The Science Museum of Minnesota, in collaboration with six NSF-funded Science and Technology Centers (STCs) around the country, are developing several deliverables around the theme of the Anthropocene epoch, i.e., the idea that the Earth is currently in a period of its history where humans are the dominant planetary agents of change.
Deliverables include: (1) a 3,500 square-foot exhibit at the museum; (2) a changing set of small exhibits on sustainability science and design that will be both at the museum and the University of Minnesota; (3) an Earth Buzz Web site equivalent in intent to the museum?s very popular Science Buzz site on current science; (4) kiosks with Earth Buzz experiences in selected public venues where the STCs are; (5) Talking Circle discussion groups with decision makers on the implications of the exhibit topic for policy; and (6) youth programs and activities that engage them with the exhibit, Web site, and careers in STEM.
The exhibits and Web site will feature scientific visualizations and computational models adapted to public learning environments from the STCs? research. Twin Cities Public Television will produce several first-person narrative videos of scientists and their research that will be incorporated into the deliverables as well as be packaged as a program for public television.
The intended strategic impact on the field of informal STEM education is twofold: (1) to learn how to accelerate the dissemination of scientific research to public audiences; (2) to continue to explore ways science centers/museums can use exhibitions as educational frameworks for public policy dialogues.
, the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) worked to advance public and stakeholder awareness of three main messages: Humanity now is the dominant agent of global environmental change. Earth is now home to the healthiest, wealthiest, best educated, most innovative, connected and creative populace in history. Humanity needs to innovate and promptly because it has set in motion large-scale planetary changes. Public engagement on the three main messages initially focused on the development of the Future Earth exhibit for long-term display at SMM. The exhibit includes the incorporation of NOAA’s spherical visualization system, Science on a Sphere, into an automated object theater. Following the opening of the exhibit, attention turned to delivering Future Earth messages beyond the walls of the museum through the development of a Future Earth outreach program. This 20-minute program has been presented to over 1,200 people during the past two years and will continue to be offered although SMM’s NSF Future Earth Initiative grant has officially concluded. Since summer 2014, public engagement on Future Earth messages has also grown to include the Saint Paul EcoDistrict – a partnership of SMM, District Energy St. Paul, Saint Paul RiverCentre, Visit Saint Paul, and the City of Saint Paul. This partnership is working to develop printed graphics, mobile websites, and educational tours that use the high concentration of renewable energy and energy efficiency innovations within and immediately around the museum to advance public and stakeholder awareness of the large and growing potential for the generation and utilization of energy to be realized in ways with far lower environmental impacts. The Future Earth Initiative and now the Saint Paul EcoDistrict, for example, have enabled SMM to call attention to the potential of advanced heat recovery to dramatically reduce the energy consumption of large commercial, industrial and institutional buildings. With funds provided by corporate sponsors and through low-interest loans, SMM over the past year has implemented an advanced heat recovery retrofit of its facility that has reduced its annual cooling and heating loads by 40 and 80 percent respectively with an annual savings of over $200,000 and a return on investment of slightly over four years. Advanced heat recovery has been employed successfully in industrial facilities where large amounts of high-quality heat are generated but SMM’s retrofit is the first that the museum is aware of that has been conducted in a non-industrial facility with the attendant much lower amounts and quality of waste heat. Its successful implementation at SMM opens the door to the application of advanced heat recovery to a much wider array of buildings. As a result, SMM is working to expand awareness of advanced heat recovery. In 2012 and 2013, SMM’s NSF Future Earth Initiative enabled the museum to host an annual seminar in partnership with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sustainable Building Research and Xcel Energy to inform Twin Cities architects and engineers about the latest advances in building energy efficiency technologies and techniques. SMM again hosted this seminar in November 2014 for 74 participants despite the absence of Future Earth Initiative funds and plans to continue to partner indefinitely with the University of Minnesota and Xcel Energy on this annual seminar. Before its conclusion, SMM’s Future Earth Initiative spawned two new projects that will carry the messages and intent of this project well into the future. Through the Future Earth Initiative, SMM began collaborating with two University of Minnesota climatologists on the Twin Cities urban heat island. This working relationship then evolved into a successful NSF grant proposal for the establishment of the Urban Heat Island Network – a partnership of the University of Minnesota, SMM, Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia. The goal of this four-year network is to advance multidisciplinary understanding of urban heat islands, examine how they can be ameliorated through engineering and design practices, and share these new insights with a wide array of stakeholders responsible for managing urban warming so that the health, economic, and environmental impacts can be reduced. SMM also used its Future Earth Initiative before it concluded to instigate the Cities Initiative. This project seeks to develop a major traveling exhibit with complementary programming about the past, present and future of cities. The motivation for this project is an acknowledgement that while cities are the engines of global innovation, they through their aggregate demands and the making of markets also are the drivers of global environmental change. With more than 50 percent of the world’s population in cities now and nearly 70 percent projected by 2050, the Cities Initiative recognizes that a sustainable planet is not possible without sustainable cities and so this major traveling exhibit seeks to explore how cities become much more livable for far more people while markedly reducing their environmental impacts.
