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3-2-1 Contact(1980)

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3-2-1 Contact poster

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First Air Date: 1980-01-14
Average Runtime: 30m
Rating: 6.9
Votes: 12
Seasons: 7
Episodes: 223

3-2-1 Contact is an American science educational television show that aired on PBS from 1980 to 1988, and an adjoining children's magazine. The show, a production of the Children's Television Workshop, teaches scientific principles and their applications. Dr. Edward G. Atkins, who was responsible for much of the scientific content of the show, felt that the TV program wouldn't replace a classroom but would open the viewers to ask questions about the scientific purpose of things.

Seasons & Episodes

Season 1

Episodes: 64
E01
Noisy/Quiet: Production & Processing of Sound

Air Date: 1980-01-14

30m

A sixty-second tease introduces the cast and previews some of their scientific adventures. This is followed by a fou...

E02
Noisy/Quiet: The Ear

Air Date: 1980-01-15

30m

Same 60-second tease as in first episode precedes an invasion of noises into Marc's world. Knowing that ""noise anno...

E03
Noisy/Quiet: How People & Animals Use Sound

Air Date: 1980-01-16

30m

Lisa goes to Hawaii to see how dolphins use sonar. Another segment sees sonar of bats. Trini sees an ultrasound app...

E04
Noisy/Quiet: Music

Air Date: 1980-01-17

30m

Dizzy Gillespie shows off his jazz talents. Trini checks out the behind-the-scenes work at a Kiss concert. The Bloo...

E05
Noisy/Quiet: Range of Vibration

Air Date: 1980-01-18

30m

Lisa, Marc, and Trini are given a puzzle. They hear a bell ring and, as instructed, put the bell in a closed jar and...

E06
Forces and Motion

Air Date: 1980-03-24

30m

Trini becomes concerned when and where a hurricane is projected to strike. Marc visits Six Flags Great America to le...

E07
Forces and Fields

Air Date: 1980-03-25

30m

Hurricane Rufus is turning inland, heading toward the workshop. This prompts Trini to give a brief description of a ...

E08
Forces: Buoyancy and Gravity

Air Date: 1980-03-26

30m

Hurricane Rufus is now abutting the workshop. Trini prepares herself with a lifeboat. She proves to Marc and Lisa t...

E09
Forces and Machines

Air Date: 1980-03-27

30m

Hurricane Rufus strikes the workshop. Calmer discussion of the Earth's forces are seen at a circus, in the paths of ...

E10
Forces: A Spectacle of Forces

Air Date: 1980-03-28

30m

REHASHED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Roller coaster design; stuntman; orbiting satellites. Also: what forces pr...

E11
Growth/Decay: Sex and Seeds

Air Date: 1980-03-10

30m

Marc learns about the growth of corn and pigs at the Bakers Akers farm. Trini sits in on an expectant mother's ultra...

E12
Growth/Decay: Human Growth

Air Date: 1980-03-11

30m

Lisa arrives at a hospital to see treatment for a premature baby. Trini and others at Staten Island discuss adolesce...

E13
Growth/Decay: Decay

Air Date: 1980-03-12

30m

Lisa ventures into a sewage treatment plant in Chicago.Film inserts: Msima Spring in Kenya houses a massive food chai...

E14
Growth/Decay: Human Cultures/Land Forms

Air Date: 1980-03-13

30m

Lisa sees a volcano that is almost ready to erupt. Marc demonstrates a model volcano. Trini joins a group of young ...

E15
Growth/Decay: Cycles Upon Cycles

Air Date: 1980-03-14

30m

REHASHED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Lisa sees a volcano that is almost ready to erupt. Marc learns about the gr...

E16
Fast/Slow: Speed Up, Slow Down

Air Date: 1980-01-28

30m

Trini and Lisa stage a surprise birthday party for Marc. It revolves around a tape recording which Marc must play at...

E17
Fast/Slow: Rhythms of Nature

Air Date: 1980-01-29

30m

Lisa gets some instructions on rhythms from a professional drummer and witnesses the wicked tides at the Bay of Fundy...

E18
Fast/Slow: Lifetimes

Air Date: 1980-01-30

30m

Recycled from Episode 12: Lisa arrives at a hospital to see treatment for a premature baby.A make-up artist transform...

E19
Fast/Slow: Speed and Racing

Air Date: 1980-02-07

30m

Marc and Lisa give Trini a psychological boost prior to Field Day. Lisa checks out a professional motorcycle racer (...

