Nowcasting for the future: an interactive museum exhibit for teaching weather

The Museum of Science has been the recipient of several grants from NSF, IMLS and other organization to design an innovative, interactive exhibit on weather. This exhibit, which opened in January of 2006, has state of the art interactive components which allow viewers to manipulate weather variables and study the consequences. The main component of the exhibit is a 10 terrabyte server that powers a website that provides up to the minute data for the region and can be used both at the museum and by classrooms remotely through classroom computers. This allows students to Nowcast or create a logical forecast for up to several hours for their area, based on visual observations and data that they are receiving in the classroom or at the museum. Beyond the exhibit space, the museum, with additional funding, has taken up the the task of creating teacher training opportunities beginning this year with K-5 teachers and, in additional years, 6-8 teachers. The museum is seeking further grants to develop a 9-12 climate and climate change curriculum and to tie together all of the initiatives into a comprehensive program that will connect to the national standards and be a model for K-12 meteorological education.