Awardees of NOAA's Spherical Display Systems for Earth System Science - Installations and Content Development Cooperative Agreements

Overview of Funding Announcement from 2007

In July 2007, NOAA's Office of Education (OEd) issued a request for applications from informal education institutions with interest in creating exhibits incorporating spherical display systems and new Earth System Science or creating content for these dynamic systems. Spherical display systems are sphere-shaped "screens" onto which global data and other imagery can be shown and provide public science centers with the ability to visualize real data and models to teach children and adults about dynamic Earth processes.

The purpose of this program is to support the incorporation of spherical display systems and compatible, educationally effective environmental data products into public exhibits. The goal of this program is to build environmental literacy among the general public through increased use of NOAA and NOAA-related data and data products in informal education institutions. See NOAA’s Education Plan for more details on this goal and strategy: http://www.oesd.noaa.gov/NOAA_Ed_Plan.pdf.

See the Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) for details. The FFO is available from www.grants.gov (Funding Opportunity Number SEC-OED-2008-2001089).  You can also download a version of the FFO that contains additional formatting for increased readability in Word format or PDF format.

For further information please read our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Click here for more information about the related competition that we ran in FY06 for Science On a Sphere installations and the three successful proposals from that competition.  

FY08 Awards

Eight awards were made in FY08 as summarized below. For information regarding specific awards, please contact Carrie McDougall.

Priority 1 - Installations

Priority 2 - Content Development

Summaries:

Priority 1 - Installations

Title: Global Connections: Science on a Sphere
Institution: Boonshoft Museum of Discovery
PI: Susan Pion
Amount Awarded: $100,000
Summary: The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton, OH will develop and implement a new, permanent exhibition featuring NOAA’s Science on a Sphere®. The exhibition will build environmental literacy among public visitors, school and the myriad of groups that the Museum reaches. A significant portion of the audience will be from underrepresented groups. A special display within the exhibition will focus on the Mississippi Watershed and how it is related to the health of the oceans. Three interactive stations where visitors can engage in hands-on activities related to NOAA datasets will also be part of the exhibition.

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Title: Science on a Sphere: Bringing the Oceans to You
Institution: North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island
PIs: Andrea Hitt
Amount Awarded: $100,00
Summary: The North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island (NCARI) will install 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 will increase environmental literacy by exposing NCARI’s 300,000 annual visitors to NOAA datasets and information. Additionally, through educational programming students, teachers, and visitors will obtain current and accurate information to help them make better-informed decisions. Through workshops hosted at NCARI, NOAA will also be included in valuable professional development opportunities.

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Title: Visitors and Visualizations: Creating Meaningful Experiences with Global Data
Institution: Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Visitor Center
PI: Nancee Hunter
Amount Awarded: $99,768
Summary: This project will establish a new spherical display system exhibit. The Hatfield Marine Science Visitor Center (Newport, Oregon) will acquire and install a 3 ft. Magic Planet as part of a larger interactive data visualization exhibit. Pacific Northwest regional data sets will complement NOAA’s global data to serve as a model education program. Specific focus areas include coastal climates, hypoxia/dead zones, algal blooms, and/or aquatic invasive species. The Principle Investigator for this project have unique expertise in K-12 education, teacher professional development, curriculum development and evaluation, particularly in free-choice learning environments.

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Title: A NOAA Spherical Display System at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park
Institution: Smithsonian Institution (National Zoo)
PI: Miles Roberts
Amount Awarded: $96,016
Summary: The Smithsonian National Zoological Park (SNZP) in Washington, DC will integrate NOAA’s Science on a Sphere® (SOS) spherical display system at SNZP’s Amazonia Science Gallery (ASG). The SOS system at ASG will be seen in person by tens of thousands of visitors each year and potentially by millions more through electronic outreach programs. The SOS system will rapidly become a visitor destination in its own right and will immediately become an integral part of the exhibit and informal and formal science education programs.

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Title: Science On a Sphere in the Forces of Nature Exhibition
Institution: Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts
PI: L. Stephen Bishop
Amount Awarded: $98,744
Summary: 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.

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Title: SOS Ocean-Atmosphere Literacy Partnership
Institution: American Museum of Natural History
PI: Ned Gardiner
Amount Awarded: $300,000
Summary: The SOS Ocean-Atmosphere Literacy Partnership is a collaboration among the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, NY; Maryland Science Center (MSC) in Baltimore, MD; and Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in St. Paul, MN. This collaboration will create two six-minute programs and two 30-minute live presentations for the spherical display systems, including NOAA’s Science on a Sphere®. The SMM will produce “Ocean-Atmosphere Thermodynamics”; the AMNH will produce, “Tropical Cyclones: Theory, Models, and Observations.”

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Title: Crossroads: Education through Spherical Projection Systems
Institution: Bishop Museum
PI: Michael Shanahan
Amount Awarded: $299,571
Summary: Both Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawai‘i and ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, Hawai‘i have installations of NOAA’s Science on a Sphere® and experience with developing programs for spherical display systems. In collaboration with NOAA’s Pacific Services Center (PSC), these museums will produce and distribute 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. Hawai‘i State Department of Education will produce pre-visit and post-visit lessons for each of four school programs.

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Title: Linking Evidence to Explanation in Global Science
Institution: Lawrence Hall of Science
PI: Barbara Ando
Amount Awarded: $299,759
Summary: The University of California, Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS), in partnership with the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, HI propose to develop and evaluate curriculum-based content modules for spherical display systems. These modules will combine successful research-driven curriculum materials with the compelling nature of a spherical display to engage and inform museum visitors in the process of observing and interpreting patterns of global climate data.

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