E20
Fast/Slow: Time and Time Again

Air Date: 1980-02-01

30m

REHASHED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Lisa checks out a professional motorcycle racer (filmed Oct. 1979) and witn...

E21
Communication: Human Communication

Air Date: 1980-03-17

30m

Marc and Lisa discover too late that Trini is stranded in the desert with an empty gas tank, setting the stage for th...

E22
Communication: Animal Communication

Air Date: 1980-03-18

30m

Trini is still lost in the desert, despite several attempts to get messages across. Marc illustrates his expertise o...

E23
Communication: Machinery of Communication

Air Date: 1980-03-19

30m

After two days and contact, Marc sends out the Goodyear Blimp for Trini. Marc visits Bell Laboratories to see a comp...

E24
Communication with Other Species

Air Date: 1980-03-20

30m

Trini returns from the desert. She gets in her first segment of the week, visiting the University of Tennessee, wher...

E25
Communication: Feedback

Air Date: 1980-03-21

30m

Trini recounts her attempts to send distress signals from the desert. Lisa and Marc remind her that her messages had...

E26
Food/Fuel: Animal Food

Air Date: 1980-02-04

30m

Trini decides to bring a pet to the workshop, but she didn't count on a friend bringing a wolf. At the Bronx Zoo, Lis...

E27
Food/Fuel: Human Food

Air Date: 1980-02-05

30m

Marc illustrates the truth about calories while baking a pizza. A group of school kids at Staten Island learn about ...

E28
Food/Fuel: Growing and Processing Food

Air Date: 1980-02-06

30m

Lisa, Marc, and Trini have been invited to a canoe trek in Maine. They have difficulty at first trying to decide wha...

E29
Food/Fuel: Fueling Machines

Air Date: 1980-02-07

30m

True fuel is discussed in this episode, first with the 1980 phenomenon ""gasohol"" and with real gasoline at a motorc...

E30
Food/Fuel: The Sun Makes Everything Go

Air Date: 1980-02-08

30m

RECYCLED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Gasohol, Baker's Akers, baking bread. Another sequence believed to be in t...

E31
Hot/Cold: People's Temperatures

Air Date: 1980-01-21

30m

Trini has been standing in the freezing cold, threatening to become almost as sick as Marc. Lisa gives a demonstrati...

E32
Hot/Cold: Animal and Plant Adaptations

Air Date: 1980-01-22

30m

The desert and polar regions demonstrate how plants and animals react to extreme heat or cold. The Bloodhound Gang u...

E33
Hot/Cold: How Hot or Cold Can It Get?

Air Date: 1980-01-23

30m

Marc and Trini relate temperature to each other as they make ice cream and candied apples respectively. Lisa demonst...

E34
Hot/Cold: Heat and Work

Air Date: 1980-01-24

30m

Lisa is bitter over her cold. As Marc and Trini try to warm her spirits, Lisa thinks back to her visits with the moto...

E35
Hot/Cold: Temperatures on Earth/In Space

Air Date: 1980-01-25

30m

A solar astronomer explains how the sun produces the seasons. He tells Marc that the sun is closer to Earth in winte...

E36
Light/Dark: The Sun

Air Date: 1980-02-18

30m

Marc wants to set up a model solar system. To simulate the sun, he and the others get the largest light bulb they ca...

E38
Light/Dark: Electromagnetic Spectrum

Air Date: 1980-02-20

30m

Trini follows the crew that sets up the lighting on a Kiss concert (recorded during their 1979 tour). At the worksho...

E39
Light/Dark: The Eye

Air Date: 1980-02-21

30m

Everyone celebrates Trini's birthday with a piñata. Marc visits a visually-impaired boy navigating around his school...

E40
Light/Dark: Light Sources

Air Date: 1980-02-22

30m

Marc proposes to burn a hole through a piece of cardboard using a magnifying glass and the sun. It doesn't harm the ...

E41
Near/Far: Seeing Isn't Always Believing

Air Date: 1980-03-03

30m

Lisa and Trini enter an Eames Room to play tricks on Marc. Marc gets an up-close look at things through a scanning e...

E42
Near/Far: Mapping and Navigating Near Home

Air Date: 1980-03-04

30m

Marc visits a researcher determining how bees communicate. Then, in a segment previously used in Light/Dark: The Eye,...

E43
Near/Far: Mapping and Navigating Over Earth

Air Date: 1980-03-05

30m

For the bulk of the show, a guest at the workshop is Willis Brown, a transcontinental pilot who discusses air travel....

