NOAA’s Science On a Sphere Education Program Overview Carrie McDougall, Office of Education, NOAA SOS Users Collaborative Network Workshop Hawaii 2008

Program History Dr. Sandy MacDonald invented SOS ~13 years ago David Himes brought it to life Cost of installation dropping making it more affordable for museums, etc. Summer 2004 Maryland Science Center receives NSF funding to install SOS on floor, temporarily, and evaluate visitor reaction  Over 98% of those who viewed SOS rated it as v.g. or excellent 2005 Office of Education begins to offer funding to public science centers with an interest in displaying SOS and NOAA’s content A network of museums and science centers with SOS begins to grow

Support for the Program Fund individual museums to install and build exhibits around SOS Fund content development for SOS and other spheres Fund program-wide evaluation Support network meeting and collaborative activities 2005 ASTC 2006 ASTC January 2007 Workshop 2007 ASTC This workshop

An Ideal Partnership The general public Data & information Data collection Analysis Scientific Expertise Context & Annotation Audience-appropriate presentation Mass dissemination Collect Feedback from audience Areas of Expertise Trusted provider of science information

Purpose of the Network A forum for updates from you, updates from us Sharing and connections with one another Prepares the newest members of the network for their SOS program Drives NOAA’s development efforts & investments –Technologically –Methodologically: how we communicate and create visualizations –Future competitive funding priorities (Sept. retreat) This group is diverse and that is important. You represent educators, exhibit designers, technologists, scientists, data visualizers, evaluators, writers, and artists. We need input from all of these disciplines and for you to collaborate. So, what have we done since last workshop… We are seeking your input on our Ed Plan:

*Incl. 2 international sites National Museum Of Natural Science, Taiwan Gwacheon National Science Museum, Korea A Network Grows… All of these institutions use the sphere for science education ParameterAt last meeting Current # of sphere institutions 1730* # of addresses 99143

Content Library Improvements ~100 new datasets added –Atmosphere: 40 –Land: 10 –Ocean: 20 –Models: 1 –Astronomy: 20 –Extras: 5 Plus many additional new site- developed datasets not yet captured in library!

Other Program Developments Expanded program to include other spheres Fully produced content aligned with a theme year (Year of the Reef) Virtual SOS & Traveling SOS Increasing use with formal ed Funding development of fully scripted autoplay content Content guidelines established (rudimentary) and built into FFO Tremendous increase in interactive elements for the sphere: –Wii remote –Touch screens/kiosks –Sphere casting

Program Evaluation Photo credit: Hampton University Share your formative evaluation methods/findings Program-wide evaluation is funded Importance of showing “impact” Baseline Impact Assessment –Direct –Indirect- value of a small grant program –Comprehensive (ILI) Data collection and initial results –Responses from 26 of 28 institutions –7 have/will have a kiosk –# of playlists shown varies from 2 to ~50 per year. Most ~ –5 institutions have more than 1 spherical display system--nearly all Magic Planet –9 institutions have given one or more presentations or submitted one or more publications about Spherical Display Systems –16/26 reported new partnerships and other funding sources secured –7/26 reported doing evaluation in the past year

Where is the SOS Education Program headed? Future Direction Increase the # of public exhibits featuring SOS Strengthen network of SOS collaborators and SOS institutions that are enabled to share information and content Support docent training Conduct a program-wide evaluation: major potential to demonstrate benefits! Develop an understanding of how to create content that is scientifically rigorous, visually stunning, and comprehensible to the general public Build systems or tools that make NOAA and NASA data available for use on SOS and other similar systems Create content that is useable in many different display technologies Promote the use of NOAA-related data to tell compelling and timely Earth System Science stories utilizing these technologies

Issues to contemplate How do we continue to develop and evolve as a network? How do we continue to collaborate and meet as a growing group? How do we continue to evolve our content production & sharing, esp. real- world imagery integration? What should the Office of Education fund in the future via it’s competitive grants program? What technological developments will best support your needs for using SOS to educate? How can we enable docents to convey these complex topics clearly and accurately? How can we work together to develop an understanding of the overall impact of SOS in the museum environment? How can we best leverage, support, and collaborate with similar technologies?

Closing You will hear the diversity of uses of SOS & Magic Planet and I hope this stimulates your thoughts for future uses and new ways of using these spheres to increase scientific and environmental literacy among the public. We have tried to create a workshop that will allow for discussion of topics that we’ve heard you express interest in, as well as new ideas that arise during the meeting. However, the success and usefulness of this workshop is ultimately in your hands. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to make the meeting more productive for you. Thanks for being here and contributing your ideas, opinions, experience, and showing us some really cool new stuff for the sphere!

Questions?