This document has been archived.

Title:  "Midwest Wild Weather" Goes on the Road
Date:   April 16, 1999




Media contact:
April 16, 1999
Lee Herring
NSF PR 99-27
(703) 306-1070/kherring@nsf.gov

Program contact:
James Oglesby
(703) 306-1616/joglesby@nsf.gov

"MIDWEST WILD WEATHER" GOES ON THE ROAD

     The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced this week a
three-year, $1.6-million grant to the Science & Technology Interactive
Center (SciTech) in Aurora, Illinois, to disseminate a traveling
exhibition, "Midwestern Wild Weather."  The project is intended to reach
audiences in small and rural communities and the science centers and
museums in the states of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Michigan.

     This project will replicate five of a set of nine interactive
exhibits on the topic of destructive weather that is prevalent in the
Midwest. This exhibition is being produced in collaboration with SPARC
(Springfield, Peoria, Aurora, Rockford and Carbondale, Illinois) and
represents a strong model for collaboration between museums, science
centers and the formal educational system.  The SPARC Collaboration
developed this program of traveling exhibits, demonstrations, and
teacher materials under a major grant from the Illinois State Board of
Education, Center on Science Literacy.

     Founding Director of SciTech Ernest Malamud said, "Weather is a
topic that affects and interests everyone, and through it we can teach
principles of science and mathematics.  Students will calculate dew
point and learn how Doppler Radar is used to track a tornado.  They will
learn about the water cycle, air pressure and how snow fences work.  The
'Thunder and Lightning' exhibit dramatically demonstrates the difference
between the speed of light and the speed of sound and how electric
charge builds up in a cloud.  Students will begin to realize how much
science is in things around them."

     An innovative feature of this project design is the use of
"attractor" exhibits to entice persons to come to the museum or science
center.  The project also delivers a set of exhibits to a school to set
up a "Museum in a School" for one week, reaching 4th- through 8th-grade
students.  This collaboration of nine museums expects to serve over
79,000 children and 2,640 teachers.  The teachers whose classes use the
exhibits will receive additional training and hands-on activities for
the classroom.

     "This unique effort promises to effectively educate the rural
Midwest public about the fundamental science underlying wild weather and
disseminate to them practical information and facts of wild weather,"
said James Oglesby, program director for science literacy and informal
science education at NSF.

     "This project has the potential to fill the real need of making
available quality exhibits to small museums and bringing informal
education resources to small/rural communities," said project director
Olivia Diaz at the Science & Technology Interactive Center.

     The grant was awarded by NSF's Informal Science Education program
and continues through early 2002.

-NSF-