NNOCCI is a collaborative effort led by the New England Aquarium with the Association for Zoos and Aquariums, the FrameWorks Institute, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Monterey Bay Aquarium, the New Knowledge Organization in partnership with Penn State University and the Ohio's Center for Science and Industry. With support from the National Science Foundation Climate Change Education Partnership program, NNOCCI's goal is to establish a national network of professionals who are skilled in communicating climate science to the American public.
The Museum is partnering with Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) to share data and learn more about L.A. butterflies and moths. Help us find and photograph them in Los Angeles. Why Butterflies? Unlike some of the other Citizen Science projects here at the Museum, the L.A. Butterfly Survey (LABS) isn't looking for lost butterflies. We already know the species we are likely to find in L.A., all 236 of them. What we need to find out is which butterflies and moths we're likely to find when we plant the new Pollinator Garden in the Museum's upcoming outdoor exhibit, the North Campus. When you submit images of L.A. butterflies and moths, we'll map the species closest to the Museum and determine which one's might show up when we start planting butterfly attracting plants.
Stroud Water Research Center (SWRC) will partner with Longwood Gardens (LG) to develop educational materials that help visitors understand the links between the hydrologic and carbon cycles. The goal is to demonstrate how landscape aesthetics can influence land-use decisions, and to offer carbon-neutral methods the public and others can employ to reduce the impact of storm runoff. The intended audience is primarily adults among the 800,000 annual visitors to the Gardens who are landowners as well as professionals such as engineers, regional planners, landscape architects, developers and municipal officials. This project will also communicate research to public audiences through SWRC and LG websites.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Louis KaplanJ. Denis NewboldSusan GillAnthony Aufdenkampe
A NSF EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) was awarded to Principal Investigator John Fraser, PhD, AIA, in collaboration with co-Principal Investigators, Mary Miss and William Solecki, PhD, for City as Living Laboratory for Sustainability in Urban Design (CaLL). The CaLL project explored how public art installations can promote public discussion about sustainability. The project examined the emerging role of artists and visual thinkers as people with the skills to encourage conversation between scientists and the public. The grant supported an experimental installation
The New England Wild Flower Society, in collaboration with the Yale Peabody Museum, Montshire Museum of Science, and the Chewonki Foundation, is implementing the Go-Botany project, a multi-faceted, web-based botany user interface. "Go-Botany: Integrated Tools to Advance Botanical Learning," improves botanical education by opening plant study to a larger and more diverse segment of the population including novices, citizen scientists, and informal science educators. The project is designed to integrate a variety of web tools and mobile communication devices to facilitate learning about botany and plant conservation with a focus on native and naturalized plants in New England. Project deliverables include an online database of New England plants; online keys to over 4,000 species of New England flora; a customizable user interface; My Plants personal webpages; an outdoor exhibit that incorporates mobile resources; training programs for informal science educators and educational programs for the public. Projected impacts include increased attraction to and engagement in botanical learning for public audiences and improved teaching abilities by informal science education professionals through the application of user friendly, digital resources on mobile communication devices. Go-Botany significantly impacts the field of informal science education by changing the way that informal learners learn about plants by removing barriers through the use of free online materials, mentoring, and user created resources. This project is projected to reach over 46,000 youth, adults, and informal educators in workshops and via the Go-Botany website.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth FarnsworthGregory LowenbergArthur HainesWilliam Brumback