The Anchorage Museum of History and Art will develop "Lifting the Fog: Russian Exploration in the North Pacific, 1728-1867." This exhibition will reveal the world of the naturalists, oceanographers, astronomers, cartographers, ethnographers and artists who first described the west coast of America and the northern Pacific Ocean to the world. Approximately 200,000 visitors to the museum will view the 5,300-sq. ft. exhibition. Public programs will complement the exhibition, including a family day, lecture series by marine biologists, living history programs, weekend workshops, and an international symposium. An illustrated catalog with interpretive essays and a school curriculum and teachers' guide will accompany the exhibition. The exhibition will travel to three additional venues in the United States.
The Space Science Institute will present Earth System Science (ESS) in a new project called "InterActive Earth," which includes a 6,000-square foot traveling exhibition and a comprehensive education program. Earth System Science is a holistic study of the Earth that concentrates on the interactions between Earth's various subsystems and how natural and human-induced changes affect Earth on a global scale. The planning grant will allow exhibit developers to conduct front-end evaluation to uncover visitors' misconceptions about ESS and identify their interests. It will also allow for the development of the overall conceptual framework for the project and the approach to exhibition design.
Screenscope, Inc., is producing three programs in the PBS series, "Journey to Planet Earth." The series has the goal of helping the general public understand and cope with the difficulties of developing a global agenda that addresses the environmental concerns of the next millennium. The series will examine the earth using the latest satellite imagery as well as from providing a more closeup view through the eyes of people who inhabit the many different regions of the world. It will use intimate personal portraits to show how people's every day lives are affected by both local and global environmental pressures. The series will link the sciences with economics, politics, geography, and history. Each episode will feature four to five related stories and case studies selected from different geographic regions and about people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The television series will be supported by an informal, community-based outreach program in science museums and neighborhood centers, activity kits and teaching guides, interactive workshops on the World Wide Web, and strategic partnerships with environmental organizations to raise public awareness of the series and the outreach activities. The Co-PIs and producers of the television series are Marilyn and Hal Weiner. They will work closely with a group of advisors including: Chet Cooper, Battelle/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Edward Frieman, Director Emeritus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Vice Chancellor of the University of California; Nay Htun, United Nations Development Programme; Tom Lovejoy, Counselor to the Secretary for Biodiversity and Environmental Affairs, Smithsonian Institution; Per Pinstrup-Andersen, International Food Policy Research Institute; and Maurice Strong, Chairman of the Earth Council and former Secretary-General of the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. In addition, each episode will have two research scientists who are experts on specific disciplines being featured. Outreach will be developed in association with the Chicago Academy of Sciences.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory will develop "Cosmic Horizons: Our Place in Space and Time." This will be a 5,000-square-foot traveling exhibition to help visitors explore the extraordinary recent breakthroughs and current mysteries in our scientific understanding of the structure and evolution of the universe. Cosmic Horizons will reach over 3 million people on its tour of nine to twelve science museums. A coordinated set of programmatic activities and resources for adult and family audiences, materials for teachers and students, and on-site workshops for host venues will be developed in partnership with Boston's Museum of Science to maximize the impact of this space-science education endeavor.
The Exploratorium requests $1,389,665 to develop "Live @ the Exploratorium: Origins." The Exploratorium will conduct a three-year pilot project to develop an experimental series of Webcasts, related Web-based resources, and museum activities . The project will use new communications technologies to create an ongoing link between Internet and museum audiences and current scientific research efforts at observatories around the world where scientists are investigating the origins of matter, the universe, the Earth, and life itself. The Exploratorium will establish a remote connection to six science research locations investigating particle physics, cosmology, polar research, earthquake research, astrobiology and genetics. During each live Webcast museum visitors and Internet visitors will be able to interact with scientists at the remote observatories.
Midwestern Wild Weather is a traveling exhibition designed to reach the target audiences in the small/rural communities and the science centers and museums in the states of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Michigan. This is a three-year project to replicate five of a set of nine interactive exhibits on the topic of Wild Weather. This exhibition is being produced in collaboration with SPARC (Springfield, Peoria, Aurora, Rockford and Carbondale) which are cities located in the State of Illinois. The project represents a strong model for collaboration between museums, science centers and the formal educational system. An innovative feature of this project design is the use of "attractor" exhibits to entice persons to come to the museum and/or science center. "Many places have talked about doing this but few have tried it." Also, this project has the potential to fill the real need of making available quality exhibits to small museums and bringing informal education resources to small/rural communities. The Science and Technology Interactive Center's cost share for this project is 52.1 percent of the total budget.
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.
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.
Design Technology in After School Programs is a collaboration between science centers and community-based programs to provide "hands on" activities for children age 6-10 in an informal setting. This project enables science centers and community-based organizations to use their expertise to conduct outreach for students and their parents using activities developed. The activities will consist of a variety of design projects that will challenge children to build working models of technological devices. The materials involved in the activities are common everyday items that are usually found around the home. The project will be scaled up each of the three years to reach six science centers and 25-30 after school programs in major areas of the eastern part of the United States. The PI will produce a manual for collaboration and a design technology guide for publication and national dissemination. The cost sharing for this project is 33% of the total project budget.