Background
We have been involved in developing multimedia education materials in polymer science for approximately five years now. Our efforts have been extremely successful, much to our delight, and can be seen at: www.psrc.usm.edu/macrog/index.htm. We currently have support from the National Science Foundation and the Dreyfus Foundation to develop educational materials at the undergraduate level, and to train K-12 teachers in polymer science and the use of multimedia materials in education. These projects are proceeding extremely well and work based on these grants is being incorporated throughout our education website. In fact, the Dreyfus Project is developing nicely into a full-blown workshop and training opportunity for teachers which we hope to offer every summer in the future. The products of our pilot program carried out this year can be seen at: www.psrc.usm.edu/macrog/proposal/dreyfus.

Based on our work with seventh through twelfth grade teachers this last summer, and through collaborations with other educators working on in-service and pre-service teacher development, it is clear that there is a need for a broad range of multimedia materials for classroom use and for out-of-class activities at the elementary, middle school and high school levels. We propose here a multi-level approach to developing new education materials based on our "cartoon character," Paul Lemur. The idea for Paul came from a brainstorming session on how to capture the attention of elementary and secondary students so that we could get them actively involved in learning about polymer science. One of the students suggested the name Paul Lemur, which is a verbal pun (if you will) on the word polymer: just say Paul's name fast and you'll see what we mean.

While the idea for Paul came from a scientist (who is now a student in our graduate program in polymer education), the character itself was developed by a graphic artist/videographer. As part of our Polymer Science Learning Center, we have need for non-science talents. In fact, we have hired several graphics artists, illustrators and multimedia experts over the last year or so to assist us in our efforts. One of those individuals, Virginia Smith, is a very creative artist who took the concept of Paul and created a character which we think is extremely attractive to young students. Preliminary site pages incorporating the idea of Paul can be seen at our Macrogalleria site: www.psrc.usm.edu/macrog/paul. You will notice that Paul is an "action figure" in the sense that he is always doing something. This ties in with the concept of interactivity in multimedia education, where the student or viewer is required to participate physically and mentally throughout the use of the materials. This type of interactivity not only keeps the student's attention, but helps cement the concepts into memory through the use of multi-sensory input. In this regard, Paul will play a key role in helping students learn and remember information because he is not only fun but he is a character that students can identify with. The success of such characters in educational offerings is amply demonstrated by the wealth of material available commercially; just take a look at the CDs at your local computer store that use comic book and Disney ™ characters for educational purposes. The beauty of Paul is that we at USM own the copyright and trademark for his use, and don't have to get permission to expand his presence in print form and in multimedia materials, both of which we hope to pursue through this grant.