The Dynamic Earth: You Have To See it To Believe It is a public exhibition and suite of programming designed to educate and excite K-8 students, teachers, and families about weather and climate science, plate tectonics, erosion, and stream formation. The Dynamic Earth program draws attention to the importance of large-scale earth processes and the human impacts on these processes, utilizing real artifacts, hands-on models, and NASA earth imagery and data. The program includes the exhibition, student workshops, family workshops, annual professional development opportunities for classroom teachers, innovative theater shows, lectures for adults by visiting scientists, and interpretive activities. The Montshire Museum of Science has partnered with Chabot Space and Science Center (CA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (NH) on various components. The project has broadened our internal capacity for providing quality earth science programming by greatly expanding our program titles and allowing us to create hands-on materials for use by our educators and to loan to schools in our Partnership Initiative. Programming developed during the grant period continues to reach thousands of students and teachers each year, both on-site and as part of our rural outreach efforts.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) CP4SMP program, Methods of Increasing Awareness of Comparative Planetology and Climate Science with Science On a Sphere in Museum Settings, intended to educate our audiences about planetary exploration missions, illuminate climate science through comparative planetology, and produce new educational materials, interpretation techniques, and knowledge that facilitate more effective informal education on these themes nationally. DMNS was the lead organization on this program, but collaborated closely with other institutions involved in the Science on a Sphere® (SOS) user community. This program achieved its intentions to: (1) boost literacy in climate science, (2) build awareness of NASA’s space science missions and the relevance of NASA Earth observing satellites to contemporary issues of global change, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of different modes of employing the SOS system with diverse audiences. We capitalized on our unique combination of scientific expertise in planetary science and spacecraft exploration, our considerable experience in digital media development, informal science education, exhibit design, educational research, and museum evaluation. Over the duration of the project we: (1) developed visually exciting and compelling SOS programming on comparative planetology and climate science using NASA mission data; (2) tested different modes of presentation of SOS to determine how this technology can be best utilized in informal science contexts; (3) investigated how visitors perceive and understand scientific data presented on SOS; and (4) created teacher professional development workshops to reach K-12 formal educators both locally and nationally. The DMNS CP4SMP NASA grant created opportunities to positively impact climate literacy for millions of DMNS visitors over the five-year period.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Scott SampsonSteve LeeKa Chun YuEddie GoldsteinAndrea Giron
This project comprises the NSF-funded portion of the renovation of a 25,000 sq. ft. natural history gallery called "CHANGING CALIFORNIA." ORIGINAL PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) will develop, implement, and evaluate Hotspot California, a research-based natural science gallery transformation that will explore the educational potential of wildlife dioramas to engage the public in urgent environmental issues. The exhibition will showcase five real places in California that exemplify high biological diversity and complex environmental issues. Innovative approaches to interpretation will emphasize personal connections to these places and infuse static dioramas with visualization technologies that illustrate environmental change over time. The project will explore how such enhancements to dioramas might help visitors develop place-based connections to the natural world. The project has four major deliverables: 1) an innovative 25,000 sq ft gallery exhibition installation featuring five specific California places where California's unique biodiversity is threatened; 2) an application and evaluation of a new participatory exhibit design model involving community contribution, collaboration, and co-design; 3) a two-day "synthesis symposium" for informal science education professionals to consider broad applications of project findings for the field; and 4) "Diorama Dilemmas: A Source book for Museums," synthesizing relevant literature, case studies, and findings from the project's research and evaluation generalizable to the field. The project has evolved since the NSF award, but it remains aligned with its original goals. The team increased the number of California places from five to seven and worked to add a strong human presence within a gallery previously devoted almost entirely to other species. Innovative reuse of OMCA's dioramas and habitat cases continues to be the project's core, but the team's approach has emphasized re-contextualizing rather than revising those exhibits. New elements include iconic artifacts and environments reflecting recent human impact on California, relevant objects from OMCA's art and history collections, digital visualizations of dynamic natural phenomena, and spaces for hands-on investigation. Community focused elements include multiple co-created exhibits and media programs offering inspiring encounters with Californians deeply involved in these seven places.
A national facility a three-system ground-based mobile radar fleet, the Doppler On Wheels (DOWs). The three systems include two mobile X-band Doppler on Wheels and the 6 to 12 beam "Rapid Scan DOW". These radar systems have participated in research projects that have covered a broad range of topics including individual cumulus cloud studies, orographic precipitation and dynamics, hydrologic studies, fire weather investigations, severe convective storms and tropical cyclones at landfall. DOWs can be frequently utilized on site for educational activities, such as being part of a university atmospheric instrumentation courses. The DOWs can be operated by students with minimal, often remote, technical supervision. The DOWs add significantly to the facility infrastructure of the atmospheric sciences community.