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1 Climate Program Office Internet2 Meeting David Herring, Communications Program Director 301-734-1207 [email protected] The Case for Climate Science Literacy Buckminster Fuller’s bold vision A new way of looking at Earth Research about U.S. science literacy A recommended strategic approach & some evidence of success How Internet2 can help PLEASE NOTE: The ideas and opinions expressed in this presentation are my own, and do not represent the views of NOAA or 2020 LLC. April 21, 2008 Arlington, VA Climate Program Office Internet2 Meeting

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David Herring offers a view of resources offered to educators by NOAA and NASA

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Climate Program Office • Internet2 Meeting David Herring, Communications Program Director301-734-1207 • [email protected]

The Case for Climate Science Literacy

Buckminster Fuller’s bold vision

A new way of looking at Earth

Research about U.S. science literacy

A recommended strategic approach & some

evidence of success

How Internet2 can help

PLEASE NOTE: The ideas and opinions expressed in this presentation are my own, and do not represent the views of NOAA or 2020 LLC.

April 21, 2008Arlington, VA•

Climate Program Office • Internet2 Meeting

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“The consequences of various world plans could be computed and projected, using the accumulated history-long inventory of economic, demographic, and sociological data. All the world would be dynamically viewable and picturable and radioable to all the world, so that common consideration in a most educated manner of all world problems by all world people would become a practical everyday, -hour and -minute event.”

“With the Geoscope, humanity would be able to recognize formerly invisible patterns thereby to forecast and plan in vastly greater magnitude than heretofore.”

—R. Buckminster Fuller, 1981, Critical Path

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Tokyo Science Museum “GeoCosmos” (~20-foot spherical TV)

GeoBrowsers (e.g. GoogleEarth, NASA’s World Wind)

NOAA’s Science on a Sphere now in 17 science centers

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AMNH’s Hayden Planetarium showing near-real-time MODIS data—courtesy Carter Emmart

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Today we can observe & measure human-induced changes in atmospheric chemistry. This 2006 global map shows nitrogen dioxide, a gaseous air pollutant that triggers acute respiratory problems in humans and animals, and causes acid rain.

Red & yellow show high values, teal shows intermediate values, & dark blues are low values. NASA’s Aura satellite measure NO2 routinely. The righthand image shows locations of the top U.S. Power Plants superimposed. Note the spatial correlation. Note also the correlation with land elevation.

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The major spheres of Earth’s environment all interact in a myriad of ways. NASA’s & NOAA’s goal is to quantify and understand the ways these spheres interact so that we can construct computer models of the system, enabling us to

predict future changes.

Earth System Science at NOAA & NASA

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NASA’s Earth Observing System EOS is the foundation of NASA’s Earth Sciences Division

• NASA supports 14 satellites, ~ 800 scientists, & 7 data archive centers in a 15-year mission to meet 24 measurement objectives on a global scale

• Petabytes of data, shared freely or at modest cost

TRMMLandsat 7

Terra

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Aura

Orbview-2QuikScat

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Ecosystems Protect, restore, and manage us of coastal and ocean resources through an ecosystem approach to management

Climate Understand climate variability and change to enhance society’s ability to plan and respond

Weather & Water Serve society’s needs for weather and water information

Commerce & Transportation Support the Nation’s commerce with information for safe, efficient, and environmentally sound transportation

NOAA’s Science Goals

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Legislation is pending under which NOAA will be tasked to establish and lead a new National Climate Service

To be a cooperative effort involving many agencies & institutions engaged in climate research

NOAA’s vision: “An informed society anticipating and responding to climate and its impacts”

National Climate Service Mission: “Guide the nation’s climate mitigation and adaptation efforts through partnerships that bridge the gap between climate science and decision making”

A New National Climate Service

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Short-term: increased focus on tailored communications targeting specific segments of society based upon their needs, wants & expectations for climate information

Mid-term: establish an Amateur Earth Observation Network Long-term: inject Earth system science (with emphasis on

climate) as a core part of the K-16 curriculum

To grow the number of climate science literate citizens at all levels of society

NOAA’s Public Education Goals

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Part 2: The problem in NASA

“May all your problems be technical in nature.”

—an information manager’s proverb

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http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov

Easy access to NASA & NOAA global maps

Designed for educators, communicators, & citizen scientists

Why visit NEO?• Obtain Earth images for

articles, posters, kiosks, etc.• Access analytic tools for

educational lessons• Export images to

geobrowsers (e.g., GoogleEarth, WorldWind)

• Export images for display in virtual globes (e.g., Magic Planet, Science on a Sphere)

• Browse scenes and then order matching data

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Select a subject of interest (e.g., “Ocean”) to see a list of available data sets. Click on one to display it.

