have been tested in more than 60 school districts across the 

 country - , and more than 12,000 units have been distributed for 

 classroom use. 



The NSRC has continued to review exemplary curriculum 

 materials to produce a new edition of Science for Children: Re- 

 sources for Teachers, a guide to hands-on science teaching. More 

 than 50,000 copies of the first edition have been distributed 

 to schools in the United States and abroad. 



collaboratively by SI staff with museum and school educators 

 in ten California cities. Seminars gave teachers an overview of 

 their community's and the Smithsonian's resources for multi- 

 cultural education. The program was funded by the Educa- 

 tion Outreach Fund, the California Council for the 

 Humanities, Wells Fargo Bank, and ScottForesman. 



Office of Elementary and Secondary 

 Education 



Ann Bay, Director 



The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), 

 the Smithsonian's central office focusing on pre-college educa- 

 tion, has a three-fold mission: First, it fosters communication 

 and collaboration among Smithsonian education units and be- 

 tween those units and outside educational organizations. Sec- 

 ond, it makes Smithsonian resources available to teachers and 

 students in the Washington, D.C., area and nationwide. And 

 third, it provides materials and training that enable teachers 

 and students to use museums, and the primary sources they 

 contain, for hands-on, experiential learning in both classroom 

 and museum settings. 



OESE builds and supports relationships among the nation's 

 museums, schools, and other community-based organizations. 

 These relationships result in programs and publications that 

 relate to many different areas of the school curriculum. The 

 publications are produced both independently and with com- 

 mercial publishers. 



Smithsonian Online — a pan-Institutional project via Amer- 

 ica Online — celebrated its first anniversary, with subscribers 

 in the first twelve months spending almost 49,000 hours onl- 

 ine. Smithsonian Online offers interactive services as well as 

 message boards, research services, publications, and photo- 

 graphs. The OESE coordinates this service. 



Collecting Their Thoughts, an activity guide that shows teach- 

 ers how to teach writing using museums, was published and 

 distributed to schools across the country. It was also published 

 online and adapted for the spring 1994 issue of Art to Zoo. the 

 office's journal for elementary teachers. The publication was 

 supported by a grant from Brother International Corporation 



A program with the National Faculty for the Humanities, 

 Arts, and Sciences has extended the office's work in develop- 

 ing new models for museum-school collaborations. Working 

 with schools and museums in Atlanta, Seattle, St. Paul, and 

 Washington, D.C., the program helps teachers explore ways 

 to use material culture across the curriculum and from a 

 multicultural perspective. 



"Teaching and Learning in a Diverse Society," a series of 

 professional development seminars, was developed and taught 



Wider Audience Development Program 



Marshall J. Wong, Director 



The Wider Audience Development Program (WADP) assists 

 efforts to strengthen the Institution's interaction with cultur- 

 ally diverse communities. Examples of WADP's work include 

 coordinating pan-institutional observances of federally- 

 designated ethnic and women's heritage, organizing periodic 

 forums for Smithsonian staff on issues relating to cultural plu- 

 ralism, and collecting and analyzing data on non-traditional 

 audiences. The Wider Audience Development Program also 

 provides operational support to the Smithsonian Cultural Edu- 

 cation Committee, a board of private citizens which advises 

 Smithsonian management on issues of cultural pluralism in 

 education and hiring. 



Environmental and External 

 Affairs 



Office of the Assistant Secretary for 

 Environmental and External Affairs 



Thomas E. Love joy. Assistant Secretary 



The Smithsonian Institution's response to the needs and con- 

 cerns of its many external constituencies is the primary respon- 

 sibility of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for External 

 Affairs. The office frames the Institution's goals and impact 

 beyond the National Mall by supervising its component 

 units, using print and electronic media, hosting diplomatic 

 events and events in honor of friends of the Institution, and 

 addressing the role of the Smithsonian in national and inter- 

 national affairs. 



During a six-month assignment as science advisor to Secre- 

 tary- of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, the assistant secretary co- 

 ordinated the establishment of the National Biological Survey 

 and worked to consolidate the biological research of several 



83 



