MY SHARE OF THE PORK!!

[mburbank]

I'm still against pork barrell spending, though this bit is more defensible as an investment in the future than some.

I just like Pork a little bit better when I get some of the gravy.

Personally, I'm amazed the state of massachusetts is allowed any pork at all.




Museum's technology center gets $6.5m grant

By Elise Castelli, Globe Correspondent | November 27, 2004

The Museum of Science will receive $6.5 million in federal money to aid its expansion of a technology and engineering center aimed at making the museum a national model for promoting technological advancement.


The money, included in a $388-billion spending bill passed by Congress last week, will fund exhibits in the museum's National Center for Technological Literacy, which teaches visitors about the latest developments in engineering, and a curriculum program that ties science and engineering in the classroom. One goal, an organizer said, is to reverse waning interest in engineering among schoolchildren.

''The museum will be a prototype for the [other] museums and how you bring in technology in an equal way to science," said museum president Ioannis Miaoulis. ''Technology has advanced tremendously, but people have no idea how things are being made, and part of the reason is that the school curriculum focuses on the natural world and not the human-made world."

The new technology showcase will include hands-on exhibits where children and adults can play ''engineer for a day" and create their own pieces of technology, such as a house for animals in the museum's live-animal exhibit, Miaoulis said.

The money will be used to design displays on energy and the environment, nanotechnology, information technology, biology, and medicine and drug research. Many of these exhibits will be housed in a new wing of the museum, still in the planning stages. The biology and medicine exhibits will be put in a new Hall of Human Life, which will be housed in the present structure. That display will open as early as 2006 or 2007, Miaoulis said.

Currently, exhibits in these areas rotate through the museums Center for New Technology, where the staff puts on daily forums. Right now there is a display about a pill containing a minicamera that will replace traditional colonoscopy. An ''electronic ink" exhibit portrays a computer monitor that is thin as cardboard. A third shows how ''smart fabric" can be used to monitor the vital signs of soldiers in battle. Through partnerships with corporations, hospitals, and laboratories, the museum will be able to showcase and present forums on new technologies as they occur, he said.

The curriculum, called Engineering is Elementary, weaves engineering into science lessons through projects and stories related to the usual lesson, such as making a water filter to learn about the water cycle. The program has been piloted in five districts statewide and has received queries from other states, said Christine Cunningham, the museum's vice president for research.

''There is a declining interest in engineering in America, and the world is increasingly in need of engineers," she said. ''This will help generate literacy in a way so that it is no longer a big, scary thing you should stay away from."

Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation heralded the appropriations.

''It is not just historic like most museums, it's looking to the future and finding ways to work with children and stay on top of technology," said US Representative Michael E. Capuano, one of the supporters of the appropriation.

''It affirms a growing recognition that in the 21st century, the century of the life sciences, we must do all we can to inspire young people here in New England and across the nation to strive and achieve in the critical fields of science and technology," Senator Edward M. Kennedy said in a statement.

[Preechr]

This sorta makes me a sad panda.

"One goal, an organizer said, is to reverse waning interest in engineering among schoolchildren..." ~schmarticle

I'm sorry, but if the money one can make by seeking whatever education and obtaining whatever degree required to be paid like a techno-guru isn't pretty frikkin obvious, I doubt you're the type to be visiting many museums and I have a paper hat that likely fits your head.

[mburbank]

Actually, one of the things we're trying to do (and mind you, I'm not even sure this is a good idea, but it sure as hell is where the grant money in right now) is teach kids from the get go that technology is a lot more than just techno computer geek stuff.

technology is about problem solving design. From the most uber nerdy software to those new sliding blades on saran wrap packages to a big ass caveman club. Engineering is a way of thinking about things similar to but not the same as the Scientiffic method.

It's kind of a cool goal BUT I think the Museum niavely thinks that the bucks we're after and starting to get, from govt. and big business, can be controlled by us. Fat chance. None of this cash will come without strings. The Govt. will want to sell and agenda (I wonder how they'll react when they see us spending a chunk of their cash on teaching kids about measuring and predicting climate change?) and big business wants to sell it's products ( What's Monsanto going to think aboyt us covering genetiuc migration?)

Plus, money or no, American kids don't know shit about engineering compared to kids from lots of other countries. Science isn't covered in much of our standardized testing at all. I fucking hate standardized testing in any case but if it's not in the No Child Left Behind lump, it don't get squat. We (The Mueum of Science) are currently betting the farm on that changing.

[Preechr]

You guys have a FARM? That is SO cool! I always wanted to have a farm... Say, do you have any of your own chickens on your farm?

[mburbank]

We hatch chickens. Later after the visitors go home we feed them to snakes. Then we all sing about the circle of life. It's not so much a farm as a zoo accreditation.