Contact: Mike Horyczun
Director of Public Relations
(203) 413-6735
For Immediate Release
February 25, 2009
Third Annual Marianne Smith Memorial Lecture
Art Illuminating Science: Using Art, Music, Dance and Drama to
Make Science Accessible to All
7:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, CT
Dr. Zafra Lerman, Institute for Science Education and
Science Communication, at Columbia College Chicago
Award-winning educator Dr. Zafra Lerman of Columbia College Chicago will discuss her
inspiring methods of using the arts as a vehicle to learn science at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, March
11, 2009, at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her talk, titled “Art Illuminating
Science: Using Art, Music, Dance and Drama to Make Science Accessible to All,” is the
Museum’s third annual Marianne Smith Memorial Lecture. The lecture is free to the public. Please
RSVP by Friday, March 6, to (203) 869-6786, ext. 405. There will be a reception immediately
following.
- more -
-2The lecture is held in memory of Marianne Smith, who was the Curator of Science at the
Bruce Museum from 1989 to 2000 and was actively engaged as a guest curator and volunteer for
several years after her retirement. She was deeply interested in the interconnections between the
arts and sciences, and many of her exhibitions had this focus. Mrs. Smith passed away in 2005
and a fund was dedicated in her memory to establish a lecture series that would focus on the
connections between the arts and sciences.
Dr. Zafra Lerman, Ph.D., CChem, FRSC, is Distinguished Professor of Science and
Public Policy, Head, Institute for Science Education and Science Communication, at Columbia
College Chicago. Her lecture will address her methods, developed at the Science Institute at
Columbia College Chicago, for making science education accessible to everyone. This method
has been proven successful at all levels -- from elementary school to college and from the formal
setting to the informal setting.
Through this process, students take an active role in the learning process, instead of only
being passive observers. Many institutions in the United States and around the world have
adopted this method. Examples of students' art projects communicating science will be shown
during the lecture.
Professor Lerman has received many national and international awards; among them:
Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring; James
Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry from the American
Chemical Society; American Chemical Society's Charles Lathrop Parsons Award in recognition of
outstanding public service to society through chemistry; and most recently the George Brown
Award for International Scientific Cooperation from the U.S. Civilian Research & Development
Foundation, an award established by the U.S. Congress.
The Bruce Museum is located at 1 Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut. Free, onsite parking is available. The Bruce Museum is accessible to individuals with disabilities. For
information, call the Bruce Museum at (203) 869-0376, or visit the Bruce Museum website at
www.brucemuseum.org.
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