Oregon Public Broadcasting is requesting funds to produce three one-hour nationally broadcast television programs, a project website, community-centered outreach coordinated by AAAS in 7 U.S. cities, a seminar discussion guide and a series of 90-second programs as part of the "Earth &Sky" radio series. The subject and purpose of the project is to attract public interest in nanotechnology by examining the social, ethical, legal and environmental issuers surrounding its application. The television programs will be produced by Fred Friendly Seminars (FFS) and broadcast on PBS. Two science museums, Boston Museum of Science and the South Carolina State Museum, and the University of California, Berkeley, will host the FFS panels. The format of the Seminars is designed to produce thought provoking and nuanced discussions of contemporary issues. Collaborative partners in the project include AAAS, Lawrence Hall of Science and ICAN Productions. The outreach initiative includes outreach to "targeted stakeholders" in 7 US cities, four 90-second radio spots as part of Earth & Sky, a project web site and a Seminar discussion guide. Inverness Research Associates and Edu, Inc. will conduct both formative and summative evaluation of the project components.
Frozen Planet is a landmark multi-media seven-part television series, with complementary website, whose goal is to inform and inspire audiences about the environment and ecology of the Polar Regions and the science being carried out there. The series will highlight multiple disciplines including climatology, volcanology, geology, glaciology, as well as natural history. Frozen Planet will be produced in High Definition by the BBC Natural History Unit and Discovery Communications for broadcast worldwide on Discovery Channel in 2011. The proposal to NSF is for 1) field support for filming various NSF-supported research efforts in Antarctica and 2) funding to cover evaluation of the project's intended learning impacts in the United States. Goodman Research Group will conduct the summative evaluation to measure learning impacts centered on the audience's understanding of the polar environment, the science being undertaken there, and the implication of the new scientific findings to their everyday lives. For scientific and field support, the production team is collaborating with many organizations in addition to NSF's Office of Polar Programs including the British Antarctic Survey, the Canadian Polar Continental Shelf Project, and NASA. Through repeated broadcast, video-on-demand, the website, and DVDs, the project will provide a comprehensive, enduring resource. The project is anticipated to reach more than 65 million people across the U.S.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Dan ReesCarlos GutierrezChrstine Weber
WGBH's newest mission is to develop the Children's Sustainability Project - a daily animated series for kids ages 8-11 that will teach the STEM concepts underlying systems and sustainability. Our promise is that 7-8 kids from around the world become trapped, one by one, in an inventive, multi-leveled video game. The kids, unlikely heros all, are initially happy to be stuck but eventually want desperately to get out of the home. To do this they must become inventive and creative and play the game to the end. Stakes are high and only systems thinking and sustainable actions can save the day.
WGBH Educational Foundation is requesting $1,261,934, or 33% of a total project budget of $3,835,236, to produce 20 new shows and new outreach and Web activities for" ZOOM." Targeted to kids ages 8 to 11, "ZOOM" is a daily, half-hour PBS series featuring an assortment of games, riddles, investigations, recipes and poems -- all based on materials sent in by its young viewers. Uniquely by and for kids," ZOOM" gives its viewers a chance to explore, experiment and share their creativity. "ZOOM's" science and math segments (30% of each half-hour show) give kids opportunities to explore scientific and mathematical ideas, concepts and phenomena. The goals for Season VI are to: (1) expand "ZOOM's" engineering curriculum; (2) develop two new content areas--Sports Science, and Perception and Sensation; (3) create new partnerships with FIRST LEGO League and Girl Scouts of USA; and, (4) conduct summative evaluation to continue to gauge "ZOOM's" effectiveness at teaching math and science to targeted audiences. Outreach for the project will include print materials for kids, families and educators. "ZOOM"-related activities at community-based organization include 590 ClubZOOM science afterschool programs and 21 ZOOMzone science museum exhibits. The 2,400-page interactive web site is updated weekly. "ZOOM" currently is carried by 170 public broadcasting stations and is viewed by close to 6 million children per week. The program receives 24,000 letters and e-mails per week; the web site attracts an average of 14,000 visitors per month.
