Investigating Green Energy Technologies in the City (GET City) is a youth-based project designed to target underserved middle school students and introduce concepts in energy sustainability and environmental health. Partners include Michigan State University's College of Education and College of Engineering, Lansing Boys and Girls Club, Lansing Board of Water and Light, and Urban Options, a non-profit energy and environmental agency. Participants learn to use IT tools (GIS software, databases, and communication tools) and gain IT workforce skills, research experiences, science knowledge, and inquiry skills. Project components include bi-weekly afterschool sessions (18 weeks), a 3-week summer program with field-based design experiences, community energy events, parental involvement activities, career field trips, and a project website. Youth will also participate in an annual community fair and conduct energy audits. Topics covered include brownouts, environmental health, alternative energy sources, and green energy technologies. Youth will receive ongoing support from energy mentors and gain leadership experience. The project will result in the development of a curriculum that includes IT-based investigations with a focus on core energy concepts. GET City also includes a research component that examines youth identity development in science, engineering, and IT in an attempt to understand how the program supports participation in an IT community of practice. The research, in conjunction with the comprehensive evaluation, will contribute to the field by providing insight into how the program design fosters youth engagement and learning in science, engineering, and IT. Seventy youth will receive 280 contact hours over two years of participation.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM)--in collaboration with scientists at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and Academic Health Center; the Minnesota Department of Health, and the Minnesota Antibiotic Resistance Collaborative--requests a Phase 1/11five-year SEPA grant of $1,250,000 to develop a traveling museum exhibition and web site that highlight the fascinating science behind the outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that are changing and shaping our way of life in the 21st century. Topics to be covered will include the emergence of new illnesses like SARS and Avian Influenza and the re-emergence of drug-resistant infections that were once curable but now can be fatal. An Infectious Disease Advisory Panel and Content Experts representing the collaborating institutions listed above and others will guide museum staff in the development of these exhibits and programs. EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES will be a 1,500 square-foot special exhibition to be installed in SMM's Human Body Gallery in spring 2007. After an 18-month presentation, it will begin a tour to five medium size science centers over two years. In addition to the exhibition and its complementary web site, special programming will be targeted to reach specific audiences, including: K-12 school groups visiting the museum (a user guide with on-line pre- and post-visit activities aligned with state and National Science Education Standards); K-12 classroom teachers (Curriculum Enhancement Institutes); and outreach programs serving after-school programs for children in under-served inner-city neighborhoods. A focus on areas of ongoing research will be used to highlight how far we have come in understanding the complex world of infectious diseases and how far we must go in treatment or elimination of present day health threats.