Children in the Norfolk, Va., area will inherit the second highest sea level rise on the East Coast. In response, the non-profit Elizabeth River Project will prepare one of the first comprehensive youth education programs on climate change resilience on this coast. The Elizabeth River Project, working since 1993 to restore the environmental health of the urban Elizabeth River, will deploy its Dominion Virginia Power Learning Barge, “America’s Greenest Vessel,” and its new urban park, Paradise Creek Nature Park, to empower 21,000 K-12 students over three years to become informed decision makers and environmental stewards, prepared to adapt to rising seas. The project primarily will reach under-served schools in Norfolk and adjoining Portsmouth, Va. Lead science partner will be Old Dominion University, on the forefront of climate change research. Other partners include the Chrysler Museum of Art, ground zero for street flooding that has become routine in Norfolk. A youth strategy for the Elizabeth River “watershed” or drainage area will be disseminated nationally internationally by the City of Norfolk through its participation as one the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities. The youth strategy will be used by Norfolk to complement its Norfolk Resilience Strategy, prepared so far with adults in mind.
Recharge the Rain moves sixth through twelfth grade teachers, students and the public through a continuum from awareness, to knowledge gain, to conceptual understanding, to action; building community resiliency to hazards associated with increased temperatures, drought and flooding in Arizona. Watershed Management Group with Arizona Project WET will utilize NOAA assets and experts from the National Weather Service and Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) to inform citizens and galvanize their commitment to building a community, resilient to the effects of a warming climate. Project activities will be informed by Pima County’s hazard mitigation plan and planning tools related to preparing for and responding to flooding and extreme heat. Starting January 2017, this four-year project will 1) develop curriculum with Tucson-area teachers that incorporates systems-thinking and increases understanding of earth systems, weather and climate, and the engineering design of rainwater harvesting systems 2) immerse students in a curricular unit that results in the implementation of 8 teacher/student-led schoolyard water harvesting projects, 3) train community docents in water harvesting practices and citizen-science data collection, 4) involve Tucson community members in water harvesting principles through project implementation workshops, special events, and tours, and 5) expand program to incorporate curriculum use in Phoenix-area teachers’ classrooms and 6) finalize a replicable model for other communities facing similar threats. Environmental and community resiliency depends upon an informed society to make the best social, economic, and environmental decisions. This idea is not only at the core of NOAA’s mission, but is echoed in the programs provided by Watershed Management Group and Arizona Project WET.
The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is located at the mouth of the Norwalk River where it flows into Long Island Sound. Its mission is to inspire people to appreciate and protect the Sound and the global environment. Over the past decade, a large percentage of the region’s 23 million people living within 50 miles of the Sound were directly affected by severe weather events, providing a timely opportunity to educate students, teachers and the public about community resilience. In a new three-year program, the Maritime Aquarium will deliver education related to environmental hazards, resilience, and the underlying science to schools from ten towns along or near Connecticut’s coast, including eight in the Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan Draft 2016-2021 for Southwestern Connecticut. In these towns as in many coastal regions, the most significant environmental threats are related to the nexus of land and water. To reflect that nexus, education will occur both in the classroom and on the water, aboard the Aquarium’s hybrid-electric research vessel, Spirit of the Sound. An exhibit featuring NOAA educational assets related to threats and resilience will also build environmental literacy as it engages Aquarium visitors. The project will be supported by an advisory board of local educators, planning and emergency management officials, representatives from Connecticut Sea Grant, the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation and the Western Connecticut Council of Governments.
This project will expand and enhance an initiative that offers zoos, aquariums, and science museums the market research they need to engage and motivate the public on issues related to the ocean and climate change. The three-year project will measure changes in public awareness and action on ocean and climate-related issues. It will integrate these research findings into recommendations offered to staff working at zoos, aquariums, and science museums as well as to the ocean conservation community and provide professional development for staff members at these institutions in order to support and shape public outreach efforts that connect climate change, the ocean and individual actions, especially among our nation's youth.
The Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI) will undertake a rigorous study of the public learning impact of the Science on a Sphere (SOS) museum education program that was began by NOAA in 2005. As proposed, this study will identify and evaluate the range and depth of SOS audience impacts and outcomes to provide the essential baseline understanding for its ongoing and future uses. The study will further explore the role and impact of data visualization in contemporary society as an effective means of deepening public understanding of such complex issues as Earth natural systems.
In the previous three years, 72 90-second Earth & Sky radio shows have been produced under sponsorship of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The impact of these shows was explored with a posttest-only experimental design comparing a treatment group that listened to nine daily NOAA shows focused on the topic of whales and a control group that listened to nine daily non-NOAA shows about Antarctica. Participants were randomly assigned to groups, which did not differ on the variables of gender, age, ethnicity, education, frequency of hearing Earth & Sky, and interest in hearing
Summative evaluation of the Worldviews Network, a NOAA-funded project comprised of institutions trying to create an innovative approach for engaging the public with topics of human induced global change. The project's approach sought to 1) leverage the power of immersive environments within informal science institutions (ISIs), such as planetariums and portable domes, by 2) incorporating visualizations of scientific data sets about relevant social-ecological issues as they relate to "planetary boundaries," framed by 3) a systems-based narrative approach that incorporated cosmic, global, and
COASST is a citizen science project of the University of Washington in partnership with state, tribal and federal agencies, environmental organizations, and community groups. COASST believes citizens of coastal communities are essential scientific partners in monitoring marine ecosystem health. By collaborating with citizens, natural resource management agencies and environmental organizations, COASST works to translate long-term monitoring into effective marine conservation solutions.
The Science Museum of Minnesota prototyped interpretive approaches to using an innovative scientific visualization system developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) called Science On a Sphere (SOS). SOS is composed of a wide variety of visualizations projected onto a six-foot sphere creating animated, whole-planet views of the Earth, other planets in our solar system, and their moons. Visualizations of the Earth cover topics such as weather, climate, topography, earth system dynamics, and geophysical processes. A challenge of SOS is making the content accessible
In May of 2006, Science on a Sphere (SOS) was set up in a permanent exhibit space at the Science Museum of Minnesota. With the new installation of the Sphere, came the addition of a variety of features that were not included in the initial front-end study. These new features included an expanded playlist, new audio for some of the visualizations, accompanying labels projected on the wall describing the visualization, indication on the labels of what image will be playing next, and seating for visitors so they can sit and view the sphere. The new master playlist was composed of three smaller
During January 2007, the Science Museum of Minnesota carried out a study to gather visitor feedback on a variety of potential interpretive features of Science on a Sphere. Visitor preferences related to the use of interpretive labels and graphics directly on the Sphere and the speed in which visualizations rotate were studied. A total of 51 visitors were interviewed. Key findings include: 1. Three quarters of visitors preferred descriptive labels to be directly on the Sphere. 2. If labels were projected on the Sphere, almost all the visitors wanted them to disappear after a period of time. 3
In October 2009, the Tennessee Aquarium began an ambitious program, Connecting Tennessee to the World Ocean (CTWO), funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. CTWO consists of several individual projects, all intended to increase the ocean literacy of Aquarium audiences and to promote their adoption of an ocean stewardship ethic. This evaluation report summarizes the extent to which the Aquarium accomplished these goals over the 3-year project period. The five project components and their key associated evaluation findings follow. 1. Classroom-based activities