Archive: Around Town

Ithaca, NY-- As climate change, an important part of global change, is increasingly becoming an imperative issue for business leaders, politicians, scientists and the public at-large alike, the Paleontological Research Institution’s Museum of the Earth launches its Global Change Project (GCP) with various elements throughout 2007.

Coincidentally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its fourth assessment on climate change this Friday in Paris. The past three assessments (released 1990, 1995, and 2001) have asserted that human activities are driving global climate change; the fourth assessment is expected to make this assertion even more strongly.

The goal of the Museum of the Earth’s Global Change Project, consisting of a new museum exhibit, comprehensive web site, lecture series, and new educational programming, is to collect and synthesize available information on global change and present it in a straightforward, unbiased, easily-accessed format for educators, students, and members of the public. The IPCC’s assessment will help to inform PRI’s programming and content around the project.

“The Museum of the Earth is all about the history of Earth systems and how they work,” said Rob Ross, Director of Education at PRI. “At PRI, we think one of the most important things we can do is increase public awareness about the remarkable rate of today’s human-induced Earth system change.”

The web site, scheduled to go live on March 1 (www.priweb.org/globalchange.html), will focus on climate change and biodiversity loss, and will explain how these elements of our environment have changed through time, how they are changing now, what the future might look like, and how humans are affecting these changes. The site will include a section for educators, providing activities, materials and resources available for different age levels on the topic of global change.

The exhibit is scheduled to open to the public on Earth Day, April 22, as part of the Museum's annual Earth Day celebrations, and will be interactive, encouraging visitors to learn about climate change and how different forms of energy, e.g. coal, wind, and solar, affect the environment.


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