 |
July 10, 2001
HHMI Awards $12 Million for Informal Science Education
The Imaginarium, based in Anchorage, produced science exhibits and classroom lessons, which it sent to remote Alaskan villages. It trained local teachers and older students to teach the lessons in elementary schools. Two students who served as teachers in Barrow—the northernmost town in the United States—were Genevieve Rinker (left) and Rebecca Hopson, whose father was an Inupiat Eskimo whaling captain. In this photo, they visit the local shore.
Twenty-nine science museums, nature centers, aquariums, zoos and other informal science education centers will receive new grants totaling $12 million from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The awards support programs to strengthen science literacy and enhance science education.
Profiles
of three new awardees are featured below.
“The Imaginarium, based in Anchorage, produced science exhibits and classroom lessons, which it sent to remote Alaskan villages. It trained local teachers and older students to teach the lessons in elementary schools. Two students who served as teachers in Barrow—the northernmost town in the United States—were Genevieve Rinker (left) and Rebecca Hopson, whose father was an Inupiat Eskimo whaling captain. In this photo, they visit the local shore.”
A number of the programs focus on environmental stewardship in inner city, rural and other areas where there are high concentrations of disadvantaged children and families. The Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami, for example, will receive a $290,000 grant to develop a program aimed at the local, primarily Caribbean, community. Called Green Treasures, it will involve school children, their teachers and families--including elder family members who emigrated from the Caribbean--in hands-on study of the scientific, economic and cultural importance of plants.
This is the first time that nature centers were invited to apply for the grants. Rock Creek National Park Nature Center, for example, will use a $500,000 award to develop an educational partnership among the six national parks in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, two schools systems, several nonprofit organizations and a university. Called Bridging the Watershed, the partnership will use the national parks in the Potomac River watershed as learning laboratories for high school students.
This is the fourth round of grants for science education program originating outside the traditional elementary or secondary school setting. Their objectives are:
- to strengthen the science literacy of children and their families.
- to provide resources for better science teaching.
- to engage families and communities in science education.
- to stimulate an interest in careers in research and education.
- to foster collaborations between informal science education centers and other community institutions.
A panel of scientists, educators and museum program specialists reviewed 235 applications. Since 1992, HHMI has awarded 125 grants totaling $30.6 million to museums and other informal science education centers.
Read brief profiles of three of the new awardees' programs:
A list of new awards follows.
|
Institution
|
State
|
Award
|
|
Arizona Science Center
(1993 $250,000)
|
AZ
|
$480,000
|
|
Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Park
|
NY
|
$450,000
|
|
Cable Natural History Museum, Inc. (1998 $150,000)
|
WI
|
$220,000
|
|
The Chicago Academy of Sciences Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
(1993,1998 $100,000)
|
IL
|
$495,000
|
|
Chicago Botanic Garden
|
IL
|
$210,000
|
|
Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose
(1993,1998 $150,000)
|
CA
|
$500,000
|
|
Children's Museum (Massachusetts)
(1993,1997 $175,000)
|
MA
|
$480,000
|
|
Dakota Science Center
|
ND
|
$475,000
|
|
EcoTarium
|
MA
|
$200,000
|
|
Fairchild Tropical Garden
|
FL
|
$290,000
|
|
Garden In the Woods (New England Wildflower Society)
|
MA
|
$470,000
|
|
The Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center
|
AL
|
$455,000
|
|
Headwaters Science Center
|
MN
|
$465,000
|
|
The Imaginarium
(1992 $225,000)
|
AK
|
$475,000
|
|
Irvine Natural Science Center (1993 $125,000)
|
MD
|
$500,000
|
|
Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk
|
CT
|
$480,000
|
|
Missouri Botanical Garden
(1993,1998 $100,000)
|
MO
|
$265,000
|
|
Museum of Science (Boston)
(1998 $100,000)
|
MA
|
$465,000
|
|
National Aquarium in Baltimore
(1993 $125,000)
|
MD
|
$390,000
|
|
New Jersey State Aquarium
(1993 $300,000)
|
NJ
|
$495,000
|
|
Rock Creek Nature Center
|
DC
|
$500,000
|
|
The Science Museum of Minnesota
(1992,1998 $250,000)
|
MN
|
$465,000
|
|
The Seattle Aquarium
|
WA
|
$465,000
|
|
Sedgwick County Zoo
|
KS
|
$275,000
|
|
Staten Island Children's Museum
(1993 $125,000)
|
NY
|
$250,000
|
|
University of California Botanical Garden
(1998 $175,000)
|
CA
|
$500,000
|
|
University of California Museum of Paleontology
|
CA
|
$390,000
|
|
University of Wisconsin - Madison Arboretum
(1998 $425,000)
|
WI
|
$500,000
|
|
Zoo New England
|
MA
|
$395,000
|
|
Total $12,000,000
|
Photo: Dan Lamont
|
|
|
|
Howard Hughes
