ED21A-0049 INVITED 0800h
NASA's Earth Observatory: Success Story or Work in Progress?
After a series of failures and setbacks in a variety of public communications strategies explored, and then despite internal pressure not to build it, a prototype for NASA's Earth Observatory (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov) was built in the spring of 1998. With no budget and roughly one full-time equivalent (FTE) in personnel, the site was launched in April 1999. Aimed primarily at the "science attentive public," the Earth Observatory is an interactive Web-based magazine focusing on the subjects of climatic and environmental change, with an emphasis on the use of satellite remote sensors to study our planet. Within one year after launch, the site was selected by Popular Science as one of the Web's 50 best, while subscriptions jumped to about 12,000 readers worldwide. Fast forward to 2004, the Earth Observatory core team has grown to 5.5 FTE and enjoys contributions from all across the agency as well as a number of NASA-affiliated agencies and institutions. The site's success hinges on the partnerships that have grown up around it over the years. As a testament to the outstanding content published today in the Earth Observatory, the site was also selected by Scientific American as one of the Web's 50 best, and has twice been nominated by the International Academy of the Digital Arts and Sciences for their annual Webby Awards--in both the "Education" and "Science" categories--winning the Webby once and the People's Voice Award twice. Still, the Earth Observatory is a work in progress as there remain some developmental goals it has yet to attain. In this talk, site founder and Chief Editor David Herring will give a brief tour of the site while elaborating on some of its developmental history, lessons learned along the way, and a brief look ahead at some exciting new developments on its horizon.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov
ED21A-0050 0800h
Communicating Climate Change Science: Conundrum Or Creative Challenge?
"Climate change" may seem like a mild or politically motivated name for what most lay people know as "global warming." But the term is correct for what is happening to our planet, and it is an issue that scientific research organizations must address. Regardless of whether public outreach is part of an organization's mission, getting data to the scientific community usually is. Scientists are being asked the questions "Is global warming real? Is it just a scare tactic by environmentalists? What does it have to do with me?" So all research organizations must step up to help answer these questions. As National Geographic has done so well in its September 2004 issue "Global Warning," science outreach must not be afraid to deliver clear information and let the reader decide. Readers from any educational background can be made aware of the fact that many climate indicators are changing, even things in their own regions. One of the challenges is the sheer amount of information available. A creative way to address this problem is to present material that relates to peoples' local regions. Another challenge is that providing this alarming information can scare people. One way to deal with this issue is to present ways that people can participate in slowing the human impact on our planet.
ED21A-0051 0800h
Communicating Climate Hazards Information in the Urban Community to the Public
Climate simulations are predicting an overall warming of the atmosphere due to greenhouse gases. For example, CO2 allows sunlight to reach the earth and warm its surface, but it prevents a portion of this surface heat from escaping the atmosphere. This greenhouse effect can result in higher mean atmospheric temperatures near the Earth's surface. If these predictions are correct, changes in temperature can increase the power demand to cool urban building structures (homes, schools, offices, storage facilities, etc.). Similarly, the regional and seasonal temperature fluctuations due to climate oscillations (El Nino, for example) may also increase the power demand for heating and cooling. A warming climate (or cooling climate, for that matter) can also affect the available water for drinking, irrigation, and generating power, all of which impact the viability and sustainability of the urban community. Additionally, urban areas are expanding. Consequently, the distance between city and wildlands is decreasing. The wildland-urban interface often stresses biodiversity, forestation, and the urban area's ability to respond adequately to such climate-induced hazards as forest fires, flooding, and coastal erosion. Thus climate has an impact on humans and vice versa. How can scientists communicate the impact of climate on the urban community? What is the best way to communicate the information so that the public can (1) be informed and (2) make informed decisions? How well is the nexus between climate science and impacts on and benefits to decision makers understood? What is the best way to fully exploit that connection so that the public can develop intervention measures to support the urban community's response to climatic impacts? The Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research (OFCM) is an interdepartmental office established in response to Public Law 87-843 with the express purpose of ensuring the effective use of federal meteorological resources by leading the systematic coordination of operational weather and climate requirements, services, products, capabilities, information, modeling, and supporting research among the federal agencies. Toward that end, the OFCM, in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, is sponsoring a September 2004 forum on urban meteorology. The theme of the forum is "Information to Improve Community Responses to Urban Atmospheric Hazards, Weather Events, and Climate." Forum participants and speakers will come from both the public and private sectors, as well as the academic community. The output of the forum will be to specifically answer such questions as (1) how will emerging technologies help communicate risks more effectively to the urban community; (2) how can education, outreach, and training be more effective in eliciting an appropriate public response; and (3) what methods are needed to better communicate and disseminate climate information to the public? The communication recommendations stemming from the urban meteorology forum will be shared with AGU conference participants.