Note that after the data set loads, there is also a “Search Results” set shown below for the entire archive of that particular data set.

Navigation & selection tools.

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GES DISC

Semi-automated harvesting of recent regional & global data products from multiple data providers

MODIS Teams’ Computing Facilities

NSIDC ICESat

• Query & retrieve via Web Map Service (WMS)

• Three vectors for search & retrieval

• Can view, re-size, re-color, &/or reformat

• Get image / save locally

• Export to GoogleEarth

• Export to Image Composite Explorer

• Download matching data (in HDF format)

• Export comma separated values to MS Excel

• Coming soon: dataset comparisons & animate

• Coming soon: pixel trends over time

Middleware with functionality “spokes”

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Java-based tool called Image Composite Explorer (ICE) allows graphical analysis of data sets in users’ Web browsers, locally or live via the Internet.

Easy export to popular geobrowsers, including

GoogleEarth & NASA’s WorldWind.

Easy export to widely used tools

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“Scientific literacy is not a measure of what one knows. Rather, it is a measure of one’s ability to gather information about a subject, and to discern credible from non-credible sources.”

—Jean Mayer, former President of Tufts University

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Four Main Communications Axes1. Audience (the who)

3. Message (the what)

2. Objective (the why)

Audience selection influences all subsequent decisions about communication strategy. Be specific! There is no “general public” in terms of a “target” audience.

What is your purpose in communicating with an audience? Purposes can be to …• Inspire — Raise awareness & inform (Passive consumer)• Engage — Dialogue, interact (Active consumer)• Educate — Guided inquiry, exploration

(Student, Teacher, Professional development)• Employ — Participation (Designers & Decision Makers)

Message is the information we have to share. It is important to share the benefits of our information in ways that resonate with the audience.

4. Process & medium (the how)Effective message delivery hinges on when/where audience is most likely receptive, and how long before it penetrates. New messages rarely penetrate the first time.

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Decision Makers

Science Policy Leaders

Educators & Students

Science Attentive Public, Citizen Scientists

Scientists & Data Users

Science Interested PublicsResidual Public

Museums, Science Centers, and After School & Community-based Programs

Public Media

Public Continuum

The Public Continuum*Media they use, and how 1. Sent E-mail = 85%2. Sought news on the Web = 72%3. Sought maps, weather on Web = 70%4. Computer access at work/home = 64%5. Shopped on the Web = 63%6. Sought health info on Web = 63%

7. Watched TV news 3+ days per week = 62%

8. Visited a Science Ctr = 58%9. Printed info off Web = 57%10. Reads print newspaper

1+/week = 53%

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About 25% of adult Americans are not functionally literate About 28% are scientifically literate (up from 10% since

1988)

Those who can

define a “scientific

study” rose from

22% to 29% in that

same span.

State of Science Literacy in U.S.1

1Miller, J.D. (2008): “Civic Scientific Literacy: The role of the media in the electronic era.” Presented at 2008 AAAS Conference.

0102030405060708090100

8788899091929394959697989920002001200220032004200520062007Year

Percent CSL

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4. Science Engaged - amateur scientists, designers, decision support specialists

3. Science Attentive - knowledgeable & routinely seek information about climate

2. Science Interested - aware of climate science and open to learning more

1. Residual Public - uninterested &/or uninformed about the subject• Mass media products

• Storytelling

• Dialogue

• Guided exploration

Many audiences, many levels of engagement

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The ‘How’Suggested model for work process

Target audience

Audience Expert

Subject Expert

Medium Expert

External Partners

3-legged stool model:

• Audience expert scopes the interface; analyzes the feedback

• Subject expert provides content & ensures accuracy

• Medium expert builds the interface & ensures extensibility

• All three retain approve/veto power

• External partners allow us to scale up well beyond what NASA can do alone

“3-legged stool” “Amplification”

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Partner with NOAA to explore possible pathways for using Internet 2 to deliver climate science data & information to decision managers (operational scientists), educators (formal & informal), and students

Devise & implement some sort of peer review and information indexing process that verifies the quality and credibility of the information in Internet2

Work with NOAA to identify, develop & deploy solutions to education & communication objectives that require broad bandwidth

How Internet 2 Can Help