MUSEUMS AS CLASSROOMS: The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, known for its support of productive scientists, also offers an innovative program aimed at helping to ensure the next generation's curiosity and wonderment with science--funding education programs developed by local science museums, with an emphasis on attracting young women and minorities. TI : HHMI Museum Initiative Woos Youngsters To Science AU : RENEE TWOMBLY TY : NEWS PG : 1 The Chevy Chase, Md.-based Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has a longstanding reputation for funding high-profile researchers and their important investigations into the crucial biomedical issues of the day. But a smaller, though substantial, percentage of the Hughes budget goes toward educating the researchers of tomorrow. Amid the prestigious graduate fellowships and university-based programs the institute awards is a year-old initiative that reaches out to elementary and high school students beyond the classroom, students like Johnetta Thomas of North Carolina. Until last year, the 16-year-old Thomas was terrified of science. Normally shy, she says that having to discuss the evolution of a tornado funnel or the properties of light petrified her, until she joined an innovative, HHMI-funded program at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in her hometown of Durham. Now, Thomas is working as an "explainer" at the museum-- expounding on the principles behind the exhibits to visitors. "There is so much neat stuff here to see and do, and I know people want to know what's going on," says the soft-spoken high school student. "At first it was hard for me to talk to people. But then I found out that everyone else is a person, just like me, and sharing information is a way to come together." Bringing children, especially minorities and young women, into science by way of museums and similar science-related institutions is the focus of the HHMI program that last year granted Thomas's North Carolina museum $175,000 over five years. Through the museum's "Biolinks" program, dozens of disadvantaged African American students spend up to 10 hours a week at the museum, picking up job skills and scientific information by guiding the museum's visitors, many of whom are also minorities. This year, the HHMI program awarded $4.2 million in five-year grants to 22 museums, botanical gardens, aquaria, and zoos large and small across the United States. Last year, in its first round, it gave $6.4 million to 29 natural history, science, and children's museums. Small Program, Big Goals Although the museum initiative is one of the smallest of Hughes' education programs--which award-ed a total of $51.4 million in fiscal year 1993, the majority of which went to graduate, postdoctoral, and M.D. students in the form of research fellowships, as well as support for undergraduate education programs--it rounds out the institute's mandate to improve the quality of science education at all levels, from primary school to postdoctoral science. It is the largest private effort to support educational programs in science museums in the U.S., according to HHMI officials. The institute started the program to tap youngsters' inherent interest in science, says Joseph G. Perpich, HHMI's vice president for grants and special programs. "Kids have all the natural attributes of scientists. They are full of questions, and are very excited by nature. But they seem to lose that in the fourth or fifth grade if not stimulated." But, Perpich adds, the institute wants to do more than fund short-lived "gee whiz" exhibits that offer a spark of interest that dies the moment kids leave the museum. Their goal, hashed out in two years of planning, is to create well-designed educational programs, directly connected to teachers and pupils, that go beyond the museum walls to have an impact in the community. Says Perpich, "We ourselves are not able to master and run programs that support local schools. We want to fund the ones in the business of exciting kids." The institute also has a social agenda: to largely steer the programs to minority and female children. "In the proposals, we paid a lot of attention to how museums were trying to reach out to underrepresented groups and to women," he says. "It's a case of what the science rich can do for the science poor." Yvonne Merrill, education director of the Imaginarium, a science museum in Anchorage, Alaska, has already seen a payoff. After receiving a $225,000 HHMI grant last year, the small, six-year- old museum set out to reach rural Alaskans in "roadless communities." In September a small group from the museum flew in a cargo plane to Barrow, on the Arctic coast, the first of nine far-flung destinations, carrying an array of insects from around the world. They trained local teachers in the biology of the insects, and the use of interactive props such as models, puzzles, and audio devices that support the presentation. And then they left the exhibit for three weeks in the village's community room for everyone to see. "In Alaska there are a large number of insects, but only a few species, and they are dull, not showy," says Merrill. "Many of the insects brought to Barrow were from the rain forest. The whole tropical story was mind-boggling to the students." In Memphis, Tenn., the goal of the Pink Palace Museum is to reach youths in two of the city's most impoverished communities, the Foote and Cleaborn Homes public housing projects. The "Memphis Science Alliance" initiative, funded by a $200,000 HHMI grant, is a series of programs that follows students from fourth through eighth grade. One part of the program is Science Saturdays, a six-week program of highly interactive activities offered at a church in the heart of the projects. The Saturday program uses hands-on experimentation, such as building terrariums and aquariums out of plastic bottles and biological materials. Another component is a labs program offered four to six times a year in schools serving project residents. The program offers an earth sciences lab, for example, where students test for such things as the physical properties of minerals. Long-Term Commitment "Most museum programming is a one-shot visit. It is a most gratifying experience to reach a child in the community that has never gotten a chance to come here, and to maintain consistent contact," says Joyce Godfrey, the museum's programming director. Godfrey, Merrill, and other program directors say that the hallmark of the HHMI grants is its five-year funding--an unusual com- mitment for museums, which often struggle year to year for donations. "In the current economic climate, it is hard to raise money for anything but a highly visible, neat project that may last only one year," says Bonnie Van Dorn, executive director of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, which has almost 300 science museum members in the U.S. "The HHMI approach to sustained funding for five years is a real breath of fresh air. It gives museums time to develop serious projects, and to get the bugs out." Van Dorn adds that member museums were surprised that such an august foundation for biomedical research as HHMI "now wants to focus on education in the public arena for young kids," she says. "They gave a lot of careful attention to equity, to understanding what quality teacher education is. We are delighted." Teachers are equally grateful to be given some help, says Wendell Mohling, retiring president of the National Science Teachers Association. "Classrooms are generally poor. Some only get $25 a year for lab materials," he says. "The HHMI program will make sure that museums will not just give the kids a `yah-ha' field trip, but will reinforce what they learn in the classrooms." In Durham, an evolving connection between the museum and local schools and universities may succeed in providing an enriching boost to students from kindergarten through college and beyond. Program director Georgiana Searles is talking with Duke University and with HHMI investigators at its medical center to ensure that young students who thrive at the museum will have a shot at other Hughes initiatives, such as its precollege, undergraduate, and postgraduate pro- grams. As desirable as that would be, Perpich wants the goals of HHMI's museum initiative to be reachable. He says the final outcome of the funding is not to funnel kids into a lifelong commitment to a science profession, but to keep their enthusiasm for life's wonders alive. "No matter what careers the kids ultimately choose," he says, "we just want them to know more about science and nature." Renee Twombly is a freelance writer based in Durham, N.C. (The Scientist, Vol:7, #21, November 1, 1993) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)