ED21A-0052 0800h
Conveying Climate Science Through the Internet: Two Projects Serving Varied Audiences
Teaching the science behind climate from an Earth system science perspective promotes science literacy among students and the general public, enhancing understanding of our interconnected planet. We have created climate and global change content into two very different web venues to facilitate understanding of what is known about Earth's climate and how climate research is conducted so that users are able to better understand reports of dramatic effects of change and predictions of future climate change. Each project has its own unique method of approaching the topics of climate and global change based on the intended audience. Windows to the Universe (www.windows.ucar.edu), a long-standing Web resource funded primarily by NASA and NSF, provides users with content about the Earth and Space sciences at three levels - beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Windows to the Universe has developed a dedicated climate and global change section that unites newly developed and previously existing content within a new framework making it easy for users of all ages to navigate through climate topics while also able to explore related areas of the broader site such as sections about the Sun or Earth's Atmosphere. Kids' Crossing (www.eo.ucar.edu/kids), developed through the National Center for Atmospheric Research, is a web site designed for upper elementary and middle school students to promote understanding of the Earth and atmospheric sciences. A section entitled "Living in the Greenhouse" addresses climate and global change topics. The challenge of presenting climate change content at the primary level addressing the potential causes and effects of climate change without a "sky is falling" mentality was met by combining whimsical design and simple interactivity with straightforward scientific information. Content about Earth cycles adds depth and connections to curriculum.
http://www.windows.ucar.edu
ED21A-0053 0800h
The Pacific RANET Project
There are few places in the world more vulnerable to the effects of climate variability and change than the island nations of the tropical Pacific Ocean. The region also faces great challenges in communicating the issues related to climate to the general population. Lack of communications infrastructure, multiple languages, and knowledgeable personnel to deliver information, are all challenges for these countries. However, a recently developed international consortium is taking the first steps to addressing these challenges. The RANET (RAdio and interNET communications) project was originally developed for the countries of Africa, with initial funding from NOAA, to make weather, climate, and other environmental information more accessible to remote and resource-poor communities. The program is now expanding into Asia and the Pacific. RANET works to build telecommunication bridges between scientific-based products and remote communities that could benefit from such information.?The RANET project in the Pacific is a consortium of partners from the Pacific Island nations, the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, and others. Coordination of the project is loosely overseen by a Steering Committee, made up of representatives from the various interested partners. For regions where the appropriate technology exists (which includes the capital cities of nearly all of the island states of the Pacific), information is downloaded via a digital satellite receiver. This can then be broadcast within a country by many means, including Community FM Radio stations. The information distributed includes technical information needed by meteorological and related services to improve their own products and services, as well as a second level of information designed to serve communities, including weather forecasts, bulletins, warnings, etc. The primary challenge at this time is developing content that is both relevant and understandable to these remote communities. While some information will be common to all countries, it will be necessary to have more location-specific information as well. In addition to education of the general population, it is hoped that making weather, climate, and environmental information more accessible will encourage students from the islands into the study of these areas in their tertiary education.
ED21A-0054 0800h
Communicating Earth System Science Through Exhibitions
The general public's knowledge of earth system science has lagged behind the extraordinary discoveries that scientists are now making. And yet, as can be seen in the daily news, we are constantly confronted with the impacts of Earth's systems. Enhancing the public's understanding of earth system science is vitally important. The Space Science Institute is a national leader in developing space-themed exhibitions. One of its exhibit projects, still in the development stage, is called Interactive Earth. The major goal of the exhibit is to introduce students and the public to the complexity of the interconnections in the earth system, and thereby, to inspire them to see the world in new ways. The exhibit will be divided into five areas: Spaceship Earth, Water World, Rock and Roll, Web of Life, and Earthworks for Kids. This division allows the exhibit to address major components of the earth system: the geosphere (Rock and Roll), hydrosphere (Water World), biosphere (Web of Life), and atmosphere, which pervades every area. Each area lends itself to opportunities to illustrate interconnections between the exhibit areas. This report will focus on the front-end evaluation results that were conducted several years ago for the project. These results will then be compared to other evaluation studies (both formal & informal) in order to paint a more thorough picture of how best to communicate this important but difficult science to the public.
