Sometimes it seems like the big cities get to have all the fun, but not anymore! There are two very exciting opportunities coming up to bring STEM programming to smaller communities:

Start a Science Festival in Your Town
From the Science Festival Alliance… “Humans know how to celebrate. For thousands of years and across cultures, festivals have brought people together to commemorate the things that matter most. So if science and technology are now integral to who we are, why doesn’t your community have a science festival? Now is a great time to get a new science festival started, because the Science Festival Alliance currently has funding to support initiatives in both large and small communities. New science festivals in smaller communities could receive mentoring and travel support as well as a $10,000 matching grant. But you’ll have to get your application in by the June 21 deadline. Find out more at sciencefestivals.org/news_item/apply-for-festival-support

NASA’s Summer of Innovation Mini-Awards
NASA has opened the application process for their Summer of Innovation mini-awards program this week. This is a grant program awarding up to $2,500 “to allow smaller, non-traditional organizations to spur STEM interest in their communities.” (See the full press release here) Applications are due June 10! The application and more information are available at soi-mini-awards.com.

ASTC is proud to support the second U.S. News STEM Solutions National Conference, which will take place June 17-19, 2013 in Austin, Texas. Members of the ASTC team will join other individuals and organizations to “collaborate with other leaders and visionaries from business, education and government in finding solutions to the gap in America’s STEM-related skills and unfilled jobs.” (See the full press release here.) The conference will focus on conversations that lead directly to the implementation of new ideas that help advance the current and future state of STEM education and careers.

Those interested in joining this eye-opening conference can register now, and find more information at usnewsstemsolutions.com.

The National Center for Interactive Learning at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado has launched a website to bring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programming to public libraries. STAR_Net, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, aims to connect professionals in the STEM fields with library staff members in order to share resources, create partnerships, and develop programs for local communities.

The project also has two traveling exhibits called Discover Earth: A Century of Change and Discover Tech: Engineers Make a World of Difference, each with accompanying educational programs and activities, plus training programs from librarians.

Interested museums, libraries, and individual professionals can add their information to STAR_Net’s directory, participate in forum discussions, and browse activities, resources, and webinars. Visit www.community.starnetlibraries.org/ for more information.

How can science centers effectively use online resources to increase awareness about their programs? Where can informal science educators search for vetted programs and opportunities specific to their needs? During an ASTC 2012 session, Leveraging Free Online Resources to Expand Awareness of Informal Learning Programs, Carol Tang, director of the Coalition for Science After School (CSAS), Tara DeGeorges, online content manager for Time Warner Cable, and Kalie Sacco, program manager for the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE), touched on these issues.

Time Warner Cable’s Connect a Million Minds “Connectory” is powered by CSAS’ National After School Science Directory. This searchable database is designed to increase access to high-quality science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education beyond the classroom for youth and families across the nation. The directory houses thousands of STEM opportunities, submitted by science centers, museums, schools, and other youth-serving organizations. Click here to submit your organization’s programs to the directory.

CAISE is also offering two new online resources for the informal science community. The Informal Science Education Evidence Wiki, iseevidencewiki.org, supports a public discussion of the case for informal science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. The goal is to provide easy to read summaries of evidence that characterize the benefits and outcomes of ISE experiences. The Informal Commons is designed to help ISE professionals find resources quickly with one search engine accessing materials from many websites serving informal learning professionals.

After an extensive peer and expert review, the Digital Immersive Giant Screen Specifications (DIGSS 1.0) are now fully available, along with many other findings and reports relevant to museum giant screen theaters and those who support them. An independent evaluation conducted by the Institute for Learning Innovation found after the 2010 Giant Screen Cinema Association Conference that participants agree that there is a need for institutional giant-screen (GS) theaters to have DIGSS; and they disagree that they should conform to conventional screen shapes.

The results of the National Science Foundation- (NSF-) funded project are available as free downloads below and, in addition to DIGSS 1.0, include: an economic snapshot of the museum GS market; a literature review of immersive learning in GS theaters; a useful glossary of terms; descriptions of the field; a logic rationale for production; a bibliography; and the colloquium proceedings. DIGSS are museum-quality specifications for a 4:3 aspect ratio to fill giant domes and flat screens.

White Oak Institute Bulletin #1: The Global Network of Giant Screen Theaters Needs Attention (PDF, 1.1 MB)

DIGSS 1.0 (PDF, 1.1 MB)

DISCUSS Colloquium Proceedings (PDF, 2.6 MB)

Giant-screen theater industry leaders and a team of experts met over three days in Marblehead, Massachusetts, June 14–16, 2010, where they reached consensus on the first draft of specifications for digital giant-screen theaters in the international museum market. The White Oak Institute and its team, including the Giant Screen Cinema Association, the Institute for Learning Innovation, the LF Examiner, and the MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation convened technical experts, museum leaders, theater managers, film producers, distributors, and an evaluator to resolve the field’s critical questions. The project’s objective was a digital GS theater format that suits the educational needs of the museum community and creates a sustainable business model with a supply of quality educational shows similar to the experiences in IMAX^® and other film-based GS theaters now in place in museums and science centers. Such shared protocols will set the stage for transformations and innovations in museum-quality equipment and productions in the digital age.

DIGSS 1.0 addresses: aspect ratio, resolution, brightness, bit rate, theater geometry, screen size minimums, and other factors affecting the quality of the audience’s learning experience in flat and dome screens and in 2D and 3D. DIGSS builds on the research and standards developed by the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI). As with the DCI specs, DIGSS permits projection of alternative content from a variety of innovative new sources, paving the way for experimentation, innovation, and a connection to the growing community of fulldome theaters, many of which were formerly planetariums.