Planet Earth Decision Theater Live Performance: Formative Evaluation

The Planet Earth Decision Theater (PEDT), funded by NOAA (grant # NA10SEC0080021), will be a major component of the Future Earth exhibition, which opens at the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM or the Museum) in late October 2011. The theater will operate in two modes: a facilitated show with live actors and an audience response system to engage the audience, and an autorun show with similar content. This evaluation focuses on the live performance part of PEDT. When complete, live performances will take place in SMM’s newly refurbished Science on a Sphere (SOS) space that will include SOS, a flat screen for projecting local images to complement the global data displayed on SOS, 3-D objects to complement the images, and new more comfortable seating. Planet Earth Decision Theater content focuses on human’s impact on the planet and the facilitated version uses an audience feedback system (iClicker - http://www.iclicker.com/) to allow facilitators to interact with the audience and solicit their opinions. This report details two rounds of formative testing of the live facilitated performance. Since the facilitated performance is being developed ahead of the autorun SOS movie, the images used for these presentations are flat screen images that are similar to the images that will be used on the SOS for the final product.