The Great Lakes Museum of Science, Environment, and Technology will develop a 10,000 sq. ft. exhibit focusing on The Great Lakes Environment. Addressing the core mission of the museum, the exhibit will promote understanding about "the interdependence of scientific, environmental, and technological activities in the Great Lakes Region." The exhibit will focus on the Great Lakes as an ecosystem. By means of interactive activities, visitors will learn how this ecosystem was formed, the web of life it supports, the stresses it receives, and the efforts to restore its health. The Great Lakes Museum is a new 165,000 sq. ft. facility located in downtown Cleveland on the Lake Erie Shore and is scheduled to open in 1996. The exhibit area will cover 50,000 sq. ft. and will be fully accessible. An entire floor will be dedicated to the Great Lakes Environment. Complementary educational programs will consist of the following: take home activity guides to encourage the discovery and exploration of ecosystems in backyards or neighborhoods, pre and post visit activities for school groups, and teacher enhancement activities. Museum staff are participating in the planning process for the Urban Systemic Initiative of Cleveland and activiites and content of exhibits will be developed to complement the curriculum. The museum will develop a menu of activities and databases for electronic networking with homes and schools. They will have video conferencing capabilities to connect the museum with classrooms.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Richard CoyneTimothy LargePauline Fong
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is requesting $971,288 over three years for the development, formative and summative evaluation of two traveling exhibits. The 5,000 sq. ft. traveling exhibit is designed for children ages 3-8 and their families, using the context, setting, characters and challenged portrayed in the books of Richard Scarry, a noted children's author. A 2,000 sq. ft. mini-version traveling exhibit will be produced for use in smaller venues. Parent, teacher, and staff guides will be prepared and distributed. This exhibit gives strong emphasis to facilitating parent interaction with their children, and has activity areas for parents built into the exhibit. There is also an emphasis on anti-bias content within the exhibit.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Nancy StueberMarilynne ElchingerJoan Liberman
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum is requesting $370,728 to create a traveling exhibit entitled "How Things Work, which will familiarize students and the general public with the science and engineering behind 15-20 "gadgets" which play vital roles in their everyday lives. A number of the exhibit elements will be based on the work of Dr. Richard Crane. Ancillary materials will be developed for classroom teachers as part of school outreach. An Exhibition Resource Guide will be developed for use by other museum venues, as well as teachers, students and others.
The Lawrence Hall of Science will develop a 3000 sq. ft. traveling interactive chemistry exhibit in which visitors will conduct a variety of basic chemical tests within the motivational genre of solving a mystery. Chem-Mystery will invite visitors into an Old House facade where two non-violent mysteries have occurred. Visitors will chose a mystery (either the case of the missing toy boat for youngsters or the case of the missing money for older children and adults) to solve. After learning the facts surrounding the case from videos of the chief detective and the suspects, visitors will collect evidence from the scene of the mystery and then proceed to the Forensics Laboratory. The Lab will contain 15 hands-on stations where visitors explore fundamental chemistry concepts while using chemistry as a tool to analyze clues. Complementary educational materials will be developed. A 20 page Going Further Guide will contain activities that can be done at home using techniques introduced in the exhibit. Teacher workshops will be held to introduce teachers to concepts in the exhibit and methods on how to incorporate the exhibit activities in their curricular agenda. These materials plus other general set-up information will be included in an Exhibit Installation Handbook. After opening to the public at the LHS in January 1996, it will begin its tour in October, 1996 to nine US science centers. It has the potential of reaching about 800,000 people during the twenty-seven month tour. The exhibit design will be reviewed for universal accessibility. It will be produced by the staff of the Lawrence Hall of Science and circulated by ASTC.
The California Museum of Science and Industry requests $1,103,410 over three years to work in a partnership with the National Council of La Raza to develop two content-rich "discovery rooms" in the Museum that are supportive of further learning in the larger museum context and that guide parents from culturally diverse backgrounds in supporting their children's science learning at the museum and in the home. A major component of the project is the "Our Place Academy," a comprehensive education program that will train Latino parents of preschool and school-age children to serve as learning facilitators in the discovery rooms. The curriculum of the Academy will focus on skills that will both serve Latino parents as partners in their children's science education and as leaders and disseminators within their own communities. A training guide entitled, "Making it our Place" will be developed as a practical guide for building a trained staff from the parents in a community to facilitate learning in a discovery setting. Target audience is parents with preschool and school-aged children.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ann MuscatSylvia ConnollySharon SchonhautCarol ValentaRoxie EsterleMaria Bonillas
The Science Museum of Minnesota will prepare and circulate a 2500 sq. ft. traveling exhibit of the physical science activities from their successful "Experiment Gallery" exhibit, previously supported by NSF. Visitors studies indicate this gallery is the most popular and most visited of the museum's science halls. The activities cover five areas of physics; sound and saves, light, mechanics, weather, and electricity. It will include more than 25 activities and will go to a minimum of eighteen mid-sized and smaller museums over a six year period. Complementary activities include the development of a recipe book describing eleven volunteer-mediated science experiment activities developed by Experiment Gallery staff. The tour will be managed by the Science Museum's Touring Exhibits Department.
