"One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have."
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
The Purpose of the Competition
The Best Film or Video explaining and illuminating the classic Scientific Method in a clear, informative and entertaining way:
How science works
How science is applied to solve problems
Why science is more accurate than "guessing" ?
How science helps humanity
What are the aspects of science? facts... hypothesis... theory... peer review... ?
Open to anyone, any age, anywhere in the world! If you can hold a camera and edit, you can enter.
ENTRANCE CATEGORIES will include Elementary School (individuals and classrooms), Secondary School, University, and Professional / Amateur Filmmakers.
Video specifications for entries to be announced.
Prizes
Prizes are supplied by a growing group of generous sponsors and donors.
The World Premiere of the Winning Entries will take place at The Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, New York, United States
The Encore Premiere will be at Niagara Aerospace Museum, Buffalo, NY, United States
Follow up screenings will occur WORLDWIDE at leading Science Museums on every continent.
We are currently exploring Special Screenings at The American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and other international venues.
Rules
Rules will be published in 2009.
Science Advisors and Judges
Justin Bilicki
Justin Bilicki
For the past ten years Justin Bilicki has been a daily editorial cartoonist. He is the 2000 winner of the prestigious Locher Award and his cartoons have appeared on the cover of Congressional Quarterly and inside The Los Angeles Times, amNewYork, Metro, New York Press, San Francisco Examiner, Cincinnati Enquirer and hundreds of other publications you've never heard of.
Besides editorial, he has also illustrated advertisements for Citibank, Absolute Vodka, Snapple, DSW, TBS, and Toyota. He also teaches summer journalism workshop on editorial cartooning at Michigan State University.
He currently lives in Brooklyn, serves as the editorial cartoonist for The New York Press and frequently draws elderly people on the subway.
Awards: State News General Managers Award (1999) John Locher Memorial Award (2000) SNAA Journalistic Achievement Award (2001) MSU Creative Award (2001) Mark Award (2005)
Howard Bloom has been called “the Darwin, Einstein, Newton, and Freud of the 21st Century” by Britain's Channel 4 TV and "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine. Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution's End says,"I have finished Howard Bloom's two books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain,... and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done..... I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom's on the planet."
Dr. Shawn Carlson is a renowned science writer and educator whose passion is to help budding young scientists develop their talents and do great things in the world. He is the only person ever awarded the highly prestigous MacArthur Fellowship for achievements in science education. Dr. Carlson is the founder and Executive Director of the Society for Amateur Scientists, a former columnist for Scientific American, a scientific and technical advisor for Popular Mechanics, and the author of the first interactive college-level physics text book, Core Concepts in Physics, Harcourt Brace, amongst many other distinctions.
Dr. Carlson's work has been popularized throughout national media outlets, including the Lerher News Hour, Donahue, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek and Parade Magazine. Dan Rather profiled Dr. Carlson in his book, The American Dream, 2001, Harper Collins, pp 220-228
Dr. Carlson is also the creative force behind both Dr. Shawn's Super Science Project Support Site and the Labrats Science Education Program.
Jok Church receives more mail from children than anyone except Santa Claus. And he depends on those letters. They all contain questions about the world and how it works. Church answers those questions from children in newspapers, in books and software, at science museums, and on the Internet and TV.
Jok Church created his comic strip You Can with Beakman & Jax in 1991 for his local newspaper in Marin County, California. He did it for free, hoping to mail clippings of the comic to other newspapers. The comic strip does not answer readers' questions directly. Rather, it gives directions to do a thing, a procedure, an experiment to learn the answer. It's about learning by doing. Active. Not passive.
"Beakman & Jax" is now in nearly 300 newspapers. Six Beakman & Jax books are best-sellers. Church created the CBS television series Beakman's World based on the comic strip, and helped create the museum exhibit that has toured science centers and museums continually since 1998.
Church is also the author and narrator of classroom CD-ROMs from the National Geographic Society on plant life, systems in the human body and on sex education. He consults as an early education specialist for clients such as Apple Computer and Leap Frog.
