Smithsonian Education Conference Blog: Climate Change

Spreading the Green Word at SITES

At SITES, the Smithsonian's Traveling Exhibition Service, where I work as a writer/editor, we bring exhibitions to museums and venues all over the country. In fact, we've been packing and shipping art, science, and history exhibitions for more than 50 years. As a result, millions of people outside Washington, DC have been able to experience the amazing collections and research programs of the Smithsonian.  

Lately we've been working on ways to educate the public on green initiatives and climate change, and taking small but meaningful steps to try to reduce our own carbon footprint. For example we recently joined a group of Smithsonian colleagues and staff from 13 government agencies, including the White House Office of Science and Technology, NASA, the Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation, to brainstorm about how to best collaborate and develop future exhibitions on this critical topic. Another example is our plan for one of our shows thats about to hit the road: Elvis at 21, Photographs by Albert Wertheimer. For this exhibition, we've opted to use vinyl lettering, which can be applied directly to the walls, instead of text panels. This means less material to fabricate, less to crate, and less to ship.

Smithsonian Education's Online Conference on Climate Change - Encouraging Positive Action

Our second online conference, “Climate Change,” drew more than 3,700 participants in 82 countries and U.S. territories and in all 50 states. The three-day conference approached the subject from a myriad of Smithsonian disciplines, from wildlife management to paleontology to art history. Ten Smithsonian units took part, as well as such organizations as the National Science Foundation, GLOBE, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. The conference also served as a platform for encouraging positive action. Each day, during an afternoon “Response” session, presenters discussed such topics as student conservation and innovation. In addition, “Special Interest” presentations were devoted to portrayals of the environment in art, to service-learning opportunities around the nation, and to programs in which Smithsonian interns work with scientists on matters related to climate change.

Though the live event has passed, it’s not too late to see the show! All of the conference sessions are archived and closed-captioned. Share this information with your friends and join the conversation with Smithsonian scientists and staff through the discussion boards. Visit http://smithsonianeducation.org/climate.

We also encourage you to see how others are taking action by visiting http://blogactionday.org.

Post-Conference - Five Ways to Continue the Conversation

Though the live Smithsonian Education Online Conference on Climate Change has come to an end, there are still ways to continue the conversation. Here are a few ways to start.

• Share your favorite moments with your friends and colleagues! Each session is archived and can be replayed at your convenience – http://smithsonianconference.org/climate
• Have any questions, comments, or findings that you want to share about a specific presentation or about a specific presenter? For instance, do you want to ask Scott Wing about leaf fossils in Wyoming? Or, are you curious to know more about Smithsonian research in Panama? Want to see what others think about each topic? Ask your questions and post your comments on each presenter’s individual discussion board by entering a specific session. For starters, Here is the link to Nancy Knowlton’s session - http://www.smithsonianconference.org/climate/knowlton/
• Visit the Virtual Exhibit Hall! Read the scientists’ articles! Gather links to educational resources! Find opportunities for action! - http://www.smithsonianconference.org/climate/exhibit-hall/
• Are you an educator seeking teaching resources? Visit our “For Teachers” section where you can find sample lessons, learning activities, and learn about the challenges of teaching climate change - http://www.smithsonianconference.org/climate/teachers/
• On the go? Looking for a quick synopsis of each session? Want to find links to the conference, Smithsonian programs, or share your thoughts in 140 characters or less? Join us on Twitter – Use the #SIClimate Hashtag! - http://www.smithsonianconference.org/climate/discuss/tweets-archive/

Reflecting with Scott Wing's Former Intern, Ben Casterline

I sat down with Ben Casterline a few hours before his internship at the National Museum of Natural History came to an end. He had been studying “paleoclimatology” while working with Smithsonian paleontologist Scott Wing. A fourth-year student at the University of Chicago majoring in biology and paleontology, Ben spent four weeks with Wing in Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin, quarrying for leaf fossils, digging trenches to measure stratification, and prospecting for new dig sites. In the Bighorn, rocks exposed at the surface represent a period of global warming known as the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. (See "Going Behind the Scenes with Smithsonian Researchers."). In our interview, Ben remembered his time camped out with scientists and other interns (and, at one point, with Smithsonian Secretary, G. Wayne Clough) as “intellectually stimulating.”

On Working with Fossils
“It’s really about looking at the evidence of climate change, and we are trying to expose that!” Ben exclaimed when discussing his work back in Washington, D.C., after the Wyoming trip. He used an “air scribe,” a tool similar to a miniature jackhammer, to knock off rock from fossilized leaves, Ben assisted Wing through the process of revealing the visible history of climate change as witnessed through changing patterns in the morphology of those leaves. Ben’s other work included photographing the fossils and arranging specimens into groups of similar characteristics, known as “morphotypes.”

National Museum of Natural History, Climate Change, and Sharing Great Science via Web 2.0

My name is Carla Bitter and I am the new Chief of Outreach at Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMMH). This is an incredibly exciting time to be a part of the technological transformation of our culture in terms of how people gather, share and experience science information. It is a great honor to be at the forefront of these strategic changes for our museum, for science, and for our understanding of the world around us. Most importantly, I am so pleased to be able to share the vision of NMNH regarding climate change as a driver in our scientific understanding of human evolution, of biodiversity, of geology and even for cultural and societal change. Ideally conferences like this will lead to better decision making for all of us through enhanced access to current scientific research and perspectives. The future of sharing the best science research seems limitless!

Carla Bitter is the Chief of Outreach at the National Museum of Natural History.