Award-winning Scholastic Productions, Inc. proposes to produce 39 fully animated, half hour television programs, based on the successful children's science book series, The Magic School Bus. We are seeking funding for the initial three seasons (13 episodes per season) which will be produced over a four year period. Designed as an informal science education series for PBS, it is targeted primarily for 6-9 year-olds, with special attention given to reaching girls and minority children. The series has clear science pedagogical goals: 1) to motivate children to further science study, 2) to present science facts, concepts and systems, and 3) to inspire positive attitudes towards science and education for students and teachers. Throughout the production, audience research and field testing will ensure that the programming is effectively meeting these goals. The series features a remarkable teacher, Ms. Frizzle, who takes her class on equally remarkable field trips. While other teachers may go to a museum, Ms. Frizzle leads her class onto a yellow school bus that shrinks (along with its students) to the size of a cell to journey through the human body, rocket into outer space, or travel into the eye of a hurricane. Thus, the series makes science tangible and relatable for an audience of children who are still concrete thinkers. We will create a broad outreach program, utilizing the publishing and distribution resources of Scholastic Productions' parent company, Scholastic Inc., (the largest publisher of children's materials in the English-speaking world), and other targeted organizations. Through viewer guides, series publicity and promotion, magazine editorials, community and after-school programs, we expect to reach a large and culturally diverse audience, including minorities frequently not served by PBS.
Reading Rainbow is an eighty (80) part PBS children's series (15 of which are science programs) that entices children five to eight years old to read good books, thus addressing the national tragedy of more and more young Americans reading less and less. The Emmy award winning series employs television to sell the joy of science and reading to young viewers. This proposal seeks funding for five additional Reading Rainbow programs which will focus on scientific themes. These programs will be added to the previously funded science programs (22) to become part of the on-going series in demonstrating to children how science is integrated into all aspects of our lives. The Reading Rainbow series premiered in the summer of l983 to phenomenal critical and popular acclaim. In the fall of 1990, Reading Rainbow expanded ta a year round, daily schedule-- after having spent seven years as a summer series. According to formal studies, the science shows are of great interest to children and pique children's interest in related science topics and books. The series is no in its tenth season and its popularity has grown among young viewers as well as with parents.
BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY is a half-hour, weekly children's science education series produced in Seattle, Washington by McKenna/Gottlieb Producers Inc. and KCTS Television in association with Rabbit Ears Production. The series is designed to make science assessable and interesting to children in the of forth and fifth grades by relating science at the interests and everyday activities of children and presenting basic concepts from elementary science curricula in a humorous and exciting format. Programs are set in a variety of studio and field locations and utilize special effects and the creative techniques of host Bill Nye, a popular television entertainer and science aficionado. In each program, studio demonstrations/experiments and field segments feature Nye and a diverse cast of children, scientists and celebrity guests. Experiments and demonstrations use inexpensive, safe household items to enable viewers to follow along at home or in the classroom. As part of the promotion and outreach for the series, ancillary materials such as a teacher's guide, parent's guide, activity packages and newsletters will be developed and made available to schools as well as in the home and such informal setting as community centers, libraries, and clubs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth BrockWilliam NyeJames McKennaErren Gottlieb
Nebraskans for Public Television are producing three programs in the "Reading Rainbow" series that focus on mathematics and developing and implementing a special math outreach effort aimed at parents with a secondary audience of teachers. The programs will take a literature-based approach to mathematics which helps make it possible ". . . for children to have the same authentic experiences with math that they are coming to have with language, social studies, science and the arts." (Read Any good Math Lately? by Whitin and Wilde). The goal of the project is to expand the impact of the "Reading Rainbow" series by: - integrating quality math-oriented books with science and literary selections into the series, and - making quality children's math-oriented books more visible to parents, public librarians, and teachers and to engage children's interest in reading about and exploring math in the real world. The outreach effort will develop a special math effort directed to parents, children, and teachers. A special publication for parents and a teacher guide will be created for the new math-focused programs. The producers will work with the Family Math Project at the Lawrence Hall of Science in training parents and children and will also direct community outreach efforts towards economically and socially disadvantaged families. This effort will engage these families in math related activities through partnerships with community-based organizations and local public television stations involved in PBS's Ready to Learn Project. Partnership organizations include the National Council for Teachers of Math, Girls Inc, The Connecticut Academy for Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, EQUALS Family Math Project, and the Weekly Reader Corporation. "Reading Rainbow" partnerships also have been established between three SSI's -- Louisiana, Michigan, and Ohio -- and PBS stations in those states.
