The University of Arizona Science Center, in collaboration with the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, is constructing a set of interactive exhibit displays and complementary programs that increase public literacy in the Earth sciences. The Sky Islands are the archipelago of mountain ranges in a sea of desert basins. The project engages visitors, both general audiences and school groups, in hands-on, inquiry-based and contributory activities that increase their understanding of the distinctive atmospheric, geologic and environmental conditions that make up the Sky Island region. "Sky Islands" illustrates the Earth science processes that contribute to the biodiversity of the Sky Island region, and demonstrates how human interactions affect the system. The programs and displays bring University of Arizona researchers and the general public together, providing an opportunity to translate research findings to a lay audience and bring practical meaning and relevance to local residents as well as tourists. The incorporation of undergraduate students into the development and delivery of the exhibits and programs provides students with a real-world experience not often available in a university setting. This is a new approach to building science center exhibits and displays. The University of Arizona Science Center is also developing a set of innovative, reliable, open source exhibit templates that allow for inexpensive and immediately updateable modes of interaction and content to keep exhibits relevant and increase their lifespan. The exhibits also use recognition technologies to identify users, communicate among exhibit components, and personalize the exhibit experience. These exhibit templates bring a more cost-effective approach to exhibit-building to the science center and museum communities.
The contours of the southwest U.S. landscape allow vast ‘islands’ of lush biodiversity to exist within a ‘sea’ of arid deserts and grasslands. This is where you’ll find the Sky Islands—located in the lower part of the basin and range province of North America. Weldon Heald, a nature writer and southern Arizona resident, popularized the term ‘sky islands’ in 1967 to describe mountain ranges that are isolated from each other by intervening valleys of grassland or desert. Around the same time, the idea of mountains as islands of habitat took hold with scientists. The Sky Islands are part of the larger basin and range region of North America's continental crust with N-S trending valleys (basins) and mountains (ranges). This geologic province formed about 15 million years ago when North America was stretched E-W, thinning the continent substantially. Due to old faults that run N-S up and down the basin and range, valleys dropped down and mountains lifted to form the topography we see today. The basin and range province covers all of Nevada and parts of California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. The 70,000-square-mile Madrean Sky Islands region of southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico is globally important because of its diverse species and habitats, its history as the birthplace of Aldo Leopold’s great American conservation ethic, and as the last North American stronghold of such magnificent predators as the Mexican wolf and jaguar. These mountain ‘islands’—27 of them in Arizona and New Mexico and 15 in northern Mexico—are among the most wide-ranging ecosystems in the world because of their complex topography and unique location at the intersection of several major desert and forest biological regions. These forested mountains, rising high above the hot, dry desert—some reaching almost 11,000 feet in elevation—provide cool, wet places for plants and animals to live. They form an ecological bridge between two massive mountain ranges that almost touch the Rocky Mountains to the north and the Sierra Madre Occidental to the south, and act as steppingstones for thousands of migrant species that can only survive living high above the Sonoran desert. The low elevations are warmer and receive less rainfall then the cooler upper elevations. Plants and animals are adapted to these different climates, and live and grow in the part of the mountain with the best conditions for them. Because of this, an astounding number of different species call the Sky Islands their home, making the region a "biodiversity hotspot" where a truly stunning number of different plant and animal life coexists. The region is a blend of tropical and temperate, home to well over half the bird species of North America, 29 bat species, over 3,000 species of plants, and 104 species of mammals—a diversity exceeding anywhere else in the U.S. Through a partnership between the Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium and the University of Arizona’s Department of Geosciences and School of Earth & Environmental Sciences and with support provided by a National Science Foundation Geosciences Education grant GEO-1035104, the major outcome of the project was the development of ‘Exploring the Sky Islands: Basin and Range in the Desert Southwest’, a 3,000 square foot, hands-on exhibit that opened in Tucson, Arizona in fall 2012. Over 75,000 visitors have toured the exhibit, including approximately 25,000 school aged children. Twenty-one undergraduate and graduate students participated in the design and development of the exhibit. A summer camp curriculum and a classroom-based curriculum for 3rd to 5th graders that aligned to Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core ELA standards were developed to extend learning opportunities. A six-part lecture series, presented by University of Arizona faculty and biologists from the local non-profit organization Sky Island Alliance engaged the general public with topics related to the sky islands including geology, photography, wildlife management and more. The exhibit and supplemental offerings allowed local school children and public visitors to engage in place-based education, which emphasizes community as one of the primary resources for learning and promotes learning that is rooted in what is local, the unique aspects of a particular place that is found in one’s own schoolyard, neighborhood, or community. Comments heard on the exhibit floor frequently started with ‘Wow, I never knew…". Evaluation results showed that the majority of visiting teachers felt that the Sky Islands exhibit aligned well with classroom curricula and that students and teachers were more interested in and knowledgeable about geology/earth science as a result of the visit. College students who worked on the development of the exhibit noted that they benefited by working with people outside of their area of expertise, taking knowledge they had and building a model, communicating science to a general audience, and broadening their toolkit and creating new networks.
