NOAA Office of Education Semi-Annual Project Progress Report (Draft)

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Ethan Hensley
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1 NOAA Office of Education Semi-Annual Project Progress Report (Draft) I. OVERVIEW a. Award Number: NA10SEC b. Award Title: Hurricanes and Climate Change: Local Impacts and Global Systems c. Funded Organization: Miami Science Museum Congressional District of Funded Institution: 18 Total Annual Visitorship to Funded Institution: 150,000 visitors/year Annual Visitorship to NOAA-funded Exhibit: 150,000 visitors/year d. PI: Jennifer Santer e. Project Website (if applicable): N/A f. Award Period: From: 10/1/10 To: 9/30/12 g. Period Covered by this Report: From: 10/1/11 To: 3/30/12 1

II. PROGRESS a) Activities and Accomplishments This report covers outputs and outcomes from October 1, 2011 through March 31, 2012, organized according to the objectives laid out in the project

2 II. PROGRESS a) Activities and Accomplishments This report covers outputs and outcomes from October 1, 2011 through March 31, 2012, organized according to the objectives laid out in the project proposal. During this phase of the project the team completed development of the interactive exhibit Hurricanes and Climate Change: Global Systems and Local Impacts. The exhibit has been designed as a bilingual, multi-user, interactive experience allowing visitors to explore how Earth s climate system works, how humans are impacting Earth s global climate particularly through the production of heat-trapping gases, and the resulting consequences of global warming, including possible impacts for South Florida. (Details of the application development process were provided in the previous semi-annual report.) Installation took place the week of November 14-18, This included installation of the three touch screen kiosks and the four flat-screen display monitors to accompany the spherical display, which had been installed as a stand-alone exhibit shortly after project start-up. A team from Ideum flew out to the Museum to oversee the installation process and train Museum staff on the operating system and program, working with the Museum s exhibit staff and production designer to create a user friendly, aesthetically pleasing display. 2

3 As installed, interaction with the exhibit is as follows. Visitors are able to use the touch screen to select which visualization they want to have displayed on the sphere, and then by using the identical image of the sphere on the touch screen, they can manipulate the rotation and tilt of the visualization as it appears on the sphere. For example, a visitor can move his or her finger on the touch screen image to tilt the sphere visualization towards him or herself to view the north pole of the Earth. To allow all visitors to have an opportunity to control the sphere visualization, a 40-second timer (visible in the upper left-hand corner of the touch screen) starts counting down as soon as a visitor obtains control of the sphere visualization. When the timer ends, the sphere control is passed to the next visitor requesting control via one of the other touch screen kiosks. The content displayed on the touchscreen changes to match the visualization projected on the sphere. For example, if a visitor chooses to view the Population Growth visualization on the sphere, then all touch screens show images and content related to Population Growth. Visitors not currently controlling the sphere can explore on their touch screen a variety of local content related to the topic of population growth, and can request control of the globe. Following installation, the team spent a few weeks trouble-shooting to optimize the monitor displays, correct graphics errors, and address immediately evident software glitches. Items addressed during this period included: Checking auto-reconnect to server Checking functionality of some key comments Making adjustments to the attract mode to create a more dynamic appearance Adjusting the placement of visual prompts and commands on the screen to support better user interface Shortening the timing and adjusting frames per second on selected visualizations to optimize their run time with the rest of the interaction Adjusting cropping, orientation, and sequencing of selected images to enhance the visual effect and better support learning Three weeks after installation, the Museum scheduled a second round of formative of evaluation led by Anita Kramer and Steve Yalowitz from the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI), the project s external evaluator. The Museum worked with ILI to develop a set of evaluation instruments for gathering a second round of formative data, intended to inform a final set of revisions to the fully operational system. (See attached evaluation instruments). This second round of formative evaluation, carried out in Miami the weekend of December 9-10, 2011, followed on from an initial round of formative testing that took place in March Whereas round 1 focused on the key messages, images, and visualizations, this second round of testing focused on interaction of the various components of the system (i.e., the sphere, the three touchscreens, and the 4 flat panel displays) and the effectiveness of the user interface in supporting the intended interactions and outcomes. Key questions addressed through this evaluation were: 3

