Science on a Sphere Exhibit Program Evaluation – Forecast: Tropical Cyclone

In this report we detail the results of one phase of formative evaluation on the NOAA funded Ocean-Atmosphere Literacy Partnership – a cooperative partnership between the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). The American Museum of Natural History produced the first draft of a video program for the Science on a Sphere (SOS) exhibit called Forecast: Tropical Cyclones. The program was designed to inform visitors about tropical cyclones (a.k.a. typhoons, hurricanes) and to illustrate how technological advances in weather observation have allowed scientists to develop weather models that can predict the path of tropical cyclone. The video was shown to visitors at SMM to test visitor reaction. The SOS exhibit is a large spherical screen suspended in the middle of a darkened room with four projectors discretely located at four congruent points around the sphere. Projectors are high enough so that people passing around the sphere do not interfere with the projection, and they produce a seamless 360-degree image around the sphere screen. Benches and chairs are placed around the sphere at intervals allowing room for people to sit, stand, or walk around the sphere without obstructing the view of each other.