ED21A-0055 0800h
Using Immersion to teach Global Climate Change
Students are increasingly jaded to programs that preach, and museums are increasingly finding it difficult to attract students who can retrieve information quickly from the internet or cable TV. A new medium of immersive theater can now engulf the viewer in the subject, bringing a novel view to the exciting new data sets and images now available. By telling a compelling story with characters they can identify with, global climate change can be experienced and its effects brought home in a dramatic and effective way. We have developed several shows highlighting climate change (Powers of Time, Secrets of the Dead Sea), and are developing new shows (Earth's Wild Ride, Earth in the Balance) which can be used to take the visitor into the past or into the future. Clips from the shows and evidence of their effectiveness as an educational tool for Earth science will be shown. If possible, our new portable dome system will be set up in the poster hall for longer live demos of our shows.
http://earth.rice.edu
ED21A-0056 0800h
Educating About Global Climate Change With A Cultural Perspective
Predominantly minority populated schools in Northern New Mexico are plagued by low standardized test scores and high drop-out rates. The school system is currently failing students, and success in science is reliant on self-motivation among students. In order for students to gain momentum in a system where exposure to science is not prevalent, it is important for them to get outside support that catalyzes their interest. Collaboration between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Science Education Solutions (SES), and local schools has been established to identify student needs and provide them with the opportunity to engage in science through hands-on experience with world-class scientists. Students are being introduced to the prospects of a scientific career while getting the unique chance to explore different aspects of several LANL scientists' research. This initiative also incorporates cultural awareness efforts to promote parent and community involvement. In the past year, two pilot projects were carried out to test the concepts, goals, and methods of the collaboration. One pilot project used plant growth studies in predominantly Hispanic fifth-grade classrooms to stimulate student interest. Students explored tree ring cores and tested water-use efficiency with sponges. The other pilot project included a two-day workshop for Native American students from Jemez Pueblo focusing on global climate change. This project combined a class component and hands-on field research. Samples were taken from LANL research sites with in-field lessons from scientists who monitor the sites. In addition, Jemez Pueblo officials were able to tie the sites to the student's lives with a historical and cultural overview. The most successful elements from these pilot projects are being used to develop a long-term project that will pique student interest in the science disciplines. Field activities garnered the most enthusiastic response from students, while in-class lessons were less well received. To address this we are integrating long-term global climate change experiments in the middle school curriculum at local schools. This will prepare students to do age appropriate research in the summer field experience. Plans for a long-term project include an intensive summer field experience in the Valles Caldera. Planning has already begun on a program for the 2004-2006 school year with the Riverside Charter School in Jemez Pueblo. In this presentation, we will discuss our activities and lessons learned in this collaboration.
ED21A-0057 0800h
Online and classroom tools for Climate Change Education
EPA's Office of Atmospheric Programs has developed unique tools for educating students about the science of global warming and on actions that help address the issue. These tools have been highly successful and used in hundreds of classrooms across the country. EPA's Global Warming Kids' Site features interactive web-based animations for educating children, grades 4-8, about climate change. The animations illustrate how human activities likely influence the climate system through processes such as the greenhouse effect and carbon and water cycles. The pages also contain interactive quizzes. See: http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/kids/animations.html For advanced high school and college students, EPA is nearing completion on the development of interactive visualizations of the emissions and climate scenarios featured in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report. These visualizations allow students to choose a scenario and see how emissions, the climate and the earth's surface change over time. The Global Warming Wheelcard Classroom Activity Kit is designed to help teachers of middle school students introduce the concept of human induced global warming in the context of how rates of energy usage can influence the increase or eventual slowing of climate change. The Climate Change, Wildlife, and Wildlands Toolkit for Teachers and Interpreters was produced in a partnership among three agencies - EPA, US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service (NPS). Both classroom teachers and outdoor interpreters find it useful in conveying information about climate change science and impacts to their students and visitors. The development of the toolkit led to a larger program between EPA and NPS that assists parks in inventorying their emissions, creating action plans, and talking to the public about what they are doing - a "lead by example" type program that the two agencies hope to replicate in other venues in the coming year.
ED21A-0058 0800h
Teaching Long-term Climate Change Using EarthInquiry
In the year 2000, the American Geological Institute (AGI) began developing its EarthInquiry activity series. Since that time, seven full-length activities have been released. Each EarthInquiry activity enables introductory college students to interact with real-time and archived geoscience data. EarthInquiry addresses some of the most commonly discussed topics in introductory geoscience course work. Each activity has its own workbook, printed by W.H. Freeman and Company that contains a code, allowing students access to the EarthInquiry web site. The EarthInquiry web site, maintained by AGI, provides students with detailed instructions on how to access, analyze, and interpret the data collected in each activity. The web site also supplies supplementary information, glossary terms, and web-based tools to assist with data analysis. In the Long-term Climate Change activity, students begin to understand some of the fundamental challenges faced by climate scientists trying to distinguish naturally occurring climate variability from potentially human-induced climate change. The Vostok ice-core record of two gases, carbon dioxide and methane, is used to introduce students to natural cycles of variability in the atmospheric system. In an effort to understand the cause(s) of these natural cycles, students superimpose the Milankovitch cycles, as calculated by Berger and Loutre (1991), over the Vostok gas records. As students work through the investigation, they develop a deeper understanding of how natural variability in the Earth's insolation can influence cyclic changes in the presence of gases, ice volume, and even temperature. In the online Assessment activity, students compare the current carbon dioxide and methane concentrations to those preserved in the Vostok record, and consider what these modern concentrations might say about a human impact on climate change.
