To address a lack of informal science education opportunities and to increase community capacity to support STEM education for their children, Washington State University's Yakima Valley/Tri Cities MESA program, the Pacific Science Center, and KDNA Educational Radio have developed a set of informal science initiatives that offer complementary learning opportunities for rural Latino families. The goal of this four-year program is to create a sustainable informal science infrastructure in southeastern Washington State to serve families, increase parental awareness, support and involvement in science education and ultimately increase the numbers of rural Latino youth pursuing STEM-related under graduate studies. This program is presented in English and Spanish languages in all of its interconnected deliverables: Two mobile exhibits, beginning with one focused on agricultural and environmental science developed by The Pacific Science (PCS) Center; Curriculum and training in agriculture, life sciences and facilitating learning; Curriculum and training for community members to provide support to parents in encouraging the academic aspirations of their children developed by PSC and MESA; 420 Youth and parents from the MESA program trained to interpret exhibits and run workshops, community festivals, family science workshops and Saturday programs throughout the community; Four annual community festivals, quarterly Family Saturday events, and Family Science Workshops reaching 20,000 people over the four-year project; Take home activities, science assemblies, a website and CDs with music and science programming for community events; A large media initiative including monthly one hour call-in radio programs featuring science experts, teachers, professionals, students and parents, 60-second messages promoting science concepts and resources and a publicity campaign in print, radio and TV to promote community festivals. These venues reach 12,500-25,000 people each; A program manual that includes training, curriculum and collaborative strategies used by the project team. Overall Accesso la Ciencia connects parents and children through fun community activities to Pasco School District's current LASER science education reform effort. This project complements the school districts effort by providing a strong community support initiative in informal science education. Each activity done in the community combines topics of interest to rural Latinos (agriculture for instance) to concepts being taught in the schools, while also providing tools and support to parents that increases their awareness of opportunities for their children in STEM education.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
James PrattD. Janae' LandisDonald LynchMichael Trevisan
"IPY: Engaging Antarctica" is an informal science education project designed to increase public awareness of Antarctic geological research and discovery during the International Polar Year. Submitted through NET Television, the project will produced a PBS one-hour television documentary for air on NOVA in fall 2008 (w.t. "Antarctica's Icy Secrets") complemented by a multi-faceted outreach effort. The intended impacts of "Engaging Antarctica" are to: 1) enhance the general public's awareness and understanding of scientific research conducted in Antarctica; 2) create innovative collaborations for developing and disseminating Antarctic educational materials; and 3) enhance our knowledge of how youth and adults understand Antarctic research. The documentary will illuminate geoscience research as it being accomplished throughout IPY and specifically focus on the ANDRILL project, a major focal point during the global campaign of polar education and analyses. The program will document how scientists search for evidence to resolve conflicting hypotheses regarding ice sheet history and dynamics. NOVA Online will create a companion site for the program. In addition, the outreach materials include the Flexhibit, a digital package of high resolution images and files (visual and audio) accessible via the web, at no cost to the user. These will include scientist's stories in their own words, and inquiry-based activities developed by LuAnn Dahlman, the TERC geoscience curriculum specialist. Dahlman will work with the ARISE educators who have been selected to go to Antarctica to work with the ANDRILL science team. Mini-grants will be given to youth organizations in low income communities to participate in the trial test of the Flexhibit activities and enable participation in the project. Multimedia Research will conduct front-end and formative evaluation. Summative evaluation will be conducted by Multimedia Research and Amy Spiegel, from the University of Nebraska Center for Instructional Innovation.
The centerpiece of 3rd Rock Reality was a daily audio podcast-young, snappy, and fresh with the African-American experience prominent in its multicultural orientation, linked to bi-weekly video podcasts in the format of teleconferences. The target audience was 18-30 year old minorities. Partners were Howard and Clark Atlanta Universities, Woods Hole Research Center, Boston College, Hunter College, Harvard University and Yale University.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Stephen CurwoodCynthia WinstonShorna Allred
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.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Paula ApsellThomas FriedmanJon Palfreman
Geoff Haines-Stiles Productions is producing and distributing a project that will follow the upcoming NASA 2003 Mars Exploration Rover project. To Mars with MER consists of three prime-time PBS programs scheduled to be broadcast to coincide with key events in the MER project: the day before the launch, the day before landing and after the 90 day surface mission. These programs will examine such mission milestones as key engineering tests and selecting where to land based on the scientific questions we have about Mars. The prime time specials will be edited and, along with additional live and taped video, distributed to science centers, planetariums, educational cable networks and schools with satellite or high-bandwidth Internet connections. Passport to Knowledge, a partner in the project, will adapt NASA's public domain materials and its own Live from Mars resources (teacher's guide, websites, etc.) to provide customized resources for teachers and students and for the parents and families who will be watching coverage of the mission on broadcast and cable. All materials will be made available online.
