The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery/Discovery Zoo in Dayton, OH has developed and implemented a new, permanent exhibition featuring NOAA's Science on a Sphere. The exhibition builds environmental literacy among public visitors, K-12 students, and the myriad of groups that the Museum reaches. A significant portion of the audience is from underrepresented groups. A special display within the exhibition focuses on the Mississippi Watershed and how it is related to the health of the oceans. The exhibition also includes three interactive stations where visitors can engage in hands-on activities related to NOAA datasets.

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 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.

The Smithsonian National Zoological Park (SNZP) in Washington, DC is integrating the NOAA Science on a Sphere(SOS) spherical display system into 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 become an integral part of the exhibit and will be used for both informal and formal science education programs at the National Zoo.

This project works to: (1) Continue to develop software that allows a docent to easily control Science on a Sphere from a small touchpad computer while interacting with visitors. (2) Continue to develop software that allows easy "drag and drop" construction of playlists. (3) Put kiosk control of the sphere, already developed as a student project, into a real kiosk. (4) Assess the use of wireless response devices or "clickers" to enhance audience interaction, learning, and enjoyment, and gather information from visitor responses and share all these improvements with the network. (5) Improve the resolution of the 4 projectors of our SOS installation, in anticipation of new data on the moon and Mars coming to our university, which has been selected to lead NASA moon and Mars missions, and add flat screen TVs for the presentation of auxiliary data.