'Science on a Sphere' takes shape as a teacher
The display system has been installed at UH-Hilo's Imiloa
HILO » Carbon dioxide contributing to global warming is something most people have heard about. A new animated display system opening today in Hilo lets people see it.
That's just one of more than 100 moving science displays that can be seen on the new "Science on a Sphere" system permanently installed at Imiloa, the Astronomy Center of Hawaii, open to the public on the upper campus of the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Imiloa is one of 12 sites in the nation selected for the initial placement of the system developed as a teaching tool by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Because four projectors display images on the entire sphere, viewers can walk all the way around the big ball while the program is going on.
The displays can be tailored to any age and knowledge level.
Richard Crowe, the staff astronomer at Imiloa, has long known that two Viking probes sent to Mars in 1976 landed on opposite sides of the planet. Projecting a rotating view of Mars onto the sphere, Crowe can now show his students the two different landing spots on Mars and how they relate to each other.
Science on a Sphere also can illustrate the changing temperatures of the oceans, the waxing and waning of ice in the Arctic, drifting of continents over 600 million years, or worldwide commercial air traffic on a single day, Crowe said.
All of this information is in "data sets," collections of numbers that Science on a Sphere turns into moving pictures.
If a teacher can't find a display she wants, the system allows her to create her own display, said Janice Harvey, Gemini Observatory outreach teacher.
"This is going to be a wonderful addition to what we do," Harvey said. "We need to bring science back into the classroom, to get teachers interested in science. I absolutely love it."
Although there is an admission fee for Imiloa, there will be no charge to visit the Science on a Sphere display through December. A fast-paced, 20-minute introduction to the system, called "Footprints," will be shown Tuesdays through Sundays, every 20 minutes from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The museumlike center is open six days a week from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.