Innovative Lives is one of several “virtual exhibits and explorations” available on the web site of the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. The Lemelson Center is part of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Founded in 1995, its mission is “to document, interpret, and disseminate information about invention and innovation, to encourage inventive creativity in young people, and to foster an appreciation for the central role invention and innovation play in the history of the United States”. The Lemelson Center began its “Innovative Lives” program for middle school students in 1995. As part of this program, inventors give presentations at Smithsonian museums and in schools. The Innovative Lives web site includes information on inventors as well as illustrations from and photographs of their presentations.
Users can select from 35 inventors in one of two ways. There is a Search by Inventor drop‐down menu with an alphabetical list of names. There are also links with the name given to each inventor's entry (e.g. Lunar Learning by George Carruthers, and Put Your Feet Up! by Patsy Sherman, the inventor of Scotchgard®). To access these links, users click on colourful round icons containing either a picture of the inventor or another illustration. The entries range from short profiles (three to five paragraphs) to several pages, including bibliographies. Thomas Edison's entry also contains.wav files and a link to the Edison entry on the Lemelson CenterPieces page. Some entries have the heading Exploring the History of Women Inventors. This series includes a companion guide to a video for teachers entitled She's Got It!
Innovative Lives and Edison are two of the exhibits on the CenterPieces page, which provides an “in‐depth look at featured inventors and their work”. In addition to Innovative Lives (“Meet the inventors who have participated in the Center's “Innovative Lives” programme for middle school students”) and Edison (“Learn about Edison's life – and how to make your own light bulb!”), the CenterPieces page includes Invention at Play (a travelling exhibit that explores “the playful side of invention and the inventive side of play”), Whole Cloth: Discovering Science and Technology through American Textile History (“an interdisciplinary curriculum integrating science, technology, and invention with women's, African American, and labor history”), From Frying Pan to Flying V: The Rise of the Electric Guitar (virtual version of an exhibit), and The Quartz Watch.
Innovative Lives is geared for browsing by teachers and kids rather than for research on a specific inventor. The list of inventors is not intended to be comprehensive. But it is intended to be fun, and to foster interest in invention and innovation in middle school students. I think it succeeds on both counts.