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 University of New Hampshire Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space is partnering with the Houston Museum of Natural Science and Evans & Sutherland, Inc. (Salt Lake City) to produce Ice Planet Earth, a 30-minute updateable digital full-dome planetarium show, along with a variety of educational programs by polar researchers, educational materials for teachers, and an Ice Planet Earth Web site maintained by the University. Additional partners include organizations in Pittsburgh, Baton Rouge, Concord, NH, Portland, OR and in Melbourne Australia and Haifa Israel. The project's science focus is on the key role of the polar regions in globally-linked systems through the viewpoint of Earth as a unique ice and water world. Two updateable pre-show products are being developed a five-minute-long Polar Immersion preview as visitors enter the theaters that incorporates changing high-resolution fisheye images taken by researchers in the field, and Polar Events Update just before the main feature begins that will be presented live by planetarium staff. Estimated attendance over the life of the programs is estimated to be a minimum of 1.5 million. Evaluation is being conducted by the Program Evaluation and Research Group (PERG) at Lesley University, Boston.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Annette SchlossMark FahnestockCharles VorosmartyRichard LammersCarolyn Sumners
The North Alabama Science Center (NASC) will develop an interactive virtual learning experience in atmospheric science that combines a 3-D large-screen format presentation with interactive program activities. The project will be designed to run on the statewide network of Immersive Theaters located at three science centers across Alabama: NASC in Huntsville; Gulf Coast Exploreum in Mobile; and the Alabama Wildlife Federation Field Center in Montgomery. The project concept integrates scientific methods of inquiry into a virtual hands-on learning program, providing a mechanism for social-based informal learning about atmospheric science. To sustain engagement beyond the science center venue, ancillary materials will be developed, including a unique, interactive website. A project advisory committee consisting of members of the informal learning community, industry, academia, pedagogical practitioners and researchers, informed by front-end, formative and summative evaluation, will guide project development. The evaluation will provide findings to inform the future development of immersive theater programs, and other exhibit formats that may combine data visualization with data explorations. The project will expand its audience in Alabama through development of a Spanish-language version and its website developed in concert with the immersive theater program. The North Alabama Science Center's project will allow programs created for its immersive theater system to be used in other content visualization systems at other science centers. As a long-term impact this will enable new venues nationwide utilizing other content visualization systems to use the proposed project at their respective sites.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Angela MoultonLaurie ProvinMike BottsHeather Roden
The excitement of astrophysical research and discovery is brought into the high school science and mathematics classes through a flexible set of student activities and projects on variable stars. The project includes a computerized database, of 400,000 measurements of brightness of 150 variable stars in five constellations over 25 years, from which students can deduce properties, processes, and evolution of these stars. Students can make additional measurements and discoveries from carefully selected time sequences of 125 35mm slides or from actual measurements from the night sky. A comprehensive student manual and instructional videos make the materials self-contained and easy to use. The teacher manual enables the instructor to adapt the materials to skills, objectives and local curricula. The material can be used in a variety of contexts: traditional mathematics and science classes at both the high school and college level, independent projects, summer institutes, and community science clubs. The material will be field tested in classes and refined through workshops with teachers. A newsletter and a video about amateur astronomers is planned.
Lawrence Berkeley Labs developed a CD containing educational materials, staff training and the software necessary for informal science education centers to offer to middle school students one- hour sessions, multiple-day workshops, and ongoing participation in a drop-in computer lab. Hands-On Universe (HOU) is an active science education program that provides participants access to observing time on professional telescopes through the use of a personal computer and the Internet. The CD contains: exploration experiences and challenge games; resource material including images from other national labs, descriptions and animations of related topics, and astronomical catalogs; image processing software; a telecommunications package to interface with HOU telescopes and support network, the Internet, and World Wide Web; staff training material. The target audiences are youth in grades three through high school, and adults.
Kinetic City After School is a two-year project that will produce a web-based after-school program for children ages 9-11. The on-line adventure will enable users to enter a virtual universe where a computer virus (Deep Delete) systematically attacks a new area of science each month (analogous to one of the 12 Project 2061 Benchmarks for Science Literacy). As students battle the virus, they learn Benchmarks learning goals. Each unit invites children to think about the problem, take action and reflect on their experience. The activities accommodate different learning styles and are supplemented by live audio chats with scientists and a self-assessment enables students to earn Kinetic City Power Points. Power Points can be donated to after school programs without computers and Internet access. These sites may in turn, exchange their accumulated Power Points to obtain computers, Internet service and a site license for "Kinetic City After School." Although the program is web-based, most of the activity extensions are done off-line. "Kinetic City After School" will be introduced to after-school sites with a two-day training workshop, with follow-up via phone meetings and site visits. Supporting materials will include a Leader Guide, Journal and Kinetic City Home Crew activity pages for use in the home.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in collaboration with the Illinois State Museum (ISM), the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications(NCSA) at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, will form a museum consortium to develop two virtual reality interactive displays (River Pilot Simulator and Digital River Basin) and other web-based activities that focus on the Mississippi River. This group will be known as the Mississippi River Web Museum Consortium. Each museum will end up with both software modules that will lead visitors to the story of the River. The river's local presence will serve as an entry point for the visitors at each museum. The NCSA will contribute their access to and knowledge of powerful computer simulation, scientific visualization, and collaborations technologies that are usually restricted to research settings and rarely available to a museum audience or the general public. The Consortium will also develop a shared site on the WWW that will invite users to engage in guided inquiry that will deepen their understanding of the large, complex, and integrated river system. The science content underlying the project will include river hydrology and geomorphology, life sciences, environmental studies employing geographic information systems, and the physics of motion. The activities will address a number of the National Science Education Standards. Complementary programming linking these activities with formal education include a RiverWeb(tm) Posting Board and a RiverWeb(tm) Classroom Resource Guide.