Abstract: The Liberty Science Center will organize a one-day symposium linked to the Giant Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) International Conference and Trade show in September 2008. The symposium will focus on the greater potential of gian screen experiences to connect society with science, building on the GSTA's symposium "Giant Screen Films and Lifelong Learning held in 1999. The program will bring together science and education experts with filmakers to stimulate and enhance more effective approaches to science learning in future giant screen films. Symposium results will be disseminated through publication and the internet, as well prepared for submission to peer-reviewed journals. An industry-specific listserv focused on lifelong learning will be created to serve as a new community-building tool for exchange among producers, distributors and exhibitors. Emlyn Koster (Liberty Science Center) and Mary Nucci (Rutgers University) will serve as aymposium chair/PI and symposium manager/Co-PI, respectively; in partnership with GSCA staff, they will be responsible for symposium management, evaluation, and dissemination of results.
The Conference on Cyberlearning Tools for STEM (CyTSE) brings together scientists, cyberlearning developers, educational researchers, STEM educators (formal and informal), curriculum developers and other stakeholders that contribute to the agenda on K-12 STEM cyberlearning and workforce preparation. Collaborators include Northwestern University, University of Colorado at Boulder, and the WGBH Educational Foundation. This informative meeting will be held as a NSTA pre-conference workshop. The conference plan includes keynote presentations by prominent cyberinfrastructure and cyberlearning professionals, an expert panel on cyberlearning and the future of STEM education, hands-on demonstrations of cyberlearning tools for participants, and interactive poster sessions. Potential tracks for the poster sessions include emerging technologies, design and development, technical challenges and solutions, implementation and integration, and research and evaluation. The second day of the conference will include teacher professional development workshops, as well as in-depth design focus groups, developer integration and interoperability workshops, and a session emphasizing the development of a cyberlearning research agenda. Additional deliverables include a video overview of the conference (for those unable to attend), a white paper proposing a cyberlearning research agenda, and an evaluation study to measure the impact of the conference on participants. A series of post-conference webinars will be hosted by WGBH's Teachers' Domain and publicized on their Facebook, Classroom 2.0, and Science Ning sites to encourage ongoing collaboration. It is anticipated that this two-day conference will bridge gaps between the stakeholder communities and expose important trends and issues that will contribute to a comprehensive research agenda.
This proof-of-concept project is a collaboration of the Museum of Science in Boston, WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) and Ideum. The project will demonstrate that the project team can design and develop digital interactive museum exhibit devices that work for visitors who have a wide range of disabilities. The outcome will be one "exemplar" exhibit based on an exhibit scenario where museum visitors learn STEM concepts by manipulating and analyzing real data. The project will also develop and test the efficacy of a prototype Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Toolkit that will help other museum professionals implement the digital interactive strategies. In addition, the project will produce a white paper on the specific exemplar and a research paper with guidelines for digital interactive exhibits in museum. The project uses an innovative workshop approach that brings together individuals from a diverse range of fields to develop the digital interactive strategies. After developing the "exemplar" exhibit, the team will develop the DIY Toolkit and test the efficacy of the Toolkit in museums that do not have the same level of exhibit development resources as larger institutions. The the project's evaluation will not only determine if the exemplar works well with a wide range of people with disabilities, but also determine the cost-effectiveness and efficacy of the workshop strategy and the ability of other museums to use the DIY toolkit. If successful, this project will attend to an area of high need in the informal science education (ISE) museum exhibit community and provide a resource that will serve a wide range of ISE institutions. If the project evaluation outcomes are positive, the project will lead to a larger effort to develop more exemplar exhibits based on different scenarios and an expansion of the DIY Toolkit.
