STTR Phase I: Overcoming the Flat View - Teaching Climate with an Interactive Spherical Display

This STTR project's broader/commercial impact is that it will allow researchers to learn more about the complex relationships between environmental conditions and the impact of changes over time. The ability to convey that knowledge in an intuitive and compelling manner to students and the public globally could motivate them to influence business and political leaders to craft policies that would reduce damage to the planet. In addition to schools and universities, there are 600 museums dedicated to science, as well as aquariums and other public venues concerned with environmental issues; in essence, these all are involved in educating people, and they all look for effective means of portraying information about the Earth. While the sphere/flat-screen displays provide the most compelling views, adapting the methods developed in this project to laptops and tablets (owned by several hundred million people) can contribute to learning about climate for students and adults worldwide. This STTR project leverages a commercial/university partnership to develop a vehicle for education and public outreach on climate and climate change. With the increasing awareness and confusion about climate change and the severity of predicted impacts, it has become critical that we educate students at all levels to give them a real understanding of climate data and climate models. Likewise, outreach efforts are vitally needed, both to interest students in learning more about climate science and to engage the general public. This project will provide compelling methods for educators and their students to explore deeply what the data and state of the art models tell us about climate changes, both natural and anthropogenic, as well as to illustrate climate processes with simple models that can be used for "what if" scenarios. The goal is not a series of canned lessons, but rather an open-ended means for teaching the material with the ability to dig deeper into the information in response to student questions.