TABLE OF CONTENTS About the Exhibition ...................................................................................................................................................2 Introduction for Educators .........................................................................................................................................2 Educational Goals .......................................................................................................................................................3 Educational Standards ................................................................................................................................................3 STAR TREK in Context .................................................................................................................................................3 Suggested Subject Area Explorations .........................................................................................................................5 Selected Exhibition Walkthrough ...............................................................................................................................7 Additional Resources ............................................................................................................................................... 11 ABOUT THE EXHIBITION Created to honor the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, a story whose themes of optimism, equality, and heroism have inspired millions of people worldwide. Star Trek presents a positive future—a utopia without poverty or war. In that future, all of humanity has set aside their differences and joined together in an extraordinary task: to explore the stars, meeting every challenge with bravery and thoughtfulness. What began as a low-budget science fiction television show with modest ratings expanded into a franchise spanning seven television series; 14 movies; and thousands of novels, comics, and games. Star Trek has made a profound impact on our society. Star Trek’s ideas and memes are now so deeply embedded in the fabric of our popular culture that even people who have never seen it can name key characters and recite its catch phrases. Star Trek inspires art, science, architecture, music, and literature. Star Trek is a language nearly everyone speaks. Featuring 100+ props and artifacts from the five Star Trek television series and many of the films, this exhibition explores the themes presented by the franchise and its impact on the world. Exhibit interactives include: o Transporter simulator where visitors can create a film that shows them being beamed to another location o KHAAAAN! video booth where visitors can recreate the memorable scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan o Star Trek story generator where visitors can create an episode and learn about narrative o Dilemma stations o Oral histories INTRODUCTION FOR EDUCATORS Star Trek is a vision of a better tomorrow. Although it is set in the future, its stories are relevant to today. Aliens who go to war because their skin colors differ serve as an allegory of the Civil Rights struggle. Planets being fought over by the Federation and Klingon Empire stood for nations in dispute during the Cold War. By putting these tales in an imaginary setting, Star Trek made tough topics more accessible to viewers. At the same time, the makeup of the show’s cast demonstrated that the troubles of the 20th century could be overcome. Having Lieutenant Uhura—an African American woman—on the bridge showed an end to racism. Lieutenant Sulu, a Japanese American whose heritage makes reference both to World War II and the conflicts in Asia, represents how Earth can overcome war. Ensign Chekov, a Russian character, illustrates that even the Cold War could pass. At their heart, science fiction stories such as Star Trek are truly about what it means to be human and what type of people we hope to become. 2 EDUCATIONAL GOALS The purpose of this guide is to help you engage your students in creative new ways through the integration of pop culture into English/Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Visual Arts lessons. It is our hope that through attending the exhibition and studying the associated lessons presented in this guide students will be able to achieve the following goals: Express the impact and influence of Star Trek on our culture in the areas of science, society, and entertainment. Investigate how societal issues are presented in science fiction and fantasy texts through allegory and metaphor. Identify themes present in Star Trek important to us today, and how they have changed over time. Describe how Star Trek uses exotic aliens and their strange societies to explore and define who we are— and who we want to be. Apply knowledge of story structure to better analyze multiple texts across genres. EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS A selection of applicable standards for lessons related to the exhibition topics: COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS FOR ENGLISH AND LANGUAGE ARTS corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy Key Ideas and Details: o Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text. o Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events. o Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions). o Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact). Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: o Explain how specific aspects of a text’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g., create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting). STAR TREK IN CONTEXT The original Star Trek TV series aired in the 1960s, a time when the world was engaged in the space race and the United States was undergoing a period of cultural and social upheaval. The tumultuous circumstances created a receptive environment for a new kind of futuristic television show, one that spoke to the concerns of the times while depicting an optimistic future for humanity. TV producer Gene Roddenberry combined the aspirations of early space exploration with the hopes of the Civil Rights movement to present a future in which the troubles of the 1960s had all been solved. Star Trek showed a 3 world without racism, sexism, intolerance, poverty, or war. This vision of society would have seemed impossible in Roddenberry’s time, so he set it in an imaginary future, believing viewers would be more open to the outlandish ideas. Seeing a better future, Roddenberry hoped, would encourage people to make it real. THE 1960S: EVENTS SURROUNDING THE RELEASE OF THE ORIGINAL STAR TREK SERIES Date: Event: April 12, 1961 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to go to space 1961 Freedom Riders challenge segregation on interstate busses October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis nearly leads the U.S. and Soviet Union into a nuclear war April 1, 1963 Soap opera General Hospital premieres August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom closes with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech February 9, 1964 The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by 73 million viewers March 2, 1965 United States begins bombing campaign against North Vietnam July 14, 1965 NASA probe Mariner 4 takes the first pictures of the surface of Mars September 8, 1966 Star Trek premieres on NBC Summer 1967 Race riots erupt in Detroit, Washington D.C., and over 100 other U.S. cities April 2, 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey premieres July 1, 1968 The Non-Proliferation Treaty enacted to contain the spread of nuclear weapons November 22, 1968 The Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” airs featuring the famous interracial kiss between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols June 3, 1969 Final episode of Star Trek airs 4 ARTIFACT SPOTLIGHT Project Gemini spacesuit cover layer, 1964 & Flag flown aboard the Gemini 9 mission in 1966 Taking place from 1965-1966, the Project Gemini was an early NASA human spaceflight program that helped to pave the way for the eventual moon landing. The program was named after the constellation Gemini, which is Latin for twins, as the Gemini space pod would carry two people. One of main objectives of the Gemini program were to observe the effects of long duration space flights on astronauts. During the Gemini 4 mission on June 3, 1965, Ed White became the first American to conduct a spacewalk. Discussion Question: Do you think people are more or less excited about space travel now than they were in the 1960s? Why do you think so? SUGGESTED SUBJECT AREA EXPLORATIONS The following activity ideas are meant to help you better integrate the content and themes found in Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds into your classroom lessons and support a variety of diverse learning styles (visual, aural, kinesthetic, tactile, socio-emotional, naturalist). Many of these activities could be used as pre/post-visit tie-ins to a museum visit. Each activity is followed by suggested subject area connections. ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTS Structure and Storytelling: The “Create an Episode” interactive within the exhibition presents the traditional story structure as proposed and studied by Aristotle and Gustav Freytag (see Additional Resources