Going Behind the Scenes with Smithsonian Researchers

As a new staff member at the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, I am just getting to know the resources it offers to teachers. I’ve learned, for example, that the publication Smithsonian in Your Classroom has been around since the bicentennial year of 1976. (It was then called Art to Zoo). The print version is mailed to elementary and middle school in the country; a PDF version is downloadable from SmithsonianEducation.org. It’s a great way for teachers to connect their students to the work of the Smithsonian—students who might never have an opportunity to set foot in a Smithsonian museum. And as I discovered last week, when the new issue arrived, it is also a way to have a pretty cool educational experience with a friend or two.

I read the issue aloud to my friend Christopher. Titled "Prehistoric Climate Change (and Why It Matters Today)" it tells the story of Smithsonian paleontologist Scott Wing, who has been searching for plant fossils from a time called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 55 million years ago. During the PETM, global temperatures rose dramatically as a result of natural carbon-dioxide emissions. Scott’s work is now “relevant” because of parallels to our own time of rising carbon in the atmosphere.

Taking Climate Change Personally

I teach at a junior high school in Missouri and attended a Smithsonian Day event as the Missouri Teacher of the Year in 2008. I subsequently won the Smithsonian’s 2009 Increase Award for innovation in teaching teachers how to use Smithsonian resources. When I think about global warming, my thoughts turn to Glacier National Park in Montana. Our entire family spent about a week in the park in 1986, when I was 15, and the highlight was hiking to Grinnell Glacier. We walked on the glacier, felt the river of icy water melting beneath it, and marveled at the views from the Continental Divide. We still look at the photographs and laugh about how much fun we had on that hike.

Fifteen years later, I returned to Glacier National Park to propose to my wife. We hiked the same trail I had as a teenager. But things had changed. When we reached the top, Grinnell Glacier was much different than I had remembered. It was now 2001 and global warming had started to take its toll. The ancient ice mass had become noticeably smaller, and we learned that it was continuing to melt at an accelerated rate. Grinnell Glacier is vanishing before our eyes.

Scientists had predicted the glaciers will vanish from Glacier National Park by 2030. Two years ago that estimate was revised to 2020. Think about it - Glacier National Park without glaciers. The average daily temperature in the park has increased two degrees each year. Glacier National Park is visibly showing the impact of global warming.

Teens Discover “Green Ways to Move the Mail” at the Postal Museum

We receive mail at home and at work six days a week but rarely consider the impact the postal system has on humans and the environment. The U.S. mail travels by truck, bike, mule train, or Segway (PDF), whether along dirt roads or super highways, to reach the densest city neighborhoods and scattered rural ranches. Figuring out the “greenest” way to get it there is a challenge that the US Postal Service (USPS) takes seriously. It’s also a challenge that the Smithsonian National Postal Museum turned over to a group of thirteen-year-olds.

Teens supervise the “invention lab” where museum
visitors try to create a “green” mail delivery vehicle.
The “test driver” in the lab coat makes sure the vehicles
are up to speed on the following criteria: safety,
reliability, speed, and cost.

The 15 “green teens” took charge of planning the Green Ways to Move the Mail Family Festival during a workshop in March 2009. Even the unflappable teenagers were impressed by the sheer size of the postal system on which we depend for birthday cards, coupons, Pottery Barn catalogs, and Netflix. With the world’s largest civilian fleet, USPS drives more than 1.2 billion miles each year. In 2007, USPS delivered to 147,992,522 addresses, and two million addresses are added annually. Despite recent drops in mail volume, the vast system that moves our mail has dramatic impact on the environment.

Teens can recycle their bulk mail or read magazines online, but none of us can immediately affect how mail gets to our door. So the focus of the Festival was not our personal behaviors. Rather, the program used mail transportation as a challenge to teach systems thinking, team work, problem solving, and interdisciplinary knowledge. By teaching others during the festival, teens honed their communication skills and tested out a day in the life of a museum educator.

Protest, Patriotism, and Climate Change

Looking at old photographs and seeing a younger self’s style choices often leads to a horrified “What was I thinking?!” Looking at your old publications can be much the same experience, but I was happily surprised and even proud when I recently reread Protest and Patriotism: A History of Dissent and Reform, which I developed at the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies in 1992. Written in collaboration with Lonnie Bunch, then at the National Museum of American History and now the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the guide offered new approaches to the study of the populist, civil rights, and environmental movements and to protest in general. It includes historical case studies that emphasize each movement’s origins or catalysts , the people who created or joined the movement, the tactics they used to effect change, the responses by government and other institutions to the movement, and the movement’s long-term achievements.

So, did we say anything seventeen years ago about “environmentalism” that is still relevant today or, at least, relevant to this conference on climate change? I think so, particularly in illuminating how our society responds to major challenges. One of the things I learned from working with Lonnie Bunch on this project, and that he articulates in the introductory essay, is that successful reform movements in the United States have been peopled and led by members of the middle class. But the very same middle-class composition that leads to success usually ensures that the reform is limited and moderate, because “this class of citizens has much to benefit from and to protect within the current system.”

Climate Change "Finds" of the Week

One of the cool things about working on the upcoming conference is that every day my research unearths some pretty intriguing articles, exhibits, blogs, and other media related to climate change. Unsurprisingly, several come from the Smithsonian.

I get the chance to share such items with colleagues in my office, but I also want to create posts here so others can check out these resources. Thus, below is a list of my favorite finds of the week.

• Smithsonian Science Blog - "Study aims to give endangered Shenandoah salamander better odds at survival"
• Smithsonian magazine's Surprising Science Blog - "Weather vs. Climate"
• Smithsonian magazine's Surprising Science Blog - "Climate Change in Your Backyard"
• Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce - "Virtual Tour"
• National Museum of the American Indian - "Mother Earth"

Feel free to comment on these items or post any relevant items that you find!

from Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,
a new report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program, USGS

Jarrid Green is a former Smithsonian intern and recent college graduate from the University of Maryland.