The San Jose Children's Discovery Museum will develop an exhibit "Take Another Look." A semi-permanent version will be installed at the Children's Museum and a 600-750 sq. ft. traveling version will be developed and circulated under the auspices of the Association of Science and Technology Centers Traveling Exhibition Service. Consisting of 14 individual elements, the exhibit is to communicate the essential role and significance of observation in the human experience and its more purposive character in science; the role and importance of instrumentation in scientific observation; and the importance to science of observing and interpreting phenomena in different ways. "Take Another Look" is aligned with nationally developed science education goals as outlined in Goals 2000, the AAAS Benchmarks, and with the California's Science Framework. The project targets the adult/child unit (parents and teachers with children age 2 to 10 that they accompany). Particular attention is being paid to reaching traditionally underserved audiences including Latino, Asia, and African American. Complementary materials include a Teacher's Guide, a Family Activities Guide, and a free/low cost "take-away" card with suggested activities and recommendations for other activities. It is estimated that in four years it will reach over two million children and adults both at the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum and host museums of the touring version.
The Tech Museum of Innovation developed a prototype of "Innovation," a proposed permanent 8,000 sq. ft. exhibit, which will be one of four major exhibit theme areas and will incorporate approximately 80 hands-on, interactive experiences which promote critical and innovative thinking, invention and problem solving. The exhibit is designed to introduce visitors of all ages to advanced technology and the process of innovation from idea to usable product. The exhibit will use engaging techniques such as "immersive environments," "story lines," "open-ended elements," and the "challenge approach." The target audience is the general visitor of all ages.
Under the Small Grants for Exploratory Research Guidelines, Serrell and Associates will do "A Meta-Analysis of Visitor Time/Use in Museum Exhibitions." The research will examine the long considered and debated questions revolving around visitors expenditure of their time (duration and allocation) in science museums exhibits. Serrell will undertake the largest, systematic study of its kind. Using a large number of systemically made observations of visitors time/use, baseline data will be developed that will answer some of the fundamental questions about visitor's movements in an exhibit. This work builds on and expands, considerably, the current data base of observations from 48 exhibits to over 100 exhibitions. This is not a new research topic but it is one that deserves more attention because it has not been studied systematically. Researchers generally assume a positive correlation between time spent on task and learning but beyond that there are a number of provocative questions and unverified theories. Many questions lack sufficient data to draw conclusions. This study will provide statistical correlations between variables observed and will be absed on large, methodologically similar database, which does not currently exist.
The Burke Museum at the University if Washington will develop Pacific Voices, a 5500 sq. ft. exhibit that will focus on the issue of cultural identity. It will encourage visitors to examine the definition of American cultural identity, the integration of diverse cultural elements within American communities, and questions regarding interactions between Native peoples and Euro- Americans. Four themes (Teachers, Elders, and Authority; Language; Oral Traditions; and Ceremonies) will be developed to help visitors understand cultural identify, tradition and change in the context of Pacific Region cultures. The extensive collections and professional resources of the Burke Museum will be used and the exhibit will be used. Building on established linkages between the Seattle school systems and the museum, the Burke staff will introduce new teacher/student guides and a varied menu of teacher training activities including for-credit courses and in-serviced programs that will address the social science literacy benchmarks of Project 2061. Other outreach activities will include traveling study collections, weekend family programs, a resource bank in the museum's Department of Education and locally and nationally disseminated radio and television news and feature programs related to the theme of Pacific Voices.
The Museum of Science and Industry will develop "Genetics: Decoding Life," a 4325 sq. ft. permanent exhibit about the basic principles of genetics, the Human Genome Project, new tools and technology to study life, and the biomedical and biotech applications resulting from genetic information. As a result of interacting with this exhibit, visitors will understand the basic principles of genetics, they will become familiar with the role of genes in the development of life, they will learn something about how and why scientists used genetic tools, and visitors will become aware of applications of these principles and the potential social, ethical, medical and economic outcomes. In addition to the exhibit there will be a number of complementary outreach programs. An electronic web site will be created, software used in the exhibit will be modified into a format suitable for use in schools, computers loaded with genetic programs will be loaned to Chicago public school groups, churches and other community agencies, and the content of the exhibit will be used to enhance special Lamaze and prenatal classes held at the museum. Special consideration will be given to developing the relationship between the project personnel and the staff of the Chicago Systemic Initiative. They will work together to produce a school program about genetics that will be suitable for grades 5 to 8. School materials will include a teacher's guide for the exhibit, a program of classroom activities, and materials to be used before and after a trip to the museum to see the exhibit.
Through a collaboration of the DuPage Children's Museum, Argonne National Laboratory, and National-Louis University, a three-element project is being conducted focusing on the following: 1) a research component that studies children's naive perceptions of the phenomena of air and wind energy, 2) an exhibition component that uses the project research to design, develop, and construct a 3- 4,000 square foot "process" oriented exhibition with a 2-story exhibit tower and 12-15 replicable exploratory workstations, 3) a program component that offers explorations for children adapted for museums, preschools and elementary school classrooms. Target audiences include young children and their parents, pre- and in- service early childhood teachers, and museum professionals interested in reaching very young children.