4 1. Do the sphere and related displays work the way they were intended, including kiosk-sphere and kiosk-kiosk interactions? 2. Are participants getting the main message and understanding the content? 3. How do visitors engage with each other as they are using the exhibit? 4. How can the exhibit deliverables be improved upon? The evaluators carried out observations and in-depth interviews with a total of 23 visitor groups over the two-day data collection period, representing 70 visitors. A copy of the full report is attached. The sample covered individuals representative of the targeted multi-cultural, multi-generational audience for this exhibit, including children, teens, adults, and seniors. The evaluation surfaced a wide range of feedback related to visitors engagement with the exhibit, the ease of use of the interface, and the extent to which the exhibit appears to be supporting the project s learning outcomes. In general, visitors loved being able to control the visualizations on the sphere. One visitor expressed that if she hadn t had control of the sphere, she would not have spent as much time with this exhibit. Another said, on the sphere, you can see things better. Another young visitor was enamored with the interactive nature of the entire exhibit and effusively stated: this is going beyond what people would expect at this time. They would expect you have to go up and move it. No. This is going beyond, and you get to see what s not just happening in Miami but you can also see what is going on in Asia and in Afghanistan. Visitors were excited about being able to look at Antartica: Hey, there s Antarctica! That s awesome! You can see the cold water there. Other people were looking for their family s country of origin, such as, I was looking for information about a specific region, India. Some tilted the sphere to get a better look at their current hometown: There s us (while pointing to Florida). Despite this overall positive response to the exhibit, the formative evaluation identified some important areas for remediation in order for the exhibit to better support the intended learning outcomes. Key recommendations from this second round of formative testing included the following: Re-designing the first screen to make it more evident that there are three different modules (Earth s Climate System; Human Activities; and Global Consequences). As currently designed, the first screen after the attract screen defaults to the Earth s Climate System Module, and although it does show the links to the other two modules, a majority of visitors were never venturing beyond that initial module (see screen shot below). The suggestion is to create a separate launch screen that only presents the links to the three modules (and not the Earth s Climate System content and sub-options), simplifying the navigation and prompting more visitors to explore the other two-thirds of the content. Concomitant with this is changing the default, so that visitors can remain within the module they have selected for exploration, rather than defaulting back to the current default screen below (which reinforces Earth s Climate System at the expense of the other modules). 4

sure of how to begin interfacing with the system.

5 Redesigning the attract screens on the kiosks. The formative evaluation showed that while younger children did not hesitate to run over and bang on the screens, many adults were less sure of how to begin interfacing with the system. The current attract mode features an attractive graphic with alternating inspiring quotations, in English and Spanish, and while aesthetically pleasing, is perhaps not best suited to explaining to people how to get started. There is a touch here to start command, but it is small by comparison to the other elements. 5

6 Make it more obvious to visitors that they can use the touchscreen interface to control the sphere. In some cases, visitors noted that the dramatic aesthetic presence of the sphere drew them over to the exhibit, but that they were then quite happy exploring the content on the touchscreen. In general, visitors referenced the attentiongetting appearance of the exhibit. One visitor referred to the sphere as an art object. Another visitor said, Yeah, like when you walk in and you see the sphere you re whoa, what is this? He said he came into the exhibit area because he noticed the globe. Other visitors said they were drawn in by the local images on the top flat screens. Regardless of what drew them over, there seems to be the need for some additional explicit prompts to let visitors know that they can not only enjoy interaction with the content on the touchscreen, but can actually control the sphere and other displays too. In addition to the above recommendations, there were also some findings that suggest that it might be useful to explore different kinds of user-interface designs in future projects. For example, the design of this exhibit placed an emphasis on supporting social interaction through a collaborative interface, i.e., one visitor at a time controlling the globe, the other two kiosks allowing visitors to explore related local content, and visitors being able to request and trade off control of the globe. In fact, given the quality of the graphics and content available on the touchscreen kiosks, many visitors wanted fuller capabilities to independently explore content on their touchscreen, regardless of what was playing on the globe. Some expressed frustration that just as they were getting into a local content topic of interest to them, the screen changed (driven by the content on the globe) allowing them to explore a new selection of local content but disrupting their personal chain of inquiry. However, feedback from visitors suggest that for many visitor groups the project as designed is achieving its goal of promoting social interaction among different users, in particular interactions between parents and children, with children often more comfortable using the interface and parents able to help read and discuss the content. In terms of whether the exhibit as designed is helping visitors get the main messages, the formative evaluation is mixed, perhaps in part due to the navigation issues which discussed above which had most visitors directing the preponderance of their attention to the Earth s Climate System module. Visitors do seem to be coming away with an improved understanding of how the Earth s climate system works. And they do seem to understand that human activities can have an impact on the environment. There seems to be less of a direct understanding that humans are affecting Earth s climate in particular, or that they are in fact causing climate change. In part this may be due to the absence of a single, linear narrative for the exhibit as a whole. The messages are arguably all there, but they are interspersed throughout the various screens and visualizations; and while there is a logic to the three modules, given the visitor-facilitated nature of this experience, there is no guarantee that any visitor will explore all three modules, or view them in the right order. As a result, visitors seem to be coming away with more understanding of Earth s climate system, and a general impression that human activity affects the Earth, and some increased awareness of the way the Earth is changing, but without a direct sense of the causal relationships between these factors. 6

7 One simple thing that was missing at the time of the formative evaluation was a traditional entrance graphic to the exhibit space as a whole. This is now under development, and presents an opportunity to more explicitly present a big idea that could assist visitors in making the connections between the content modules. Also, in response to the recommendations, the team plans to redesign the attract screens and launch screen for the three modules, to highlight opportunities for interaction with the sphere and improve navigation of the full range of content. A final summative evaluation is scheduled for this summer, and will delve into greater detail regarding the learning outcomes experienced by visitors, and indicate whether these adjustments lead to more visitors coming away with the main messages. 7

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