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G o d d a r d E a r t h - S u n E x p l o r a t i o n D i v i s i o n

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“The publications of scientists concerning their individual work have never been so copious—and so unreadable for anyone but their fellow specialists. This has been a great handicap to science itself, for basic advances in scientific knowledge often spring from the cross fertilization of knowledge from different specialties.”

— Isaac Asimov, 1965

About science & communication

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G o d d a r d E a r t h - S u n E x p l o r a t i o n D i v i s i o n

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• To effectively build relationships with our audiences ...

There are fish

Give people some fish

Teach people to fish

Equip people to fish

Take people fishing

… because information is the new currency.

What are our goals?

Raise awareness

Educate (Informally)

Educate (Formally)

Enable & Empower

Interact & Facilitate

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Evolving Our Earth-Sun Science EPO Program

David Herring • 301-614-6219 or 202-358-5703 • david.d.herring@nasa.gov

• Who are our target audiences?

• Some strategic considerations

• Earth Observatory as case study

• NEO as a future direction

• Ideas for the future

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Decision Makers

Sci Policy Leaders

Educators & Students

Science Attentive Public, Citizen Scientists

Commercial & Operational Data User Communities

Science Interested PublicsResidual Public

Museums, Science Centers, and After School & Community-based Programs

Stratified Model of Our Target Audiences

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NASA HQ

Public Media

Public Continuum

• Moving up the pyramid, these audience segments decrease in size while increasing in influence

• Characterize the information needs, wants & expectations of each segment, then tailor our products/programs accordingly

• At ~40 million American adults, the ‘science attentive public’ is a particularly beneficial audience to target

• NASA needs better internal communications & synergy, as well as across-agency collaborations

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G o d d a r d E a r t h - S u n E x p l o r a t i o n D i v i s i o n

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Decision Makers

Sci Policy Leaders

Educators & Students

Science Attentive Public, Citizen Scientists

Commercial & Operational Data User Communities

Science Interested PublicsResidual Public

Museums, Science Centers, After School, Community-based Programs

Working Groups Mapped to Audiences

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Group 4: Informal Ed- Earth Explorers Institute- Earth to Sky- Earth Observatory- NEO

Group 1: Inreach / Outreach

- Looks at improving internal communications, particularly regarding policy relevance &/or societal applications

Group 3: Formal Education- Targets national & state decisionmakers- Emphasis on unique data sets & tools

NASA HQ

Public Media Group 2: Public Media

Public Continuum

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Our IPY Workshop Goals & Objectives

1. Promote Earth Science literacy among our audiences

2. Increase support for NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise• Convey the importance and uniqueness of NASA Earth

science program and its myriad applications among science policy leaders

3. Develop the next generation of Earth scientists

4. Learn to communicate (self-evaluate and establish feedback loops) • Develop improved communication tools & techniques

5. Support development of applications with commercial and operational entities

6. Enable and empower our communications partners (e.g., museums, science centers, media providers)

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• NASA conducts Earth system science• The Earth is a dynamic, interconnected system• NASA produces new insights into our changing planet• Earth science is important and useful for our future• Earth science improves quality of life• Earth science is a dynamic profession, done by real people• Earth science is a viable career path• NASA supports Earth system science education (formal & informal)

• NASA collects and shares unique data sets• NASA observes the whole globe and global changes from the unique

perspective of space• To understand global change, we need NASA’s ability to provide a global

perspective• There are limits to our natural resources that we are able to observe

Our EPO Main Messages

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• NASA drives new technology development• NASA technologies are essential to observing & understanding

changes in the Earth’s climate system• NASA provides state-of-the-art new remote sensors • NASA observes the whole globe and global changes from the

unique perspective of outer space• To understand global change we need NASA’s ability to provide a

global perspective• NASA also observes the Earth from aircraft-based and surface-

based platforms as well

Our EPO Main Messages

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http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov

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• GOAL To significantly increase the demand for NASA RS data while

dramatically simplifying public access to georeferenced images• OBJECTIVES

Couple the ability to browse NASA satellite images with the ability to order matching data via a single, integrated gateway