The goal of this project is to educate children between the ages of 10 and 18 about the ecology of insects and forests, how human activities affect their interaction, and how scientific research is conducted. It will disseminate information throughout Indiana based on research award DEB 0345331, Cicadas and Forests Education. For a period during May and June 2004 the United States was captivated by periodical cicadas in an unusual convergence of popular and scientific interest. This project will use this heightened awareness as a vehicle for informal science education as additional broods emerge in 2007 and 2008 in the Midwest and South. The project will use existing video footage from the research to produce a documentary film on periodical cicadas for airing on public television stations and distribution on DVDs to schools; an interactive computer-based presentation in PowerPoint; and an interactive 3-D animation of the cicada life cycle for use in a science center. Project collaborators include local public television stations, Wonderlab (a science museum), the Indiana State Museum and school systems in Indiana.
WTTW, the public television station in Chicago, is developing a science education project targeted at children aged 6 to 10. The major components of the project will be a 13-part animated television series, an interactive webpage and multiple outreach components for individuals and families. The television series features a pair of animal astronauts -- an eager dog named Billie and a reluctant flea named Miles -- as they travel through space in search of science adventure. The two work together to explore problems, solve mysteries and survive adventures while aboard their doghouse-shaped spaceship and on the worlds they discover throughout the universe. In each episode, using an inquiry-based method of problem solving, Billie and Miles embark on a new adventure and explore a single science concept in depth, approaching it from many different ways appropriate to their respective personalities. Science content for the series is being developed by Ian Saunders, previously Head Science Writer for Bill Nye the Science Guy; Dr. Edward Atkins, President of Science Productions for TV who has developed science programming for Children's Television Workshop and WNET; and Dr. Jose Rios, Assistant Professor for Science Education at the University of Washington, Tacoma. The series will be produced by WTTW in partnership with Nelvana Ltd., the animation company for The Magic School Bus. Formative evaluation during the planning phase will be conducted by Dr. Barbara Flagg of Multimedia Research. The major activities during the planning stage include: 1) Convening the core advisors to develop the science content bible, finalize age-appropriate content goals, suggest ideas and strategies for presenting the science, and organizing principles consistent with the National Science Education Standards and the AAAS Benchmarks. 2) The group also will examine a range of creative issues that bear directly on the effective delivery of science content. 3) Development and formative testing for a short animation prototype that will illustrate one of the series' science concepts. This segment will be tested to assess the appeal of its style and its efficacy in communicating science. 4) Continuation of work with Nelvana to develop character sketches and background, create storylines and write a pilot script. 5) Validate and expand on the current outreach concept.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
MaryBeth HughesEdward AtkinsIan SaundersFrederick SchneiderBarbara Flagg
WGBH is producing a two-hour NOVA special that will examine the scientific undertaking to decipher all three billion letters of the human genetic code. The program will take viewers inside the labs where this effort is going on and will examine the difficult decisions that are arising from our growing understanding of the human genome. The central narrative thread in "The Human Blueprint" is the extraordinary race now going on between two teams striving to be the first to read, or "sequence," the human genome. On one side is the official Human Genome Project, funded by the federal government and coordinated by the National Human Genome Research Institute; on the other side is private industry, in the form of a well-financed company run by a biologist with a long track record of finding quicker, cheaper ways to plumb the secrets of the genetic code. To support the extended use of the series, "The Human Blueprint" will