NACME proposes to develop a 20 minute videotape, with a teacher's guide and student brochure, that will use career opportunities in engineering as a vehicle to encourage math and science course-taking among minority high school students. By introducing engineering careers as dynamic, exciting professions that offer excellent prospects for minority graduates, NACME hopes to motivate students to take academic track science and math courses beginning at the 8th/9th grade crossroads and continuing through high school graduation. The video, geared specifically to a primary audience of 11 to 14 year-old minority students (5th through 8th graders) and a secondary audience of non-minority students, parents, teachers and guidance counselors, will focus on the lives of successful young engineers, male and female, from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ronni Denes
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Scientists and engineers are an underutilized resource in motivating students and assisting classroom teachers in teaching science. Pilot programs have demonstrated the value of preparing scientists for what to expect when they enter the classroom, how to incorporate the school curriculum into their program, and how best to reach the goal of making their visits a "never to be forgotten" life changing experience for students. The concept of a Survival Kit is an outgrowth of a Scientist-in-Residence program at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science which has successfully matched scientists and public school classrooms locally since 1982. The North Carolina Museum of Life and Science proposes to conduct meetings for staff and outside educational specialists to identify the materials and strategies needed to prepare scientists to enter school classrooms. The final report of these meetings will include mechanicals of a Scientist Survival Kit, which can be disseminated across the country, and an evaluation report of how the kits can be and are used. Dr. Mark St. John, Inverness Associates, a professional evaluator noted for his work with nationally significant science education projects, will provide local and national evaluation through surveys and meetings to give a picture of the issues involved in establishing and maintaining programs of scientists in the schools and the role played by the Scientist's Survival Kit in furthering this aim.
THE DR. FAD SHOW is a daily television series for children ages 6 to 12 that encourages creativity, inventiveness and problem solving in a lively half-hour format. Each program is taped before a studio audience and high-lights the inventions of young participants as well as the fads and inventions of the past, present and future. Created and hosted by Ken Hakuta, or Dr. Fad as he is known to millions of young viewers, the series will combine thirty-five brand new shows with thirty previously produced episodes for a total of sixty-five programs. The series will be produced and packaged next spring and summer at WETA-TV in Washington, D.C. and will be ready for national broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as early as fall of 1991. THE DR. FAD SHOW will be accompanied by a significant outreach and promotion effort, as well as an educational component that will include an activity and teacher's guide. The programs have already won the endorsement of the National Education Association and the National Inventive Teaching Association (NITA) among others, as well as the enthusiastic support of parents, teachers and a legion of dedicated young viewers and participants.
The North Carolina Museum of Life and Science requests $491,260 to develop exhibits which explore mechanics of living organism. Basic physics, optics and fluids dynamics will be presented in the context of biological systems. Life in a Physical World interactive exhibits and educational materials which will reach over 3 million people. Life in a Physical World meets the needs of teachers, students and other science learners. The exhibits and educational materials integrate science concepts across disciplines. They provide hands-on, motivating science experiences in a non-threatening environment. Life in a Physical World makes physical science concepts accessible by presenting them in the context of living things. Project Outcomes The Project will produce a 2,000 square foot permanent and travelling Life in a Physical World exhibits. The North Carolina Museum of Life and Science will install the permanent exhibition. To ensure broad dissemination, the Association of Science-Technology Centers will circulate the travelling exhibition nationally and the Museum will distribute as-built drawings to science centers, natural history museums and zoos. Museum Educators will produce materials to enhance the instructional value of the exhibition.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, PA requests NSF support for a 5000 sf traveling exhibit on The Human Brain that is being developed for the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative (SMEC). This exhibit offers an integrated understanding of how physiological structures in the brain relate to vital life functions and human behaviors. Senior members of the exhibit development team include distinguished neuroscientists who are locally available and committed to The Franklin Institute project; the team is also advised by a large panel of nationally recognized experts in brain research. Like all SMEC exhibits, The Brain will be seen by over two million Americans during a 32-month tour to eight major cities across the United States. During the 1990's -- "The Decade of the Brain" -- the proposed exhibit project is important and timely in its ability to inform the public about new ideas and discoveries in the many sciences of brain research.
The Pratt Museum, a natural history museum in Southcentral Alaska, proposes to bring before the public an exhibition on oil pollution. Using the historic disaster of the March 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez, the museum presents a dramatic, grassroots story of the desperate struggle to protect the environment and preserve traditional lifestyles. The exhibit's purpose is to increase public awareness of national and global issues pertaining to the development, transportation, and use of petroleum. The 1,500 square foot presentation shows what an oil spill is like through photographs, maps, graphics, and three- dimensional participatory elements. The exhibit is scheduled to open at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History in early 1991, beginning a three-year tour of 12 museums that will reach between 1.5 and 2 million viewers. The NSF contribution will support the circulation of the exhibit and the development of interactive components to enhance both the permanent and traveling presentations. Computerized graphic displays and an educational chest of learning tools will enhance the basic exhibit through multi- sensory activities designed for hands-on gallery use, increasing accessibility for children and disabled visitors. This cooperative project invloves private foundations, individuals, the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Interactive science exhibits will be designed, developed, and installed in the Brookings Interpretive Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The Brookings Interpretive Center is a new educational facility attached to the Climatron, a geodesic dome greenhouse. The exhibits will be installed in one of five theme areas: Tropical Rain Forest Biome, Tropical Rain Forests at Risk, Global Ecosystem, Desert Biome, and Temperate Biome. In addition to the science exhibits, the project will develop a series of science demonstrations to be used in the Brookings Interpretive Center and will allow for additional signage and audio effects to be added to the Climatron.
The museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, in collaboration with the University of Chicago, proposes to develop a major new exhibit on "Imaging Science." Imaging science is a new field rapidly emerging from its roots in the physical, biological, and behavioral sciences, and the graphic arts, and is becoming increasingly important in all areas of scientific research. The primary rationale for developing an exhibit about imaging science, and related programming, is to enhance the overall scientific literacy of four million visitors that come to the Museum each year. In view of the scientific, medical, educational, and cultural value of images, the Museum and University of Chicago believe that an exhibit on imaging science will have broad appeal to museum visitors of many different ages and backgrounds. Today, scientific imaging empowers us to look inward, at the infinite complexity of ourselves, and outward to the edge of our universe. The main thrust of the exhibit will be to teach visitors how images communicate knowledge. Technological advances in computer workstations, that are revolutionizing scientific study, will be highlighted. Exhibit sections will also identify imaging science breakthroughs that will impact the lives of students and members of the workforce in the 1990s and beyond.
The Exploratorium proposes to create a multidimensional exhibition on the theme of navigation. The exhibition proper will contain approximately 20 new interactive exhibits dealing with topics of human orientation, wayfinding/exploration, the importance of time in navigation, maps and navigation traditions. Alongside the exhibits we will display real navigational artifacts borrowed from other museums. We have identified approximately 40 existing exhibits which, while not in the main show, will receive textual modification to show their relation to navigational topics. In addition to the exhibition of artifacts and interactive exhibits, we will present a series of lectures, theme weekends, and demonstrations of navigational techniques. During the run of the show we will host a Symposium On The American Encounter wherein we will hold an open forum of lectures and discussion of historical, anthropological and social consequences of cultural encounter on the North American Continent. We will produce both a brochure and a high quality catalog for this show. In addition we will create written "pathways" of organization of this museum-wide show to bring to focus different features and approaches to navigation. Our education departments will play a leading role in creating more formal programs for our visitors. The physical show will be reproduced in a travelling version to tour nine venues in the three years following its opening at the Exploratorium. We will collect the results of our researchers in a dissemination package to be made available to others in the field.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Thomas HumphreyPeter RichardsMichael Pearce
A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES is a five-part series to be produced by WETA fornational PBS broadcast in the 1993-94 season. The series is to be adapted from the best- selling book of the same title. Its author, Diane Ackerman, will present the programs and collaborate with the producers throughout. Each program will focus on a single sense: smell, touch, taste, hearing and vision respectively. Each will explore: how the world is sensed by animals and humans, including the evolution of the sense; what is perceived; and how human beings reconstruct and recreate their sensory worlds, through cuisines and perfumes, music, sculpture and painting. Shot on location around the world, these documentary films will incorporate viewpoints from anatomy, physiology and neurochemistry, experimental and perceptual psychology, cultural anthropology, literature, art, music and history. Compelling stories and illustrative vignettes and precise graphic animation will arise from rigorous research, in collaboration with a board of advisors. By unifying material from science and the arts and humanities, the series will reach a general audience. Viewers will be awakened to a new awareness of the range and power of their senses. Companion materials for schools will extend the series to the formal learning environment and will motivate further study.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Richard HuttonDavid McGowanRichard Thomas
This research is to examine free-choice leisure behavior of African Americans as it relates to the utilization of science museums. Hard statistics for African American museum visitors are not available; but preliminary data based on visitor profile studies undertaken by individual organizations suggest that of the three categories of visitor frequency, most African American visitors fall into the lower two: infrequent (one or two times per year) or not at all. (The vast majority of frequent visitors are non African Americans.) The purpose of this research is to dig deeper into the question of the utilization of science museums by African Americans. Not only will the relationships between variables identified in previous studies (socio-economic, cultural/ethnic, institutional, and regional factors) be examined but others such as how individuals learn about museum programs and the structure of the African American family (household) will also be included. The research will begin by collecting base line visitor profiles at a zoo, aquarium, natural history museum, and a science center. Detailed information relating to the past history of museum-going will be collected by means of interviews of randomly selected African American and White family visitors at several science museums. Finally, indepth interviews regarding leisure time activities and preferences will be conducted in six African American and racially mixed communities representing different socio-economic levels. The ultimate goal is to analyse the attitudes of African Americans toward museums and to provide an understanding of the variables involved that will be of use to museum program planners and educators as they design their activities. The desired result is for this segment of our society to have a better opportunity to benefit from the rich resources of these informal science education institutions.
Children's Television Workshop is embaring on a ground- breaking experiment in informal science education: the production of an entertaining animated series of 13 half- hour programs for Saturday morning commercial television, based on David Macaulay's bestselling book, The Way Things Work. The audience will be six- to eleven-year olds, with special focus on minority and economically disadvantaged children. The series' primary goal will be to entertain children with lively and appealing characters in a dramatic storyline, while stimulating children's interest in the scientific principles behind the workings of familiar machines and illustrating the action of their parts. NSF support will enable CTW to adapt the CTW Model -- the collaborative process used in earlier NSF-supported programs, 3-2-1 Contact and Square One Tv -- to the opportunities of the animation format and the realities of the partnership with a commercial network. Through a development agreement with CBS, CTW has begun the process of developing the series concept, characters, and storylines. Upon successful completion of this phase, production will follow with an anticipated broadcast premiere in fall 1992. NSF's $2.36 million support will allow this project to be possible by completing the series' funding; it will allow CTW to conduct significant formative research and summative analyses of educational impact, and to reach large minority and economically disadvantaged audiences through wider promotion and the creation and distribution of complementary print materials.