This article features an interview with Dr. Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Kurin describes the Haitian Cultural Recovery Project and how it has helped Haitians rebuild after the earthquake struck the nation in 2010. He describes the goals of the project, key partners, funding sources, future opportunities and challenges, and how individuals can get involved in the project.
In this article, contracts attorney Bruce A. Falk offers a practical guide to circumventing the legalities of soliciting content from third-parties (i.e. audience participation). Falk provides a brief history of copyright and contract law and useful examples and models of contracts, in response to the growing trend of museums integrating user-generated content into their spaces and programs.
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Bruce A. FalkNational Association for Museum Exhibition
This article explores the ways imagination and how museum professionals can foster new ways of thinking in their work and products as well as encourage visitors to be more aware of their museums experiences. In the Introduction, D. Lynn McRainey, Elizabeth F. Cheney Director of Education at the Chicago History Museum, discusses two projects that changed her practices as a museum educator and her understanding of learning in museums. Next, Leslie Bedford, Director of Leadership in Museum Education Program at Bank Street College, examines the meaning of imagination and how narrative and
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D. Lynn McRaineyLeslie BedfordDaniel SpockAndrew Anway
In 2004, the City of Menomonie updated its storm water management plan to minimize storm water runoff, encourage storm water infiltration and reduce sediment and nutrient deposition in the storm water conveyance system and waterways. This plan complies with the requirements of the EPA Phase II and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource (WDNR) NR 151 and NR 216 storm water regulations that affect the City of Menomonie. Under the education and information chapter of the plan, the following recommendation is mentioned: “We recommend that the City and the University of Wisconsin-Stout partner and work together to ensure that positive steps are taken within the City of Menomonie watershed and Galloway Creek sub-watershed”. In order to meet that specific storm water management recommendation, students enrolled in the BIO 111 course (Science, Society and the Environment) collect and analyze water quality data within specific sections of Galloway Creek and submit their results in a stream report.
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Krista JamesWisconsin Water Action Volunteers ProgramCity of Menomonie
To quantify how much of the night sky has been lost to light pollution, students in grades 3-8 compare their backyard view of Orion to six star charts of the constellation with varying limiting magnitudes. Using thousands of observations from across the local community, teams of students from individual schools plot the collective results by constructing a 3D model out of LEGO blocks. Beforehand, all teachers integrate some aspect of the topic in their regular classroom instruction. The website offers supporting lessons, resources, and ideas for teachers and families alike.
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Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation
Join us in the search for interstellar dust! In 2006, the Stardust spacecraft returned particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars. But before they can be studied, these tiny dust grains will have to be found. This is where you come in! Our volunteers are using an online Virtual Microscope to search for these elusive particles, which were captured in aerogel. In addition, the discoverer of an interstellar dust particle will appear as a co-author in the discovery announcement, and will name the particle!
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University of California, BerkeleyThe Planetary SocietyNASAAndrew Westphal
The URI Watershed Watch program is the largest scientist-led volunteer water quality monitoring program in Rhode Island. Program staff coordinate more than 350 trained volunteer citizen scientists monitoring the water quality of Rhode Island freshwater lakes and ponds, rivers and streams, salt ponds and coastal watersheds. This award-winning program has more than thirty local sponsors, including one third of RI cities and towns, watershed and lake associations, environmental organizations, scouts, the Narragansett Indian Tribe, RI DEM, individual and corporate sponsors. Comprehensive program components include: recruiting, classroom and field training, and equipping volunteers; in-house laboratory analyses in our state-certified lab, data reporting to volunteers, sponsors and pertinent governmental agencies. Specific programs are tailored to lakes and ponds, rivers and streams, estuaries and salt ponds.
Water Logging is a volunteer water quality monitoring program, that monitors water quality in the Huntington-Northport Bay Complex in Long Island, NY. The goals and objectives of the Water Logging Program are to: 1. Educate and involve the public in water quality assessment and protection. 2. Develop a sense of stewardship among the community in the Huntington-Northport Bay watershed. 3. Screen for water quality impairments and determine long-term water quality trends. 4. Document effects of water quality improvement programs. 5. Provide useful water quality data to interested parties and the public.
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Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County
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.
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Paula ApsellThomas FriedmanJon Palfreman
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.
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 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.
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Angela MoultonLaurie ProvinMike BottsHeather Roden