You may have already observed outcomes of global climate change in your region, whether in falling butterfly populations, damaged pine forests, or disrupted bird migration patterns. ASTC’s Communicating Climate Change works with science centers and partnering scientific research sites to develop local indicators of climate change in 12 locations across the United States.
Our project fosters innovative partnerships between research centers, the media, and science centers, supporting the development of citizen science programs, public forums, and other activities. To learn more about these projects, visit our Resource Center or read about our partners’ local programs.
C3 News Blog
March 1st, 2010
Physicist John Cook of SkepticalScience has developed an iPhone app that provides answers to common questions about climate change.
I downloaded the app this morning, and after a short test-run, it seems fairly comprehensive and easy to use. The questions are divided into the categories “It’s not happening”, “It’s not us”, and “It’s not bad,” each of which features complaints ranging from the classics (“Glaciers are growing!”) to the latest issues with the IPCC (“They were wrong about the Amazon rainforest!”). The answer provided to each of these assertions includes a short talking point, followed by a longer, more detailed, fully cited (with links!) explanation of the science.
The Guardian has a more extensive review, but this could be a good tool for audiences who just want to know what to say when confronted with questions about the science. Let us know what you think of it.
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February 18th, 2010
The Inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival is looking for participants in its October 23rd & 24th Washington, DC Expo and for additions to its list of satellite festivals being held across the country.
The event is the country’s first national science festival, and the Expo on the National Mall will feature more than 500 US science and engineering organizations, each with a different hands-on science activity. To register for the Expo, or to learn how you can organize a satellite festival at your own organization, visit them online, follow them on Twitter, or join their Facebook group.
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February 16th, 2010
AAAS is holding a guest blogging contest for attendants of its annual meeting in San Diego next week.
I won’t be there, but any C3 participants interested in submitting a post should check out the detailed rules here.
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February 16th, 2010
For those of you fielding questions about the recent round(s) of criticism directed at the IPCC, ScienceInsider has a good summary of each point of contention, as well reactions from the IPCC and other scientists.
It’s a brief piece, but includes lots of useful links.
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February 12th, 2010
NNOAA launched its new climate portal this month, including an online magazine called Climate Watch that features an article those of you experiencing abnormally cool weather this winter might want to check out.
The site is still in prototype mode, and even though navigating it is tedious at times, a lot of the information it contains is worth the effort. The presentation library in the “Understanding Climate” tab might be particularly useful to those of you looking for teaching tools. It features several ready-to-use presentations on topics from human contributions to global warming to how scientists create and use climate models. There are more professional development activities and teaching resources in the “Education” tab.
There’s a lot of information on the site, and we still haven’t made it through all of it. We’d encourage you to try out some of the tools offered, and be sure to let us know what you find useful.
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January 20th, 2010
NOAA has announced funding opportunities for informal/nonformal science education projects through their Environmental Literacy Grants (ELG) Program. A previous recipient of ELG funding, The Ocean Project, recently released a report called America, the Ocean, and Climate Change: New Research Insights for Conservation, Awareness, and Action. Their summary of key findings offers some insight into the type of project funded by this program as well as useful information for C3 partners addressing ocean issues. More information below (and on NOAA’s website), but note the following deadlines:
Informational Telecon
An informational teleconference with the program officers will occur on January 21, 2010 at3:30 PM EST. Interested applicants are required to register and will receive the call-in information by contacting oed.grants@noaa.gov and include in the Subject line of the email: “Interested in FFO Teleconference – Need Details.” Please provide the interested parties’ names, institutions and telephone numbers in the body of the message.
Deadlines
Letters of Intent are required. The deadline for letters of intent is 5:00 PM EST February 16, 2010.
The deadline for full applications is 5:00 PM EDT on April 6, 2010.