Church splits his time between a home in Northern California and a farm in the hills of Tennessee.
Books by Jok Church from Andrews McMeel Publishing include: You Can with Beakman: Science Stuff You Can Do You Can with Beakman & Jax: Way More Science Stuff You Can Do You Can with Beakman & Jax: More Science Stuff You Can Do
Niles Eldredge has been a paleontologist on the curatorial staff of the American Museum of Natural History since 1969. His specialty is the evolution of trilobites—a group of extinct arthropods that lived between 535 and 245 million years ago.
Eldredge’s main professional passion is evolution. The theory of “punctuated equilibria,” developed with Stephen Jay Gould in 1972, was an early milestone.
Dave Doody Flight Operations Lead Engineer Cassini Mission Support & Services Office Senior engineer, Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory
After serving in the U.S. Air Force, Dave Doody worked as an instructor for Japan Air Lines teaching flight procedures and stuff to Captains and First Officers of JAL. At the same time, he led an instructional systems development effort at the JAL flight crew training centerThis was up through 1978 while living aboard a sailboat.
Having landed at Catalina Island after sailing the coast, Dave worked as a systems engineer there for three years before joining the NASA-JPL Deep Space Network in Pasadena, creating instructional systems and training materials for operators of the spacecraft-communications systems.
On completion of the Deep Space Network contract, Dave got his master's degree and then went to work on the NASA Voyager mission flight operations team while Voyager 2 cruised from Saturn to encounter Uranus and Neptune. Flight ops on Magellan, the Venus mapper, then led to flight ops work on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, where he has been since 1994, now a senior engineer with Caltech/JPL.
All during the Voyager, Magellan, and Cassini mission operations, Dave has also been publishing in the technical and popular literature, teachingabout space-flight related subjects. His latest publication is the 2009 Springer-Praxis book, "Deep Space Craft," an overview of interplanetary flight.
Once in a while you can find Dave playing sidewalk astronomer in Pasadena, offering free telescope views of the planets to passers-by. Dave teaches the public-programs course "Basics of Interplanetary Flight" at Art Center College of Design.
Kendrick Frazier
Kendrick Frazier is a science writer and editor with special interests in the earth sciences, astronomy, the relationships between science and the public, philosophical issues of science, and critiques of pseudoscience. Ken is a former Editor of Science News magazine in Washington (1971-1977) but has lived in Albuquerque with his family since 1977.
He has written four books:
PEOPLE OF CHACO (W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1986: softcover 1987; with a new chapter 1999; updated and expanded edition, 2005)
SOLAR SYSTEM (Time-Life Books, lead book in Planet Earth Series 1985)
OUR TURBULENT SUN (Prentice-Hall, 1982, hardcover and softcover, selection of the History Book Club)
THE VIOLENT FACE OF NATURE (Morrow, 1979)
He is also editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, a unique international bimonthly journal (circ. 35,000) devoted to the defense of science and reason. It encourages scientific inquiry, critical thinking, and the use of reason in examining important issues. It also publishes critical investigations and scientific evaluations of fringe-science and paranormal claims. The nonprofit organization that publishes it (the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, formerly CSICOP) is made up of distinguished scientists from all fields, philosophers, scholars, and writers.
He is also editor of five books. All are anthologies of articles from the Skeptical Inquirer, all published by Prometheus Books. The two most recent are ENCOUNTERS with THE PARANORMAL: Science, Knowledge, and Belief and THE UFO INVASION (co-edited with Barry Karr and Joe Nickell). Others are THE HUNDREDTH MONKEY, SCIENCE CONFRONTS THE PARANORMAL, and PARANORMAL BORDERLANDS OF SCIENCE.
Andrew Gellis is a pioneering force in large-format motion pictures. He has produced IMAX 3D films like T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous and many more. He has served as President of the Wide Screen Film Association and is active on the cutting edges of film technology.
