna Baldwin-MalloryDavid Webster
The evolution of language, perhaps two hundred thousand years ago, led to our ability to think abstractly, invent logic, store and exchange ideas and to create culture. What language is, how it works and how it distinguishes us from others is the subject of a four part public television series produced by Equinox Films, Inc., New York, N.Y. To examine language, the series will be filmed in laboratories and universities throughout the United States and on the streetcorners to capture the everyday life and language of Americans. Additionally, parts of the film will be shot in Japan, a sophisticated culture with a completely different language type from ours and in North Central Australia and Papua, New Guinea, where two exotic languages of special interest are spoken. Language is so taken for granted that most of us do not question its nature. Most educated people are unaware even of the revolution that took place in the study of language about 30 years ago. The intriguing interplay between language as a grammatical system and, conversely, as a living changing part of human expression is a complicated and fascinating journey. Exploring the development of language is a challenging project and one that has been imaginatively conceived and developed. The P.I. is highly respected with a number of credits and awards in television production. The co-P.I. is a noted linguist and scholar. The list of linguistic experts who are advisors to the project represents some of the top scholars in the field. All reviewers were extremely enthusiastic about the series and recommended funding. An award of $400,000 with $200,000 in FY'87 and $200,000 in FY'88 is recommended.
The Lawrence Hall of Science proposes to develop two 1400 square foot interactive exhibitions based on the latest research findings on the structure and function of the human brain; one for permanent display at the Hall, and one for circulation to 12 science museums over a five year period. The exhibition will use large scale models and equipment from two television programs on the brain. Substantial input from scientists and psychologists will be combined with the educational expertise of curriculum development, museum, and design staff from the Lawrence Hall of Science to create the exhibitions. Visitor and school related curriculum materials will be developed, including a video library and an auditorium show for large group school use. The Lawrence Hall of Science has more than 300,000 visitors per year and is a major science education research and development facility; the twelve host museums will reflect museums in both large and medium sized cities well distributed geographically. More than three million people will view the exhibits over a five year period. The topic is timely, the treatment substantive and educational, and the qualifications of staff and advisors high. The re-use and relationship to a major television series, "The Brain", is an ingenious and effective strategy. The Lawrence Hall of Science is matching the National Science Foundation contribution with comparable private funds. A 24-month FY87 award of $ is recommended.
The American Museum of Natural History proposes to design and build a new permanent 9,000-square-foot Hall of Human Biology and Evolution over a three-year period. The exhibit is to start out with human biology and then move smoothly to human evolution and the fossil record and other evidences of early humans. The new exhibit will range from the molecular/genetic level to the emergence of human beings, and will include archeological excavations and findings, reconstruction and discussion of humanoids, early human evolution, human structure and function, and human diversity. In addition to stimulating the interests of visitors (2.7 million in 1986-87) in human biology and evolution through the use of traditional and interactive technology, the new exhibit program will provide curriculum supplement for elementary and high school classes and teacher-training guides and workshops to assist in the integration of the exhibition materials into classroom studies. The primary educational goal is to give the widest possible audience a concrete sense of where and how the human animal fits in the natural world through examination of the traits that we share with all creatures and those that are peculiar to humans. The exhibit promises further contribution by bridging the current exhibits on animal life and those on the rich ethnological collections on the diversity of human cultures. NSF dollars are to cover the costs only of planning, building and evaluating the exhibit, with no funds for staff.
The Florida Museum of Natural History proposes to prepare two versions of a traveling exhibit in the context of the Columbus Quincentennary. The purposes of the exhibit are to show the natural history of the Caribbean at the time when Columbus arrived and to describe the rapid modification of those natural environments for European economic gain. The exhibit will manifest two components, both of which will travel to other museums. One exhibit of approximately 3000 square feet will originate at the Florida Museum of Natural History and then will move to eight other museums around the country. Another exhibit of about 1000 square feet will travel to a different series of smaller museums, libraries and college galleries.
The American Anthropological Association will develop a 5,000-sq. ft. traveling exhibit, website and educational materials on "Understanding Race and Human Variation." Through an integrated, comprehensive and learner-focused educational program, visitors will be presented with the idea that human variation is part of nature and that race is a dynamic and sometimes harmful cultural construct. The project will advance knowledge across the sciences by bringing together scientists and scholars in translating research to the public and developing a common language.
The Exploratorium will conduct a four-year project to explore the physical nature of sound, the physiology of hearing and the perception of sound, and the process of attentive listening. "Listening" creates 30 exhibits, three listening spaces, and related visitor experiences to complement the Exploratorium's existing "Sound and Hearing" collection. Listening encourages visitors to explore the scientific, physiological, and cultural content of sound, from the physics of sound waves, to the mechanics of the inner ear, to the information, mood, and emotions sound can convey. Listening will inform the public of the scientific, physiological, and cultural content of sound, as well as the negative impact of ambient sound on their health and environment. Listening integrates public programming, exhibit development and visitor studies, representing a new model of collaboration and communication among educators, scientists, artists and the public. At the conclusion of the Exploratorium venue for "Listening," a traveling exhibition of 30 exhibits will circulate to science museums nationwide, supported by materials and training for education programs. A workshop at the annual meeting of the Association of Science-Technology Centers and additional conference presentations and publications will present science center professionals with Listening strategies.
The New York Hall of Science is overseeing a complex, four-year applied research and traveling exhibit development project on "precursor concepts" to the theory of evolution. These concepts pertain to key ideas about life -- variation, inheritance, selection, and time (VIST) -- and are organized around the principle that living things change over time. The central research question is: Can informal, museum-based interventions prepare young children (5 -12) to understand the scientific basis of evolution by targeting their intuitive pre-evolutionary concepts? The work involves many collaborators -- museum personnel around the country, university researchers, exhibit designers and evaluators, web designers, the Association of Science-Technology Centers and a number of advisors in the biological sciences, psychology and in informal and formal education. The products include applied research studies that will add to the conceptual change knowledge base in cognitive psychology, a 1,000 square-foot exhibit plus discovery boxes, a section on the UC-Berkeley Understanding Evolution web site, extensive on site and online staff training opportunities for participating museums and others, several dissemination activities including two research symposia, and bilingual (English and Spanish) exhibit materials and family guides. The project is positioned as a new model in informal science education for integrating research, development and evaluation, with applicability beyond the life sciences to other STEM fields.
This is a planning grant to Independent Broadcasting Associates, Inc. to enable them to obtain and evaluate scientific data about the ecological condition of the Ganges river in South Asia in preparation for a series of documentaries for National Public Radio. The series would combine both science and humanities to consider the meaning of the river in terms of the broad continuum of the Ganges ecosystem. During the planning stage, the PI will: review published literature and determine whether relevant unpublished information is obtainable; screen the obtainable information on the ecological condition of the Ganges/Padma river and identify major causes of the degradation of the river; contact relevant government related bodies within India in order to locate suitable experts and written reports; establish relationships with and conduct interviews amongst relevant non-governmental parties including scientists, industrialists and agriculturalists in order to facilitate future interactions for the purpose of producing the series ; and assess the suggestion that one of the problems with initiatives such as the Ganga Action Plan has been its reliance upon Western models -- both technological and conceptual -- which are often inappropriate to local conditions and realities.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Julian Crandall HollickEmma TomlinTriyugi PrasadGraham ChapmanRoberta Farrell