The Magic School Bus Gets Weather Wise: A National Traveling Exhibit and Educational Programs on Meteorology

May 15th, 2001 - April 30th, 2006 | PROJECT

The Children's Museum of Houston, in cooperation with Scholastic Entertainment, the National Weather Service and the American Meteorological Society (AMS), will develop, produce and nationally circulate two (2) copies of a 2,500-sq.ft. interactive exhibit. Using the popular icon of the Magic School Bus, the exhibit will take young children on a journey of discovery to explore the science involved in the Earth's weather. The exhibit, "The Magic School Bus Gets Weather Wise," and accompanying educational materials and programs will be bilingual in Spanish and English and will support national and Texas standards for science and mathematics learning for children aged 5-10. It is estimated that the exhibit and programs will serve 2,000,000 children and adults in 36 national venues over six (6) years. Weather Exploration Stations will precede the exhibit to encourage community engagement prior to the exhibit's arrival at the host venue. AMS scientists, local meteorologists and media weathercasters will assist visitor experiences and help museums with strategies for publicity campaigns and development of local programming. The visiting audiences of children and their families will learn meteorology is a study of weather, there are different types of weather, a variety of tools are used in predicting weather and the water cycle plays a role in weather events. Visitors will read data from maps, graphs, thermometers, anemometers, experiment with variables and model weather conditions using interactive exhibit components.

Project Website(s)

(no project website provided)

Team Members

Cheryl McCallum, Principal Investigator, The Children's Museum of Houston

Funders

Funding Source: NSF
Funding Program: ISE/AISL
Award Number: 0003519
Funding Amount: 1614111

Tags

Access and Inclusion: English Language Learners | Ethnic | Racial | Hispanic | Latinx Communities
Audience: Elementary School Children (6-10) | Families | Museum | ISE Professionals
Discipline: Geoscience and geography | Mathematics
Resource Type: Project Descriptions
Environment Type: Exhibitions | Museum and Science Center Exhibits