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The KICP's museum partnerships facilitate the communication of forefront science, particularly cosmology,
to a large cross section of the public. By providing insight into ongoing research and the process of
science we help the public to see science as the evolving, creative, exciting, and passionate, process
of discovery that it is. Our partnerships manifest themselves in many ways including: exhibit development
(especially with electronic media), public lectures, presentations at museum conferences, educating museum
staff (see Cosmology Short Courses), hosting and co-hosting: workshops, conferences, short courses, adult educational
programming and special events. Our principal museum partner is the
Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum.
Museums that KICP has worked include:
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KICP museum efforts have a special emphasis on electronic media owing to its versatility. Cosmology spans
enormous dynamic ranges of time, distance and energies. Electronic media can effectively portray these
rages that extend over many orders of magnitude. Additionally visualizing scientific data is a means of
introducing authentic "artifacts" into museum settings, while interactive capabilities can give the
public the chance for independent exploration of this data. On the practical side, electronic exhibits
are flexible and adaptable on timescales of days compared to years for physical displays, which means they
are well positioned to exploit real and theoretical astrophysical data streams and thus can capture
discoveries while they are still fresh. Finally there is a need for electronic media. Many museums have
invested heavily in hardware and now need content.
KICP has developed a number of electronic exhibits and visualizations. We have focused on using real data
sets, creating virtual visits to research projects and on developing interactive 3D visualizations,
primarily for the Geowall technology.
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Note: 66% Of Adults surveyed visited a science museum in the past year.
According to the 2002 NSF Science Indicators appendix table 7-49.
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