be featured in the NOVA teachers guide and will be the subject of an enhanced Web sit at NOVA Online. The Executive Producer for the programs will be Paula Apsell, Executive Producer for NOVA, and the series will be produced by Elizabeth Arledge who has produced science programming for WGBH, WNET and CBS News. Dr. Joseph Levine will serve as science consultant to "The Human Blueprint" and will work with the producer to plan program research, suggest sequence possibilities, review program treatments and critique the film at early stages. Dr. Levine has a Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University and served as the science editor for the WGBH series "The Secret of Life." Advisors to the series include: W. French Anderson, Professor of Biochemistry and Pediatrics and the Director of Gene Therapy Laboratories at the University of Southern California School of Medicine; David Baltimore, President of the California Institute of Technology and Chairman of the NIH AIDS Vaccine Research Committee; Paul Berg, Director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Research at Stanford University; Robin Blatt, Founder of the Genetic Resource at the Massachusetts Health Research Institute; David Blumenthal, Director of the Institute for Health Policy and Professor of Medicine and Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital Robert Cook-Deegan, Director of the National Cancer Policy Board, Institute of Medicine and the Commission on Life Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences; Ronald G. Crystal, Director of the Gene Therapy Core facility at Cornell University Medical College; Georgia M. Dunston, Professor of Microbiology and Acting Director of the National Human Genome Center at Howard University; Philip R. Reilly, Executive Director of the Shriver Center for Mental Retardation; Lydia Villa-Komaroff, Vice President of Research and Professor of Neurology at Northwestern University.
Children's Television Workshop (CTW) will produce two additional seasons of SQUARE ONE TV, a daily series of mathematics for children aged 8-12. The first season of 75 half-hour shows premiered on public television stations in January 1987. The second and third seasons will each consist of 65 programs to capitalize on the success of Season I and compound its educational utility. SQUARE ONE TV has three goals: to promote positive attitudes toward, and enthusiasm for, mathematics; to encourage the use and application of problem solving processes; and to present sound mathematical content in an interesting, accessible and meaningful manner. Based on preliminary research results, the series appears to be meeting these goals. The series has attracted a substantial audience from throughout the country during its initial season, and a very positive reception from mathematicians, parents, teachers, and the press. Most importantly, the target-aged children are enjoying and learning from the series. The goals and content for additional seasons will basically remain the same, with refinements made as research results are assembled and digested by in house staff in conjunction with mathematics advisors. Production plans will take advantage of the learning experiences acquired from Season I. The additional seasons of SQUARE ONE TV will be supported by a full range of promotion, community outreach activities and school services, including teacher's guides. Season II should be ready to air in September 1988. The highly skilled production team responsible for season I remains in place: Dave Connell, Vice President and Executive Producer, CTW; Dr. Keith Mielke, Vice President for Research, CTW; Dr. Joel Schneider, Content Director, SQUARE ONE TV; and Bettina Peel, Director of Research, SQUARE ONE TV. An 18 member National Advisory Board is chaired by Dr. Gerald Lesser, Bigelow Professor of Education and Developmental Psychology at Harvard, and more than 15 additional distinguished mathematicians, scientists, and educators serve as project consultants. With the addition of SQUARE ONE TV to the existing 3-2-1 Contact science series, america's children now have a full hour a day of math and science learning opportunity at home. Continued development of SQUARE ONE TV mathematics programs is essential to sustain our national commitment for improved mathematics and scientific literacy for our young. An award of an additional $3,000,000 for FY87 and $3,000,000 for FY88 is recommended.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David ConnellKeith MielkeBettina PeelJoel Schneider