‘Super Crew’ Turning Kids On to Science : Radio: A 30-minute series, airing on KPLS, aims to spark listeners’ interest and knowledge.

Radio dramas are rare enough these days, but how about one that attempts to get children excited about science? It’s a genre of one: “Kinetic City Super Crew.”

The 30-minute series follows the adventures of six young people, ages 11 to 17, as they travel around the world in a magical train solving mysteries and discovering scientific wonders along the way. They are accompanied on their adventures by a talkative computer with a wacky sense of humor named ALEC.

A typical show might take the young sleuths on a journey to a lush, tropical rain forest filled with shrieking parrots and other jungle inhabitants or to a bizarre amusement park where small creatures have been made mammoth.

The characters become involved in the scientific process by trying to gather information about a problem and taking steps to solve it.

In one episode, “Not-So-Smart Alec,” a mysterious woman was making threatening phone calls to the crew. To track her down, they needed help from their trusty supercomputer, but it went on the blink and started babbling incoherently. While getting ALEC repaired and looking for the caller, the crew learned the basics of computing and ultimately cracked the case.

“Young people listen to the show and can imagine themselves in it and identify with the characters,” said Gerry Wheeler, project director for the series and a physicist at Montana State University. The program’s tongue-in-cheek humor is meant to appeal to adults so they will share in the listening experience with their children.

Funded by a $3-million grant from the National Science Foundation and the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, the series also features a hands-on experiment in each episode that listeners can conduct by using ordinary household items.

For example, water, milk and a flashlight are used to demonstrate why a sunset is so beautifully colorful; mini-marshmallows and toothpicks are recommended for constructing model buildings the way engineering professionals do.

According to Hyman Field, section head of the informal science education division at the National Science Foundation, the purpose of “Kinetic City Super Crew” is to get kids turned on about science and make them more scientifically literate.

“Radio is an attractive and inexpensive format that has the chance to catch the attention of a lot of kids,” Field said. “The show makes science relevant and draws in kids’ imaginations. The topics in ‘Kinetic City Super Crew’ are also taught in the classroom.”

On the downside, however, few stations carry children’s programming. KPLS-AM (830), based in the city of Orange with a signal that reaches parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties, is one of only 25 stations throughout the country currently broadcasting the show, which is taped in Washington.

The series makes a conscious effort to appeal to girls and minorities, groups that are typically underrepresented in science and math.

“The Super Crew doesn’t morph into brawny dinosaurs, call on supernatural powers or rely on martial arts to punch their way out of a problem,” said executive producer Bob Hirshon. “Instead, they tap into a super power that’s truly available to all kids: the super power of the mind.”

* “Kinetic City Super Crew” is broadcast locally on KPLS-AM (830) on Sundays at 7 a.m., Wednesdays at 5 p.m. and Saturdays at 3 p.m.