Reiff Project Aims to Bring Earth Science to Public

Reiff Project Aims to Bring Earth Science to Public

BY LIA UNRAU
Rice News Staff – June 25, 1998

A new partnership aimed at bringing Earth science data to the public in innovative ways through museums and science centers was recently unveiled at a scientific meeting.

The project, “Museums Teaching Planet Earth,” which can be replicated in museums across the country, was announced at the spring American Geophysical Union Meeting in Boston. It will develop three educational venues, Earth Update, Earth Forum and Globe Theatre, creating an immersive interactive environment.

NASA’s Office of Earth Science (OES) recently held a competition for “Earth System Information Partners” (ESIP)–projects that could get OES data to the public in means that can become financially self-sustaining within five years.

One of 12 winning projects, “Museums Teaching Planet Earth” is led by Patricia Reiff, professor and chairman of the Department of Space Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, and is a collaborative effort of Rice, the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS), and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. The Johnson Space Center, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and TERC Inc. will provide content expertise, with projection system expertise from Sky-Skan Inc. and Spitz Inc.

The outreach venue that will be most accessible to museums and schools is Earth Update, an interactive computerized exhibit of real-time Earth science data. An outgrowth of the popular Space Update software (http://spaceupdate.com) developed at Rice, it is a point-and-click information system which can run on a modest personal computer.

“Push” technology allows automatic daily updates of the data sets to the display computers at the participating museums–even while they are in use. Schools behind fire walls or more infrequent users can use “pull” scripts to retrieve the day’s data whenever desired. Earth Update is fast and simple and does not allow the user unlimited access to the often inappropriate material on the World Wide Web.

Organized by Earth science topic (geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere and biosphere), it will explain each of these “spheres,” show the day’s data, and explore long-term trends. Arthur Few, professor of space physics and astronomy, will serve as adviser for the atmosphere and hydrosphere topics, and Ron Sass, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and of education, will serve as biosphere adviser.

The second venue, Earth Forum, is a six-station Earth simulator. A more extensive computerized system, it embodies six Earth stations, each with its own resource (for South America the resource is biodiversity; North America is fresh water; Europe is energy; Africa is food; Asia is air; and Oceania is the oceans). This six-station system can run either in exhibit mode for the casual observer or in simulation mode for groups of school children to role-play as geographers, scientists and policy makers. Earth Forum will be updated to include real-time data as well as archival information.

The most innovative venue will be the Globe Theatre, an immersive interactive experience. Globe Theatre shows will envelop the visitors in a wrap-around panorama of the Earth from space. From this unique viewpoint, audiences have an “astronaut’s eye view” of the Earth.

Guided by former astronaut Jay Apt, author of the book “Orbit” and current director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the shows will include many of his majestic images from space. In addition, the theater will feature new video and still imagery from shuttle astronauts as they orbit Earth and assemble the International Space Station.

Both the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History have committed matching resources for major renovations of their display facilities. Other museums and science centers, which have installed or are anticipating installing this wrap-around projection system, are working with Rice to ensure an engaging, educational product.

Sky-Skan will install the first Globe Theatre at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in late 1998. The first show will include Earth fly-over and zoom-in experiences. The theater at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History will open in the fall of 1999.

“We’re very impressed by this new technology and the images it can render to the planetarium dome,” says Carolyn Sumners, HMNS planetarium director. “The Museums Teaching Planet Earth project will revolutionize the way we visualize and remember our changing planet.”

Sybil Media of Houston will program software and render image bases for the Earth Forum and Globe Theatre. Colin Law, research scientist at Rice, heads the programming team for the Earth Update venues.

A Web site will soon be set up at http://earth.rice.edu; for more information, check the Web site at http://space.rice.edu or http://mtpe.com.