Ken
Kragen has successfully managed some of the world's most important
entertainers, including Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie, Trisha Yearwood, Olivia
Newton-John, The Bee Gees, The Smothers Brothers and many others.
Ken
is also an avid astronomy and science buff who built his own professional
quality observatory and has recently completed a course in The Basics Of
Interplanetary Flight.He numbers among his friends top astronomers and
engineers at JPL. In high school he wanted to be a microbiologist and then
enrolled at the University of California in Berkeley in engineering. He soon found that his interest in
all forms of music and entertainment drew him to a career in that field.
His
belief that 'It’s much easier to do the impossible than the ordinary' has
enabled him to organize an historic recording in just 28 days to fight
starvation in Africa, We are the World; create an organization to allocate
those funds to do the maximum good in Africa with an overhead of only 7%,
For
his work, Mr. Kragen has been honored with the United Nations Peace Medal. He
has been recognized by the NAACP, the Los Angeles Advertising Women, and the
Boys And Girls Club of America. In May of this year he received the International Citizen’s Award from the International Visitors Council of Los
Angeles.
Steven Paul
Leiva spent many years working in film animation as a publicist, programmer,
promoter, and producer.He produced the
animation for Space Jam, and has
worked with some of the greatest names in Animation including Chuck Jones,
Richard Williams, and Brad Bird, as well as famed producers Richard Zanuck and
Ivan Reitman.
Writing was
Steven’s first love and in 1993 he decided to go back to it, privately printing
The Old Curmudgeon’s Book of Questions
as an announcement of his intentions.He
received grateful acknowledgements and encouragements from filmmakers Richard
Zanuck and Richard Fleischer, and Frank Rich of the New Times, among others.
Recently
Steven turned The Old Curmudgeon’s Book
of Questions into a series VidBits for Strike.TV, an Internet video site
that was born out of the 2008 Writers Strike.
Steven’s
first novel, Blood is Pretty – The First
Fixxer Adventure, was published in 2003, gathering praise from Ray
Bradbury, one of Steven’s heroes.His
play, Made On The Moon, had its world
premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1996.In 2008 Steven received a Scribe Award from
the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers for his Young Adult
novelization of the film The 12 Dogs of
Christmas (Thomas Nelson), for which he had written the original treatment.
Steven Paul Leiva
Adrienne Mayor (photo: Josh Ober)
Adrienne Mayor is a classical folklorist and historian of science.
Mayor specializes in the study of "folk science:" how pre-scientific cultures interpreted data about the natural world, and how these interpretations form the basis of many ancient myths, folklore and popular beliefs. Her work in pre-scientific fossil discoveries and traditional interpretations of paleontological remains has opened up a new a new field within the emerging discipline of Geomythology, and she is active in the growing discipline of classical folklore. Since 2007, Mayor has been a visiting scholar in classics and the history of science at Stanford University.
She has published articles on Amazons, toxic honey, tattoos in antiquity, smallpox blankets in history and legend, assassination by poisoned garments in Mughal India, fossil-related placenames, and other topics in scholarly journals and popular magazines, including the Journal of American Folklore, Archaeology, and Military History Quarterly (MHQ). Her books have been translated into 6 languages and have been featured in documentaries on the History and Discovery TV Channel
Mayor is the author of The First Fossil Hunters (2000); Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs (2003); Fossil Legends of the First Americans (2005)
Executive Director, Niagara Aerospace Museum, Buffalo, NY, United States
Bill Prady
Bill Prady
Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Prady began his work in entertainment in 1992 at Jim Henson Productions (then Henson Associates, Inc.). This followed a brief career as a computer programmer and partner in a computer software company.
Working with Jim Henson, Prady wrote a wide variety of projects from episodes of the animated version of “Fraggle Rock” to MuppetVision 3-D, a theme park attraction directed by Henson and exhibited at several Disney theme parks. His final work with the Muppets was as one of the writers of The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson, a posthumous tribute to the late puppeteer for which he received an Emmy nomination.