http://www.earthinquiry.com
ED21A-0059 0800h
High School and Undergraduate Participation in Field Experiments as a Means of Teaching Global Change Science
Field experiments offer unique opportunities to teach undergraduates and high school students many of the principles and methods of global change science. The Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment (JRGCE) studies the response of California grassland to four environmental factors changing globally, and has emphasized a tiered program of outreach that combines curriculum supplements, demonstration tours, sample data sets, and internship opportunities. The program emphasizes translating a complex environmental question into an experiment. High school outreach by the JRGCE has focused on the environmental studies classes at a nearby public high school. Students begin with background material via a website and in-class sessions that focus on global and regional changes in the four environmental factors incorporated in the experiment: warming, elevated CO$_{2}$, increased precipitation, and nitrogen deposition. Each class also visits the experiment to see and discuss many aspects of experimental design: environmental heterogeneity, the importance of replication and randomization, the role of experimental controls, the possibility of experimental artifacts, the importance of minimally disruptive measurements, and the complexity of ecosystems and their responses to experimental treatments. These demonstration tours also emphasize hands-on measurements to illustrate how ecosystem responses to global change are quantified across a wide range of mechanisms. Finally, students use data from the experiment to test for effects of the treatments. For undergraduate classes, outreach focuses on either broad-based or more specialized demonstration tours to support their already well-developed curriculum. A few strongly interested high school students and undergraduates also conduct studies within the JRGCE under the supervision of a graduate student, postdoc, or professor. These educational activities depend crucially on three factors: 1) involvement of many members of the experiment team so that demonstration tours can be subdivided into small groups, 2) communication skills of dedicated volunteers to create and implement a broad set of educational materials, and 3) collaboration with participating teachers so that the activities merge with their curriculum. Feedback from students suggests that the outreach has been most successful when small groups of students are in the field with volunteers or researchers who engage them in well-crafted thought experiments or hands-on measurements.
ED21A-0060 0800h
Bridging the Divide Between Climate and Global Change Science and Education of Public and K-12 Visitors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research
The study of climate and global change is an important on-going focus for scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Programs overseen by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Office of Education and Outreach (UCAR-EO) help to translate NCAR's scientific programs, methodologies, and technologies and their societal benefits to over 80,000 visitors to the NCAR Mesa Laboratory each year, including about 10,000 K-12 students. This is currently accomplished through the implementation of an increasingly integrated system of exhibits, guided tours, an audiotour, programs for school groups, and a teachers' guide to the exhibits, which is currently in development. The Climate Discovery Exhibit unveiled in July 2003 and expanded in 2004 offers visitors visually engaging and informative text panels, graphics, artifacts, and interactives describing Sun-Earth connections, dynamic processes that contribute to and mediate climate change, and the Earth's climate history. The exhibit seeks to help visitors to understand why scientists model the global climate system and how information about past and current climate is used to validate models and build scenarios for Earth's future climate. Exhibit-viewers are challenged to ask questions and reflect upon decision making challenges while considering the roles various natural and human-induced factors play in shaping these predictions. With support from NASA and NCAR, a K-12 Teacher's Guide has been developed corresponding the Climate Discovery exhibit's sections addressing the Sun-Earth connection and past climates (the Little Ice Age, in particular). This presentation will review efforts to identify the challenges of communicating with the public and school groups about climate change, while also describing several successful strategies for utilizing visitor questionnaires and interviews to learn how to develop and refine educational resources that will target their interests, bolster their knowledge, and address their misconceptions. Visitors view the exhibit every day of the year on their own, using an audiotour, or with a tour guide. NCAR/UCAR's educational content about climate change is increasingly available to national audiences through the new NCAR EO web site (www.ncar.ucar.edu/eo), Windows to the Universe (www.windows.ucar.edu), UCAR-EO's summer teachers workshops, and sessions at the National Science Teacher Association meetings and other professional education venues.