The Natural History of Museum of Los Angeles County will mount and administer a five (5) year tour of an exhibition, "Dogs: Our Canine Companions," which explores the evolution, behavior, diversity and cultural significance of dogs. Visitors to the 6,000 sq. ft. exhibit will gain a better knowledge of these familiar animals through a variety of componenets including hands-on displays, videos, graphic panels, computer-generated images, dioramas, fossil skeletons and educational curriculum materials. The exhibit will be divided into eight (8) sections. Throughout the sections there are recurring themes to unify the educational messages of the adaptive diversity of canids, the relationship between wild and domestic dogs, and the relationship between dogs and humans -- especially service dogs. The dissemination of DOGS will include presentations to groups and conferences, with particular emphasis on the exhibit's treatment of accessibility issues. There will be an extensive web site with animation, movies, sound and interactive elements to further enhance the effectiveness of the exhibit and the availability of educational materials. the final ancillary materials to accompany the traveling exhibition will be a theater production, a free-standing, self-contained learning center, an exhibit guide, and a CD-Rom. Formal education providers will benefit from workshops, curriculum guides, and teaching kits.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Linda AbrahamBlaire Van ValkenburghRobert Wayne
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will develop Lost Civilizations of the Tarim Basin. This will be a 6000 sq. ft. traveling exhibit that will introduce visitors to the extraordinary archaeological discoveries that have recently been made in the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Due to the arid desert conditions the preservation of sites, artifacts, and human remains is exceptional and the artifacts represent some of the oldest extant items made of perishable materials (wood, paper, silk, and leather.) What has intrigued scientists about these remains is the fact they are Indo-Europeans. These remains have challenged the scholarly world by adding fuel to an already heated debate considering the origins and development of the Indo-European peoples who inhabited the Eurasian landmass for thousands of years. Who were these people, where did they come from, and what was their role in the early development of East/West cultural contact? Not only will visitors be able to see the artifacts and learn about the culture of this extinct group, but they will also learn how archaeologists and collaborating specialists work to unravel the mysteries posed by these remains. The exhibit will be complemented by resources for formal education programs. NHM will develop 1) an on-line presentation that will include "virtual" elements of the archaeology sites and materials, 2) teacher enhancement activities, 3) curriculum materials for older elementary and secondary students, and a menu of non-formal lectures, classes, and a symposium. The museum will also produce a comprehensive, fully illustrated catalogue in both printed and digital formats. The exhibit will have five venues. It is expected to reach between 150,000 and 300,000 people at each venue.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
James OlsonAdam KesslerVincent BeggsDolkun Kamberi
Unicorn Projects, Inc. is producing a project about historic mills in American and the science and technology of their operation. The project will combine a nationally broadcast one-hour PBS special with print and interactive educational materials for the home and school markets along with family-oriented personal appearance by host-author David Macaulay at selected museum and mill sites across the country. The goal of the project is to acquaint viewers and participants with the technological innovations and the scientific, social and historical significance of water-powered mills in the early part of the industrial revolution. In addition to the television program the project will produce Mill Times newspapers applicable in formal as well as informal settings, curriculum-based school videos and teachers guides, activity kits including "toys" designed to introduce concepts in applied mechanics, and family-activity programs at selected sites. The PI and Producer/Director will be Larry Klein who has produced and directed the previous Macaulay programs among many other PBS specials. David Macaulay, author of many best-selling books on architecture and technology, will be the host and will work closely with Mark Olshaker, the writer, in developing the script for the program. The Education Director will be Toby Levine. The principal technology and history advisor will be Patrick Malone, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and American Civilization at Brown University and past president of the Society for Industrial Archaeology. The science advisor will be Theodore Ansbacher, principal of Science Services, an informal science education consulting company. Other advisors include Robert Dalzell, Gary Kulik, Judith McGaw, and Merrit Roe Smith.
