
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.
Air Date: 1980-01-14
A sixty-second tease introduces the cast and previews some of their scientific adventures. This is followed by a fou...
Air Date: 1980-01-15
Same 60-second tease as in first episode precedes an invasion of noises into Marc's world. Knowing that ""noise anno...
Air Date: 1980-01-16
Lisa goes to Hawaii to see how dolphins use sonar. Another segment sees sonar of bats. Trini sees an ultrasound app...
Air Date: 1980-01-17
Dizzy Gillespie shows off his jazz talents. Trini checks out the behind-the-scenes work at a Kiss concert. The Bloo...
Air Date: 1980-01-18
Lisa, Marc, and Trini are given a puzzle. They hear a bell ring and, as instructed, put the bell in a closed jar and...
Air Date: 1980-03-24
Trini becomes concerned when and where a hurricane is projected to strike. Marc visits Six Flags Great America to le...
Air Date: 1980-03-25
Hurricane Rufus is turning inland, heading toward the workshop. This prompts Trini to give a brief description of a ...
Air Date: 1980-03-26
Hurricane Rufus is now abutting the workshop. Trini prepares herself with a lifeboat. She proves to Marc and Lisa t...
Air Date: 1980-03-27
Hurricane Rufus strikes the workshop. Calmer discussion of the Earth's forces are seen at a circus, in the paths of ...
Air Date: 1980-03-28
REHASHED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Roller coaster design; stuntman; orbiting satellites. Also: what forces pr...
Air Date: 1980-03-10
Marc learns about the growth of corn and pigs at the Bakers Akers farm. Trini sits in on an expectant mother's ultra...
Air Date: 1980-03-11
Lisa arrives at a hospital to see treatment for a premature baby. Trini and others at Staten Island discuss adolesce...
Air Date: 1980-03-12
Lisa ventures into a sewage treatment plant in Chicago.Film inserts: Msima Spring in Kenya houses a massive food chai...
Air Date: 1980-03-13
Lisa sees a volcano that is almost ready to erupt. Marc demonstrates a model volcano. Trini joins a group of young ...
Air Date: 1980-03-14
REHASHED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Lisa sees a volcano that is almost ready to erupt. Marc learns about the gr...
Air Date: 1980-01-28
Trini and Lisa stage a surprise birthday party for Marc. It revolves around a tape recording which Marc must play at...
Air Date: 1980-01-29
Lisa gets some instructions on rhythms from a professional drummer and witnesses the wicked tides at the Bay of Fundy...
Air Date: 1980-01-30
Recycled from Episode 12: Lisa arrives at a hospital to see treatment for a premature baby.A make-up artist transform...
Air Date: 1980-02-07
Marc and Lisa give Trini a psychological boost prior to Field Day. Lisa checks out a professional motorcycle racer (...
Air Date: 1980-02-01
REHASHED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Lisa checks out a professional motorcycle racer (filmed Oct. 1979) and witn...
Air Date: 1980-03-17
Marc and Lisa discover too late that Trini is stranded in the desert with an empty gas tank, setting the stage for th...
Air Date: 1980-03-18
Trini is still lost in the desert, despite several attempts to get messages across. Marc illustrates his expertise o...
Air Date: 1980-03-19
After two days and contact, Marc sends out the Goodyear Blimp for Trini. Marc visits Bell Laboratories to see a comp...
Air Date: 1980-03-20
Trini returns from the desert. She gets in her first segment of the week, visiting the University of Tennessee, wher...
Air Date: 1980-03-21
Trini recounts her attempts to send distress signals from the desert. Lisa and Marc remind her that her messages had...
Air Date: 1980-02-04
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...
Air Date: 1980-02-05
Marc illustrates the truth about calories while baking a pizza. A group of school kids at Staten Island learn about ...
Air Date: 1980-02-06
Lisa, Marc, and Trini have been invited to a canoe trek in Maine. They have difficulty at first trying to decide wha...
Air Date: 1980-02-07
True fuel is discussed in this episode, first with the 1980 phenomenon ""gasohol"" and with real gasoline at a motorc...
Air Date: 1980-02-08
RECYCLED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Gasohol, Baker's Akers, baking bread. Another sequence believed to be in t...
Air Date: 1980-01-21
Trini has been standing in the freezing cold, threatening to become almost as sick as Marc. Lisa gives a demonstrati...
Air Date: 1980-01-22
The desert and polar regions demonstrate how plants and animals react to extreme heat or cold. The Bloodhound Gang u...