Following his work with Henson, Prady wrote for a number of television comedy and drama series. His first produced episode of series television was an episode of “Married... With Children” in 1991; his first staff writing job was on the HBO series “Dream On” in 1995. In 1997 he joined the writing staff of “Dharma & Greg,” rising to Executive Producer and taking over as “show runner” (industry slang for the job that combines head writer and Executive Producer) in 2001.
In 2007, Prady co-created the CBS series “The Big Bang Theory” with television veteran Chuck Lorre. He currently serves, along with Mr. Lorre, as Executive Producer and show runner of that series.
In addition to the Emmy nomination for the Jim Henson special, Prady has received two Writers’ Guild awards, a CableAce award and two People’s Choice awards for his work as both a writer and producer. Recently, “The Big Bang Theory” was named the Television Critics Association’s Outstanding Comedy of 2009. He has also been nominated for two additional Writers’ Guild awards and two Golden Globes.
In 2003, Prady was a candidate for the office of Governor of the state of California, an act of nonsense that he insists everyone take seriously.
Dr. Michael Shermer
Dr. Michael Shermeris the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and editor of Skeptic.com, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and an Adjunct Professor at Claremont Graduate University.
Dr. Shermer’s latest book is The Mind of the Market, on evolutionary economics. His last book was Why Darwin Matters: Evolution and the Case Against Intelligent Design, and he is the author of The Science of Good and Evil and of Why People Believe Weird Things.
Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University (1991). He was a college professor for 20 years, and since his creation of Skeptic magazine he has appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, and Larry King Live (but, proudly, never Jerry Springer!). Dr. Shermer was the co-host and co-producer of the 13-hour Family Channel television series, Exploring the Unknown.
Michael L. Weiner believes that society can benefit by improving the methods by which innovation moves from idea to application and commercialization.
He began his career at Xerox Corporation in 1975, where he served in a variety of capacities in sales and marketing. In 1982, he received the President's Award, the top honor at Xerox for an invention benefiting a major product line. In 1985, he founded Microlytics, a Xerox spin-off company which developed technology from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) into a suite of products, including the award winning Word Finder thesaurus, with licenses out to over 150 companies, including Apple, Microsoft, and Sony.
In January 1993, Mike cofounded TextWise, a company developing natural language search technologies for the intelligence community. In 1995, he cofounded and served as CEO of Manning & Napier Information Services (MNIS), a Rochester-based company providing parent analytics, prior art searches, and other services, for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
In February 1999, Mike founded Technology Innovations, LLC, to develop intellectual property assets. In August 2000, Technology Innovations created a subsidiary, Biomed Solutions, LLC, to pursue biomedical and nanotechnology opportunities, investing in embryonic-to-seed stage innovations which generate new ventures and/or licenses.
He has been CEO of Biophan Technologies, Inc. (Ray Kurzweil is on its Scientific Advisory Board!) since cofounding the company in December 2000, with Wilson Greatbatch, P.E., the inventor of the first successful implantable cardiac pacemaker, which Greatbatch licensed to Medtronic in 1960.
Mike serves on the Boards of Biophan, Biomed Solutions, LLC, and other companies all founded or cofounded by him, which hold over 200 patents pending, issued, allowed, and/or licensed in (Biophan alone currently has over 150).
He has been a member of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) since 1984, and is a member of IEEE, AAAS, AFIO, and the NY Inventor's Club.
Dr. Michael Shermer
"Science is the best tool ever devised for answering questions about the world."
quote from article appearing in New York Sun, June 1, 2005.
Supporters and Sponsors
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Niagara Aerospace Museum
I Believe In Science
Spirit of America Scholarship Fund
Marvel Comics: Spirit of America Scholarship Fund
Miscellaneous Information
Categories
One minute or less
Up to 24 minutes
Up to 48 minutes
Feature Length
Special Age Categories for students registered at the following levels:
Elementary School
High School
College
Prizes
To Be Announced
Questions? Suggestions?
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