NEWARK , September 28, 1999 - The Trylon and Perisphere from the 1939 World's Fair may not have significance and meaning for today's teenagers; nor may the Unisphere from the 1964 World's Fair.

     But they could mean career opportunities ranging from artisans to engineers in the burgeoning field of historic preservation, say experts at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and New York City's Board of Education.

     To drive home the point, the university and board have joined with the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to sponsor a Historic Preservation Workshop with a World's Fair theme for students grades 9 through 12 from the city's High School for Arts and Business in Corona. The event will take place at the Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, October 2.

      The museum is situated in the 1964 fair's New York City Building, the only major structure remaining from the two New York World's Fairs.

      Other organizations involved in the project from its inception include the World Monuments Fund (WMF), the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training of the National Park Service, the National Trust for Historic Preservation as well as many leading preservation organizations throughout the country.

      The workshop is part of an ongoing pilot program, the High School for the Preservation Arts project, being developed by NJIT's Center for Architecture and Building Science Research and the NYC Board at the pilot high school located in the Corona section of the city. All students participating are volunteers.

      Over the past two years, NJIT's Center and the NYC Board have developed an interdisciplinary pilot preservation-based curriculum and lesson plans, along with an internship program to provide "hands on" instruction in preservation skills. Once the program is fully developed in a NYC high school the objective is to meet New York State Board of Regents requirements.

      NJIT's Center and the NYC Board then hope to qualify students for admission to post secondary programs, and provide them with the equivalent of a year's preservation arts internship.

      So far, the pilot program at the High School for Arts and Business has included a Preservation Week event and three summer internship programs at restoration sites sponsored by host artisan, A. Ottavino Corporation.

      The sponsors hope the pilot program will serve as a model for other high schools to emulate in setting up their own preservation arts curriculum and vocational skills programs.

      The need for historic preservation artisans was highlighted in a 1993 WMF symposium, "Employment Strategies for the Restoration Arts: Craft Training in the Service of Historic Preservation." The symposium found a serious shortage of skilled preservation artisans in the U.S., when compared to the number of historic buildings - estimated at more than 12,000 historically certified buildings -- plus artifacts in need of preservation or restoration.

      According to NJIT Center Executive Director Ezra Ehrenkrantz, the ultimate goal of the high school project is career development: "We hope to enable program graduates to enter the workforce with an excellent academic background and earning potential, and the option to go on to post secondary education. We also hope this educational and skills training experience will help them understand how their studies are incorporated into their workplace activities and that this will bring them greater satisfaction in their lives and their work."

      He noted that some students may go on to higher education and become architects, contractors, preservationists, civil engineers or have other preservation-related careers. Still others may become preservation craftspeople working in the building and construction industries.

      The workshop will feature a curriculum model developed by the NJIT Center in which teachers from the High School for Arts and Business will select a historic building or artifact from one of the two world's fairs and study it in all aspects of its place and time. Among the elements to be studied are: the physical setting of the structure, the living patterns of the time and how they shaped the structure, the impact of the events that took place at the time, as well as scientific, mathematical and technological developments of its day.

      Also examined will be the impact of the period culture, including music and arts; government, politics and institutions, and economics and modes of education. In between workshops, the students will visit the Unisphere site and the World's Fair exhibit at the Queens Museum of Art.

      At the end of the day, the students will be given a homework assignment: "If you had a million dollars, what World's Fair building would you restore, why and how?" Participating students will be eligible to compete for a paid internship in summer, 2000. In addition, senior students will be able to enroll in a new Historic Preservation elective in spring, 2000. The elective is funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to NJIT Center and the NYC board.

      The 1939 New York World's Fair introduced streamlined, modern design, as demonstrated in the Trylon and Perisphere, a 700-foot spire and orb as wide as a city block. They were the centerpiece of the fair's "World of Tomorrow," which painted an optimistic future for America through economic prosperity at a time when the country was still in the throes of the Depression.

      The 1964 New York World's Fair emphasized "Man in a shrinking globe in an expanding universe," as symbolized by the Unisphere, a 12-story high stainless steel model of the earth located at the Fountain of the Continents near the center of the fair. Viewing the Unisphere from the edge of the Fountain's pool, an observer saw the world as it might appear from 6,000 miles in space. The Unisphere, which still stands, was designated a historic landmark by the city a few years ago.

      NJIT is a public research university enrolling nearly 8,200 bachelor's, master's and doctoral students in 76 degree programs through its five colleges: Newark College of Engineering, School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, the School of Management and the Albert Dorman Honors College. Research initiatives include manufacturing, microelectronics, multimedia, transportation, computer science, solar astrophysics, environmental engineering and science, and architecture and building science.

      Yahoo! Internet Life magazine recently ranked NJIT the "most wired" public university in the nation, and has ranked it one of the top ten "most wired" campuses among both public and private universities for three consecutive years. In addition, U.S. News and World Report's 1999 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT among the nation's top universities, and Money magazine's Best College Buys 1998 rated NJIT as the sixth best value among U.S. science and technology schools and among the top 100 overall.