Air Date: 1980-01-23
Marc and Trini relate temperature to each other as they make ice cream and candied apples respectively. Lisa demonst...
Air Date: 1980-01-24
Lisa is bitter over her cold. As Marc and Trini try to warm her spirits, Lisa thinks back to her visits with the moto...
Air Date: 1980-01-25
A solar astronomer explains how the sun produces the seasons. He tells Marc that the sun is closer to Earth in winte...
Air Date: 1980-02-18
Marc wants to set up a model solar system. To simulate the sun, he and the others get the largest light bulb they ca...
Air Date: 1980-02-20
Trini follows the crew that sets up the lighting on a Kiss concert (recorded during their 1979 tour). At the worksho...
Air Date: 1980-02-21
Everyone celebrates Trini's birthday with a piñata. Marc visits a visually-impaired boy navigating around his school...
Air Date: 1980-02-22
Marc proposes to burn a hole through a piece of cardboard using a magnifying glass and the sun. It doesn't harm the ...
Air Date: 1980-03-03
Lisa and Trini enter an Eames Room to play tricks on Marc. Marc gets an up-close look at things through a scanning e...
Air Date: 1980-03-04
Marc visits a researcher determining how bees communicate. Then, in a segment previously used in Light/Dark: The Eye,...
Air Date: 1980-03-05
For the bulk of the show, a guest at the workshop is Willis Brown, a transcontinental pilot who discusses air travel....
Air Date: 1980-03-06
This program goes to Houston to observe the space shuttle. The Bloodhound Gang has to stop a swindle in ""The Case o...
Air Date: 1980-03-07
RECYCLED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Marc sees a sailing ship chart its return course and observes how a blind b...
Air Date: 1980-03-31
Lisa is looking for a quilt design, which she can't quite place. Trini suggests that Lisa use a computer to create a...
Air Date: 1980-04-01
A student of neuropharmacology visits the workshop to discuss the order of the human body and all its systems. Marc ...
Air Date: 1980-04-02
Animals keep a semblance of order, whether they are bees in a hive or people in the Kalahari Desert searching for mel...
Air Date: 1980-04-03
Marc, Lisa, and Trini become helter-skelter at the beginning, but they calm down and devise plans. In the process, L...
Air Date: 1980-04-04
A composer visits the workshop to discuss writing music. Marc sees the specialized work of honey bees. Trini gets t...
Air Date: 1980-04-07
Clothes are humans' number-one source of protecting the skin. Trini finds out what clothing works best when climbing...
Air Date: 1980-04-08
Field locations include cacti in the Arizona desert, a Zamboni, and a scanning electron microscope. The Bloodhound G...
Air Date: 1980-04-09
Lisa rides a hot-air balloon and gets tips from a glassblower on making goblets. A film insert discusses bubbles and...
Air Date: 1980-04-10
A geologist appears in the workshop for a discussion on the three types of Earth rock. In Hawaii, Lisa sees a volcan...
Air Date: 1980-04-11
No episode overview available.
Air Date: 1980-02-25
At the Bronx Zoo, Lisa goes on the rounds with a young veterinarian feeding baby animals. Marc visits Miami Seaquari...
Air Date: 1980-02-26
Everyone is perplexed when they find bugs living on just about everything. Trini examines a salt marsh. (Continues ...
Air Date: 1980-02-27
Trini is convinced she has discovered a dinosaur bone. A visit to a American Museum of Natural History shows that sh...
Air Date: 1980-02-28
At an aquarium, Lisa and Trini learn about volume. Marc and Lisa head out to see a supertanker. Trini stakes her ca...
Air Date: 1980-02-29
REHASHED FROM THE PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Trini is convinced she has discovered a dinosaur bone. A visit to a Americ...
Air Date: 1980-02-11
The workshop welcomes a guest to discuss the human psyche of crowding.Film inserts: Building a skyscraper; the Gui pe...
Air Date: 1980-02-12
A wildlife expert visits the workshop to extoll on the impact humans have had on animals such as the wolf. FILM INSE...
Air Date: 1980-02-13
Trini pilots around New York City in the Goodyear blimp. Lisa gets to ride a hot-air balloon. The Bloodhound Gang g...
Air Date: 1980-02-14
Marc adds too much food coloring to the frosting on a birthday cake for his sister, starting a discussion of molecula...
Air Date: 1980-02-15
REHASHED FROM PREVIOUS FOUR EPISODES: Lisa rides a hot-air balloon. FILM INSERT: The elephant struggles for survival...