SoundVision Productions is producing new programs for "The DNA Files." This highly regarded and very successful radio series is designed to further public understanding of genetic science as well as the ethical, legal and social issues emanating from genetics and biotechnology. These five, new, one-hour programs and feature segments will be on topics that have emerged in recent years as significant developments in the realm of genetic research such as pollution prevention and reduction and the patenting of gene sequences and related genetic information. Specific topics tentatively planned for the new programs include: "The Ecology of Genetic Engineering," "The Genetics of Memory and Aging," "The Genetics of X and the Genetics of WHY," and "Genetic Diseases of the Brain." The programs and features will also introduce those products and processes that, while currently viewed as only future fantasies of the biotech industry, are likely to become real in one or another within the lifetimes of the current generation of public radio listeners. The major outreach component of the project will be via a World Wide Web site. This is a particularly appropriate medium for outreach for this project since demographic studies indicate that most members of the public radio audience have computers and are able to access the web. SoundVision will upgrade the present "The DNA Files" web site to become a more active and integrated part of the project. Every program will have a dedicated section on the web site that will provide expended information and resources beyond those included in the broadcast. The web will provide a forum for public interaction with the issues by engaging the scientists, related experts, policy makers and the public. The project also will make cassette tapes and transcripts of the programs available on request. The PI is Bari Scott, who is the Executive Producer for the series; Jude Thilman will serve as Project Director. The programs are hosted by NBC Dateline reporter John Hockenberry and distributed by National Public Radio. Project advisors in the field of genetics include Elbert Branscomb, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Troy Duster, Charles Epstein, Ted Friedman, Henry Greely, Leroy Hood, Ruth Hubbard, Sheila Jasanoff, Arthur Kaplan, Daniel Kevles, Mary Clair King, Phillip Kitcher, Julie Korenberg, Michael Malinowski, Desmond Mascarenhas, Pilar Ossario, Gerald Rubin, Lee Silver, and Sylvia Spengler.
WGBH Educational Foundation is producing a four-hour documentary special, "Fire," to be broadcast as a NOVA special. The series will present the story of fire as an important but often overlooked key to understanding the natural world and our shared environmental history. Humans have used fire in virtually every aspect of our existence: for heat and light, as a tool and a source of power, for the private rituals of spiritual life and the monumental reshaping of entire landscapes. Fire acts as a significant agent of change in our world today, and the interaction of fire and humans is now acknowledged as a significant part of global climate change research and of biodiversity and ecosystem health studies. Fire will examine these and other powerful and fundamental scientific questions related to fire being explored today. The project will integrate fire history with an understanding of the scientific principles of fire chemistry and behavior, and it will link that knowledge with ecology, agriculture, forestry and resource management. An integrated outreach campaign will accompany the television series. It will be built around a resource kit, offered in both print and CD-ROM formats, with activities and other resources for families and youth organizations at the late elementary and early middle school level. There also will be special web pages within NOVA's award-winning web site that will include the "Fire" resource kit materials. The PI and Series Producer will be Judith Vecchione whose credits include the NSF-supported series on women scientists today, "Discovering Women." Paula Apsell, Executive Producer for NOVA, will be Executive-in-Charge. The Film Director will be Kirk Wolfinger whose prior NOVA productions include "Submarine!," "Titanic's Lost Sister," "Daredevils of the Sky," and "To the Moon." The Series Senior Advisor is Stephen J. Pyne, Professor of History at Arizona State University. Dr. Pyne is an environmental historian and author of the five-book "Cycle of Fire" suite. Other advisors include: Norman L. Christensen, Dean of the Nicholas School of Environment at Duke University; Johann Georg Goldammer, Senior Scientist and leader of the Fire Ecology and Biomass Burning Research Groups of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry; Robert Huggins, Servicewide Education Coordinator for the National Park Service; Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago; Marcella Russell, Regional Liaison for the Massachusetts Parent Involvement Project; and Brian Stocks, Senior Fire Research Scientist at the Canadian Forest Service.
Lichtenstein Creative Media is producing a national public radio series that examines recent advances at the frontiers of brain research and explores the scientific, behavioral, medical and social/ethical implications of those advances. "The Infinite Mind" is a weekly, one-hour program hosted by Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health and head of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration. He is an internationally recognized authority on the brain and behavior. While each program will focus on one specific topic (e.g., "How Children Learn"), the series covers a full spectrum of issues involving the human brain. The format for the programs includes documentary segments, interviews and discussions with research scientists, listener call-ins, guest essays and special reports.