Additional Information on Funding Opportunity
NOAA’s Office of Education (OEd) has issued a request for applications for informal/nonformal science education projects that engage the public in activities that utilize emerging and/or advanced technologies and leverage NOAA assets to improve understanding and stewardship of the local and global environment. There is specific interest in projects that use emerging and/or advanced technologies to (1) facilitate outdoor experiences involving scientific inquiry and exploration of the natural world apart from formal K-12 curricula and (2) visualize, display, and interpret data to improve understanding and provide a systems perspective of Earth’s dynamic processes. All projects must focus on one or more of the following informal/nonformal science education activities:
- Technologically facilitated outdoor experiential learning for youth and adults;
- Public participation in science related to one or more of NOAA’s mission goals;
- Exhibitions and online programs allowing the visualization and exploration of data supporting the interpretation of ocean, coastal, Great Lakes, weather and climate sciences for public audiences;
- Spherical display system (including NOAA’s Science On a Sphere) installations and programming; and
- Professional development programs and training programs for informal/nonformal education staff.
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January 7th, 2010
This is an older post on Technology Review, but it’s an interesting take from the head of MIT’s Synthetic Neurobiology Group on the benefits of public participation in science.
The essence of the piece isn’t anything you haven’t already heard from Rick and Jennifer, but I thought this passaged described rather nicely why citizen science is such an important component of this project:
Involvement of the public in the act of science would shape the kind of science being done, perhaps increasing the impact of science on daily life. Community involvement in the act of research would also make science more understandable, and perhaps more familiar, to the public, because people would be engaged in its framing and communication. What better way to increase scientific literacy, make the benefits of science clear, and quell myths and spread facts than to give all people a stake in the act of discovering science? Maybe the way the world sees some currently controversial topics–stem cells, climate change, energy sources–would be different if more people engaged in the act of testing hypotheses and examining data. Community participation in science would also be enormously personally enriching, providing exercise in thinking and problem solving (something that is useful in all problem domains, throughout life) and empowering people to contribute directly to the betterment of society in a broadly impactful way.
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January 6th, 2010
If you’re wondering why it’s been unusually cold outside this week, this post from DotEarth’s Andy Revkin explains that it’s the Arctic Oscillation making life unpleasant for folks in places across the northern hemisphere.
It could be a good resource if you’re getting questions from skeptical visitors or program participants about why, if global warming is real, it’s so cold outside.
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December 17th, 2009
The Clim’Way* event at COP15 was a success, with participants from Museum of Science, Boston; COSI, Columbus, Ohio; Cap-Sciences, Bordeaux, France; and Experimentarium, Hellerup, Denmark and panelists Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Ned Gardiner, Data Visualization Expert at NOAA; Eric Gorman, Cap-Sciences; David Noble, 2DegreesC; Bjørn Bedsted, Danish Board of Technology; and Hans Gubbels, President of the Ecsite Executive Committee.
Walter Staveloz, Director of International Relations at ASTC served as moderator.
We’re working on getting the video up, but in the meantime, here are a few photos from the event, courtesy of Ned Gardiner, NOAA. The first is Walter Staveloz and Jean-Pascal van Ypersele; the others are of our panel.
*This is the new less catchy, more legal name of Clim’City.
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December 17th, 2009
During the planning phase of last week’s transatlantic conference between the Museum of Science, Boston, and Cité des Sciences et de L’Industrie, Paris, organizers struggled over how (and whether) to address the “ClimateGate” scandal (the email accounts of researchers at the University of East Anglia were hacked and posted online; excerpts from these emails have been used by skeptics to “bolster” their denial of anthropogenic climate change).
If you’re also struggling with questions about this, these two articles might be worth reading:
This one from Nature has a good run-down of the implications:
“A fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists’ conspiracy theories. In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming… and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers.”
It’s worth reading the entire article, particularly if your audience tends toward skeptical. And, if you’re interested in what IPCC Chairman Rajenda Pachauri and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had to say on the matter, check out this IPCC post from last week.
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