E44
Near/Far: Space Travel

Air Date: 1980-03-06

30m

This program goes to Houston to observe the space shuttle. The Bloodhound Gang has to stop a swindle in ""The Case o...

E45
Near/Far: Knowing Where You Are

Air Date: 1980-03-07

30m

RECYCLED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Marc sees a sailing ship chart its return course and observes how a blind b...

E46
Order/Disorder: Regular Patterns

Air Date: 1980-03-31

30m

Lisa is looking for a quilt design, which she can't quite place. Trini suggests that Lisa use a computer to create a...

E47
Order/Disorder: The Body – An Ordered System

Air Date: 1980-04-01

30m

A student of neuropharmacology visits the workshop to discuss the order of the human body and all its systems. Marc ...

E48
Order/Disorder: Social Order

Air Date: 1980-04-02

30m

Animals keep a semblance of order, whether they are bees in a hive or people in the Kalahari Desert searching for mel...

E49
Order/Disorder: Disordered

Air Date: 1980-04-03

30m

Marc, Lisa, and Trini become helter-skelter at the beginning, but they calm down and devise plans. In the process, L...

E50
Order/Disorder: Sum of Its Parts

Air Date: 1980-04-04

30m

A composer visits the workshop to discuss writing music. Marc sees the specialized work of honey bees. Trini gets t...

E51
Surfaces: Protection

Air Date: 1980-04-07

30m

Clothes are humans' number-one source of protecting the skin. Trini finds out what clothing works best when climbing...

E52
Surfaces: Shapes and Functions at the Surface

Air Date: 1980-04-08

30m

Field locations include cacti in the Arizona desert, a Zamboni, and a scanning electron microscope. The Bloodhound G...

E53
Surfaces: Surface Tension and Bubbles

Air Date: 1980-04-09

30m

Lisa rides a hot-air balloon and gets tips from a glassblower on making goblets. A film insert discusses bubbles and...

E54
Surfaces: Surface of the Earth

Air Date: 1980-04-10

30m

A geologist appears in the workshop for a discussion on the three types of Earth rock. In Hawaii, Lisa sees a volcan...

E55
Surfaces: The Atmosphere

Air Date: 1980-04-11

30m

No episode overview available.

E56
Big/Small: Animal Sizes/Scaling

Air Date: 1980-02-25

30m

At the Bronx Zoo, Lisa goes on the rounds with a young veterinarian feeding baby animals. Marc visits Miami Seaquari...

E57
Big/Small: Animal Habitats

Air Date: 1980-02-26

30m

Everyone is perplexed when they find bugs living on just about everything. Trini examines a salt marsh. (Continues ...

E58
Big/Small: Dinoaurs

Air Date: 1980-02-27

30m

Trini is convinced she has discovered a dinosaur bone. A visit to a American Museum of Natural History shows that sh...

E59
Big/Small: Volume & Efficiency

Air Date: 1980-02-28

30m

At an aquarium, Lisa and Trini learn about volume. Marc and Lisa head out to see a supertanker. Trini stakes her ca...

E60
Big/Small: How Big is Big?

Air Date: 1980-02-29

30m

REHASHED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Trini is convinced she has discovered a dinosaur bone. A visit to a Americ...

E61
Crowded/Uncrowded: Human Crowding

Air Date: 1980-02-11

30m

The workshop welcomes a guest to discuss the human psyche of crowding.Film inserts: Building a skyscraper; the Gui pe...

E62
Crowded/Uncrowded: Optimum Populations in Nature

Air Date: 1980-02-12

30m

A wildlife expert visits the workshop to extoll on the impact humans have had on animals such as the wolf. FILM INSE...

E63
Crowded/Uncrowded: Contrasts in Densities of Materials

Air Date: 1980-02-13

30m

Trini pilots around New York City in the Goodyear blimp. Lisa gets to ride a hot-air balloon. The Bloodhound Gang g...

E64
Crowded/Uncrowded: Down Among the Atoms (Liquids & Solids)

Air Date: 1980-02-14

30m

Marc adds too much food coloring to the frosting on a birthday cake for his sister, starting a discussion of molecula...

E65
Crowded/Uncrowded: Human Survival/Controlling Densities

Air Date: 1980-02-15

30m

REHASHED FROM PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Lisa rides a hot-air balloon. FILM INSERT: The elephant struggles for survival...

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