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis will develop a 6,000-sq. ft. traveling exhibition about bones, helping children and adults learn about the science of bones, maintenance of healthy bone structures and the cultural and artistic uses of bones. Also, the exhibition will help inform upper elementary and middle school audiences of career possibilities in science, further an understanding of bones as revealed through modern technology and promote understanding of the skeletal system. A Web site, teacher workshops, kits and other materials and events will support learning through this exhibition.
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
The large format film unit at NOVA/WGBH Boston, in association with the Liberty Science Center, is producing a 40-minute large format film about the science of volcanology. Volcano: Lost City of Pompeii will tell the story of a diverse group of scientists working together, each in his or her specific field, to understand better how Vesuvius can reasonably be expected to behave - today and in the years to come. Following the scientific teams, the film will impart a basic understanding of magma flow and plate tectonics, the geological building blocks out of which volcanoes emerge. The film will blend geology with archaeology to tell an ongoing detective story - a present-day scientific investigation that integrates state of the art techniques and technology with ancient evidence derived from buildings, victims' remains, and vivid eyewitness accounts that go back nearly 2,000 years to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The range of scientific disciplines involved in the film includes: geochemistry, geology, geophysics, remote sensing, plate tectonics, seismology, archaeology, and volcanology. The film will be available with both captioning for the hearing impaired and visual description for visually impaired members of the audience. The film will be supported by an extensive educational outreach plan that includes: Pompeii Earth Science Exploration, a program targeting underserved and disadvantaged youth at 100 Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide; Pompeii Museum Toolkit, a blueprint enabling museums to integrate existing exhibitry with use of the film and including models for outreach initiatives built around the film; Pompeii Activity Guide, an activity guide for us with upper elementary and middle school youth in both informal and form science education settings, and; Pompeii Idea Handbook, a booklet for museums that shares successful outreach programs implemented by museums showing the film during the first year. Paula Apsell, Executive Producer of N OVA and Director of the WGBH Science Unit, will be the PI. The Co-Executive Producer will be Susanne Simpson who previously produced such large format films as Storm Chasers and To the Limit. The Key Scientific Advisor will be Richard Fisher of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Others on the advisory committee include Lucia Civetta, Director of Osservatorio Vesuvio; Diane Favro, Assoc. Prof. in the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA; Grant Heiken, President of the Earth and Environmental Science Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory and President of the International Society of volcanology; Dan Miller, Chief of the U.S. Geological Survey's Disaster Assistance Program; Haraldur Sigurdsson, Professor in the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island; and Barbara Tewksbury, Professor of Geology at Hamilton College and past president of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. Emyln Koster, President and CEO of the Liberty Science Center, will act as key education advisor.
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.
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.
The Field Museum will develop a 10,000 sq. ft. exhibit "Life Underground: Foundations of the Biosphere." This exhibit will introduce visitors to underground ecosystems and the importance of soil upon which we all depend. Visitors will be invited to explore the diversity of underground organisms and the vital processes in which they participate. It will consists of three main parts: 1) Underground Expedition, where things will be enlarged 100 times life-size; 2) Changes Over Time, which will highlight the dynamic nature of soil communities and forces of change, and 3) a World Tour, which will compare soil communities from a variety of ecosystems including forests, grasslands, deserts, tundra, among others. The exhibit utilizes ideas and research from all four of the museum's academic disciplines -- botany, zoology, geology and anthropology and will incorporate hundreds of specimens from the museum's botany, mycology, and zoology collections to illustrate the diversity of organisms in and around the soil. Complementary educational programming will be developed and the project is especially targeting rural and inner city residents. School and community programs will extend the exhibit into classrooms, vacant lots, and community centers. The materials developed for use in a formal education setting will be integrated with current objectives of the existing curricula. In addition, on-line access to the content of the exhibit and complementary educational materials will be provided. The scheduled opening date for the exhibit is May, 1998 and during the ten year projected life span of the exhibit and complementary programming, it is expected that more than eight million people will be introduced to "Life Underground."
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TEAM MEMBERS:
M. Frances Muraski-StotzGregory MuellerDebra Moskovits