Miami University - Ohio/Project Dragonfly is developing "Wild Research," a multi-faceted collaborative project with the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden and with a consortium of ten zoos and aquariums around the country, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, the Society for Conservation Biology, and Conservation International. Project deliverables include a centrally-located 4,500 square-foot Wild Research Discovery Forest exhibit and six Wild Research Stations around the Cincinnati Zoo, a Wild Research Consortium and Wild Research Leadership Workshops for zoo professionals, conservation scientists and educators, a Wild Research Web site with visitor password access to exhibit data they collected, and 90-second radio pieces for the 90-Second Naturalist program. Institute for Learning Innovation is conducting the formative and summative evaluations. The Ohio Assessment and Evaluation Center is conducting a separate evaluation focused on this extensive institutional collaboration process. The primary public impact is to explore new ways zoos and aquariums can incorporate inquiry-based activities on site and to help visitors understand the work of conservation scientists. The project also aims to improve the practice of zoo and aquarium professionals nationwide in inquiry-based experiences and communicating about conservation science.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
James PrattD. Janae' LandisDonald LynchMichael Trevisan
This planning grant award addresses the subject of cosmology using contemporary film technology. A screen play and film prototype will take viewers from the historical Big Bang phenomena to contemporary thinking on dark energy and matter. STEM disciplines incorporated within this project are mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry and geology, in addition to astronomy. An additional significant issue in this award will be the effort to form a network of dome and planetarium theaters. Such an organization could facilitate promotion and evaluation of this project and future projects. In the future, the network will be positioned to assess the differences in educational impact from large format flat screen, large format dome screen and planetarium dome presentations. Collaborations on this project include The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, the Mathematics Science Research Institute, and advisors George Smoot and Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Barbara Flagg is the project evaluator. Specific needs for the planning grant are to: 1. gather formative evaluation on audience parameters; 2. develop a short prototype film and a first draft of the screen play; 3. complete the advisory team; 4. translate the deliverables into Spanish language; 5. evaluate and bid the computer animation facilities; and 5. identify a network of dome and planetarium theaters for their evaluation.
The Interactive Video Science Consortium is a non-profit group of fifteen science centers and museums that proposes to develop interactive video exhibits about Earth and Planetary sciences with two purposes in mind. One, the video exhibits on the two subject areas will serve as educational vehicles for four million visitors, representing the combined audiences of the fifteen participating museums. Two, through extensive testing and visitor research during the development process the consortium members will enlarge understanding of the appropriate and effective uses of the interactive video medium in science museums. Consortium members will fund the costs of conducting research on the subject matter and producing the first two discs. The request to the National Science Foundation is for the systematic analysis of the effectiveness of this type of program and of the educational impact of the medium in science museums.
Over three years, Science Central is producing 624 television segments that will present current, ongoing research through local newscasts on ABC and NBC stations nationwide. In addition to the regular research segments, ScienCentral will produce six "sweeps" series per year focusing on important new fields of research including: nanotechnology, genetics/genomics, ocean science, global climate change and brain sciences. An advisory board of scientists, teachers, science journalists and public information officers help inform the producers about individual stories and evolving fields of research, and they provide access to scientists and field research. They also provide scientific input and check the stories for accuracy. To facilitate production and to assure that research is covered on an international basis, ScienCentral will establish a footage consortium to exchange science news video with major Canadian and European newscasters. They also will provide the news stories to science centers for use in their interactive exhibits and web sites.
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.
The Space Science Institute (SSI) seeks to develop the "Stardust Project," designed to introduce the public to concepts related to the birth of stars, the search for planets beyond our solar system and the search for life beyond earth. The project's three components include a 2,500 square-foot travelling exhibition called "Stardust: Our Search for Origins;" a comprehensive education program for museum staff and grades 4-9 school teachers and a public Web site that incorporates and builds on the exhibit and education content. The project proposes to assemble standards-based educational materials for dissemination through workshops conducted at museums that host the exhibit. The educational programs -- particularly professional development workshops for teachers -- target, among other groups, underserved Native American and Hispanic teachers associated with a partnership between SSI and the NSF Rural Systematic Initiatives in the American West. The project is built around strong partnerships with two NASA Origins Program missions and with established informal education institutions including the New York Hall of Science, the Lawrence Hall of Science, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, TERC and the SETI Institute. Its goals are to make it possible for teachers, students and the public to learn about: The formation of stars, planets, and the solar system; The conditions necessary for life; The effect of life on Earth's environment; The methods used to detect planets orbiting distant stars and The scientific tools used in origin research -- from space-based telescopes to microscopes.
The Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, CA is forming and leading a national collaboration producing Maya Skies, a full-dome digital planetarium theater project with several deliverables: a 25-minute Maya Skies show, a model for collaborative production in the full-dome field, research on full-dome immersion experiences and learning, the establishment of a national consortium of seven full-dome theaters and professional development workshops for the field. The research, conducted by the Institute for Learning Innovation, will test the degree to which personal relevance influences free-choice learning experiences. New technologies for digital, high resolution image data-capturing of archaeological sites will be employed. The project's goal is to advance the digital planetarium field with innovations in show production and research and with increased impact on public audiences and the practice of planetarium professionals.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alexander ZwisslerAlexandra BarnettMartin StorksdieckDavid Beining