Concept information
Preferred term
GOPOLAR
Definition
- Short Title: Go Polar! Exploring and Connecting the Poles Project URL: http://schc.sc.edu/gopolar/ Proposal URL: http://classic.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=96 Informal learning environments of children's museums are fertile frontiers for communicating the excitement and significance of Polar scientific research to the public in both non-polar and traditional polar nations. Children's museums are also effective venues to enhance public understanding of the global dimensions of the issues facing the Polar Regions in the coming decades. By forming an international Go Polar! network of children's museums in non-polar nations (in Amsterdam, Osaka, Mexico City, Tel Aviv, Vienna, Melbourne, Caracas, Lisbon), as well as in traditional polar nations of Canada (Calgary and Toronto) and the United States (Indianapolis and San Francisco), we propose to deliver a multi-dimensional informal science education program about the Arctic and Antarctic to children under the age of 12 (and the adults who care for them). Our specific proposal, as part of the broad IPY outreach effort, is to: 1) Adapt already existing Go Polar! Festival programming for use in museums of the Go Polar! network, complete with turnkey materials, including our patented Polar Puzzle, a unique floor interactive, educational displays and activities including specially developed teaching guides with sample scripts in the language appropriate to the particular museum; 2) Adapt already existing Go Polar! Arctic Discovery Boxes for use in museums of the Go Polar! network, complete with turnkey materials, displays and including specially developed teaching guides with sample scripts in the appropriate languages; and 3) Conduct training programs for teachers and museum staffs in the Go Polar! network in order that the Go Polar! informal science educational materials and programming can be used effectively during IPY and for years to come. The existing Go Polar! informal science educational materials and programming are made possible through a University-Museum partnership funded by the US National Science Foundation in 2003 to develop Go Polar! Cool Science in the Arctic (ESI-0336928). This unique partnership between the EdVenture Children Museum, the largest children's museum in the southeastern US, and the University of South Carolina, the State's largest research university, involved active Arctic researchers, university undergraduate students, the EdVenture museum staff, family education specialists, and educational psychologists to disseminate on-going NSF funded research on the Arctic hydrologic cycle (ODP-0229737). The Go Polar program provided opportunities for South Carolina children and families to meet real scientists engaged in Arctic research with hands-on activities that introduced children and families not only to the scientific process but also to new science concepts and knowledge. The Go Polar program also resulted in the development and testing of Arctic Discovery Boxes - specially designed informal education activities on three themes - #1 The Arctic and Global Change, #2 Arctic Cultures and #3 Animal Adaptations in the Arctic. Each Discovery box contains six interrelated hands-on activities with teaching guides and scripts. In 2005 the Go Polar! partnership expanded the reach of their programming and materials to include the Antarctic. Using the theme "Exploring and Connecting the Opposite Ends of the Earth" the Go Polar! team created a Polar Festival featuring a giant floor puzzle of the Arctic and Antarctic with the ocean basins and surrounding continents connecting the poles. With orchestrated play, the children are guided through diverse hands-on, minds-on learning experiences including an Arctic Village, an Aurora Theatre, mapping the earth with NASA satellites, migration in the air and sea, ozone, permafrost, and more. Special take home activities and a Polar Passport encourage further exploration at home and school. (en)
Broader concept
- G - I (en)
URI
https://gcmd.earthdata.nasa.gov/kms/concept/84150714-292c-48cc-b457-97fd573e1e36
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