‘6 Degrees of Connection’ is an informative and memorable program that combines a one-hour Science On a Sphere® interactive presentation with a follow-up creative art activity – each aspect of which encourages middle school students to think of interconnections among phenomena on the planet, including the natural world and human activity.
The ‘6 Degrees of Connection’ program was developed by the Nurture Nature Center (Easton PA) in collaboration with the Maryland Science Center (Baltimore MD) through an extensive process of developing the concept, prototypes, and final program. Lehigh
Using the relative strengths of each museum, the Science On a Sphere Partnership between the Maryland Science Center and the Science Museum of Minnesota has developed two complementary exhibit approaches to Science On a Sphere (SOS). Audiences interacting with SOS are able to observe global connections in geophysical phenomena not possible with any two dimensional representation of the Earth. The goal of the project is for museum visitors, particularly underserved audiences, to comprehend how human activities are influencing global processes now and might do so in the future. The project also tests new partnership models for working with NOAA and other science research organizations to broaden the educational impact on all groups.
This award supports the installation of a Science On a Sphere in two museums comprising the SOS Partnership a collaboration between the Maryland Science Center ( Baltimore ) and the Science Museum of Minnesota ( St. Paul ). Each of the two museum installations will take advantage of the wide variety of NOAA data sets that Science On a Sphere (SOS) projects onto a six-foot sphere, creating unique, animated, whole-planet views of real-time, past and forecasted, weather, climate and geophysical processes, and many other dramatic visualizations of the whole Earth.
This project is developing and implementing a strong environmental literacy and science education program to accompany NOAA's Science on a Sphere (SOS) at The National Maritime Center's Nauticus museum. The program will use the SOS as a focal point to support learning about global oceanic and atmospheric circulations and their effect on local environments. The team is creating real-time global displays of environmental phenomena for the SOS from the expansive University of Wisconsin environmental satellite database. Computer visualization systems and user-driven interactive displays will allow viewers to move from global scale to regional and local scale in order to explore specific features of the phenomena being visualized and to understand them in greater detail. The displays will be integrated with high quality education materials that are aligned with national standards and specifically address the NOAA Education Strategic Plan. The teaming of the University of Wisconsin, Hampton University, and the National Maritime Center offers the opportunity to expose students from ethnic minority groups to various NOAA career paths and help produce graduates with solid technical backgrounds.
Through this award, the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island (NCARI) has installed NOAA's Science on a Sphere (SOS) to enhance and expand their existing Storms exhibit. NCARI's location on the Outer Banks makes understanding ocean systems critically important. Installing SOS increases environmental literacy by exposing NCARI's 300,000 annual visitors to NOAA datasets and information. Additionally, through educational programming students, teachers, and visitors obtain current and accurate information to help them make better-informed decisions. Workshops hosted at NCARI have provided valuable professional development opportunities for both informal educators and NOAA staff.
Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is developing a new permanent public exhibition gallery focusing on environmental and earth systems science to be called Forces of Nature. With NOAA support, Science On a Sphere will be the centerpiece for this new gallery. A collaboration is planned between Whitaker Center and the Department of Meteorology at The Pennsylvania State University in which existing datasets provided by Penn State researchers with NOAA data and meteorological models will be prepared for presentation on spherical display systems.
Both Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii and Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, Hawaii have installations of NOAA Science on a Sphere and experience with developing programs for spherical display systems. In collaboration with NOAA Pacific Services Center (PSC), these museums are producing and distributing four modules on earth system science topics for spherical display systems. These four modules will focus on climate change, the restless earth, weather and climate, and real-time planet earth. Hawaii State Department of Education will produce pre-visit and post-visit lessons for each of four school programs.
The Bishop Museum is installing new Science On a Sphere (SOS) projectors and computers in advance of the 2010 Association of Science Technology Centers (ASTC) conference in Honolulu, HI. The state of the art hardware will allow the Bishop Museum and Lawrence Hall of Science to showcase NOAA-funded programming for the museum community during the conference. The project also seeks to build network capacity by creating and maintaining a database on SOS sites' hardware within the existing NOAA yahoo usergroup forum and through conference participation. Project evaluation efforts will focus on the aesthetics of SOS imagery pre and post installation and whether or not it significantly impacts the visitor experience.
Discovery Science Center of Orange County (DSC) proposes a cooperative agreement with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to install Science On a Sphere (SOS) spherical display system showing Earth system science in DSC's informal educational science center under Priority 1 of this funding opportunity. With the closest SOS display system located in Northern California, installation of this technology at DSC will provide access to NOAA's data by over 400,000 students, their families and educators from Southern California annually. As partners, DSC will ensure that NOAA data sets are incorporated into educational resources that align with California State Science Standards and will meet NOAA educational plan goals.
The Aquarium of the Pacific is creating an immersive exhibit for exploring the role of the ocean in climate change and its responses under different scenarios. The center of the experience is NOAA's Science On a Sphere (SOS), a proven platform for displaying a rich variety of earth system datasets that reveal global and large scale region processes and phenomena that are easily grasped by the general public. Combining SOS with a system of linked plasma screens allows additional local and regional stories that bring global messages down to a more personal level. Two programs are being developed initially focusing on: (1) implications of sea level rise, and (2) marine ecosystems. Both explore how the vulnerability of systems can be reduced and their resiliency enhanced through mitigation and adaptation.
The Worldviews Network - a collaboration of institutions that have pioneered Earth systems research, education and evaluation methods - is creating innovative approaches for engaging the American public in dialogues about human-induced global changes. Leveraging the power of immersive scientific visualization environments at informal science centers across the US, we are developing transformative educational processes that integrate the benefits of visual thinking, systems thinking, and design thinking. This "seeing, knowing, doing" approach empowers educators with tools and techniques that help audiences to visualize, comprehend, and address complex issues from a whole-systems perspective. The Worldviews Network will make explicit the interconnections of Earth's life support systems across time and space as well as inspire community participation in design processes by providing real-world examples of successful projects that are increasing the healthy functioning of regional and global ecosystems.
The Science Museum of Virginia has assembled a unique team of federal, state, and private institutions to create The Earth System Display Center based on the Science on a Sphere (SOS) platform. The goal of the Center is to capture the visitor's attention and spur interest in climate change literacy and how impacts on a local scale can have an aggregate effect globally. Of particular significance are a docent training program to stimulate and facilitate visitor interaction with the Sphere through dialogue, and formative and summative evaluation of the impact of docent led Sphere experiences with the general public. SOS will anchor a new data display center for examining global impacts of energy consumption, stormwater management, agriculture practices, and climate change - tying together Earth system themes from four major projects now underway at the Science Museum in Richmond, Virginia. Use of NOAA data sets and the Sphere as a dynamic presentation tools coupled with flatscreens will enable the conveyance of local and statewide trends and issues into a compelling global context.