» Initially, the MODIS data set (Version 1)» Ultimately, a representative megaset of EOS data (Version 2)

All images georeferenced & downloadableClickable shopping cart w/ facility for order HDF data from DAACsA gateway that manages users’ expectations, details about images &

data, links to software tools, customer support contact info, etc. Scalable so that can also eventually include other missions’ data,

model data, and GIS data» Version 1 to be published as ‘open source’

David Herring • 301-614-6219 or 202-358-5703 • david.d.herring@nasa.gov

Kevin Ward • 503-977-2970 • kevin_ward@ssaihq.com Alex McClung • 301-867-2115 • alexander_mcclung@ssaihq.com

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• Our target audience is relatively unsophisticated, non-traditional

data usersFormal & informal educators

Museum & science center personnel

Professional communicators

Citizen sciences & amateur Earth observers

• Their four main reasons to visit NEOTo obtain Earth images for a publication (articles, posters, kiosks, etc.)

To obtain and port images over to analytic tools for formal or informal educational lessons (ICE tool, Multi-spec, etc.)

To obtain and display images in geospatial browsers that enable data layering (World Wind, ArcGIS, GeoFusion, GoogleEarth, etc.)

To browse scenes and then order HDF data with the click of a button

Who will come to NEO & why?

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Sample Collaborations with Museums

Tokyo Science Museum “GeoCosmos” (~20-foot spherical TV)

National Museum of Natural History Forces of Change

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Little Expertise with NASA DataPercentage of EEI institutions who … Percent

have expertise on staff for working with Earth Observing System Hierarchical DataFormat (EOS-HDF) data.

23%

have the software tools in house for working with EOS-HDF formatted data. 14

prefer to work with NASA data in its original EOS-HDF format. 14

prefer to work with data in more familiar image formats (GeoTIFF, PNG, or JPEG). 64

have staff expertise for working with Geographical Information System (GIS) tools. 27

have Geographical Information System (GIS) software tools in house. 32

have staff who are familiar with the EOS Data Gateway (EDG). 27

have successfully ordered NASA data via the EOS Data Gateway at least once. 23

find that the EOS Data Gateway meets our needs for NASA data. 14

would prefer it if NASA would develop another data gateway tailored to meet theneeds of formal and informal educators.

46

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N E O

MODIS Discipline Groups’ Science

Computing Facilities

MODISRapid Response System

ECHO

GES DAAC

LP DAAC

NSIDC DAAC

Conceptual Overview

Routinely producing, harvesting & indexing of global & regional images

Credit goes to the MODIS discipline groups & MRR Teams doing the “heavy lifting”

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• Atmosphere Products• Aerosol optical thickness • Cloud fraction / cloud mask• Fraction of fine aerosol • Cloud particle radius• Water vapor • Cloud optical thickness

• Ocean Products• Sea surface temperature (day) • Water-leaving radiance• Chlorophyll concentration

• Land• Land cover classification • Snow & Ice cover• Daily surface reflectance • 8-day albedo• Global fire maps• Land surface temp (day & night time)• Normalized Difference Vegetation Index• Leaf Area Index

Initial MODIS Data Products

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Image Specs & File Format

• Spatial resolutions

1 km, 5-minute granules: 1800 x 1800 and 300 x 300 pixels

Global-scale products at 0.1 and 1 degree: 3600 x 1800 and 360 x 180

Platte Carre is our preferred projection

• Temporal resolutions

1 day, 8 or 16 days, 1 month

• File format

8-bit binary number arrays, grayscale for products

Natural color is the exception

Users have the option of accepting our palettes, or devising their own

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Compatible with GoogleEarth

• Screen shot

MODIS Level 2 SST over New Zealand

Opacity adjusted in GE

A good indicator of open compatibility & wide utility of NEO

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http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov

• Prototyping began in 1998

with 1.5 FTE and no budget

(three people donating their

time)

• First published in April 1999

Today, we’ve grown to 6 FTE!

• Still lacking budget stability

We are at risk of losing some or all of this effort from year to year

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• First published Earth Observatory on April 29, 1999In February 2002, the EO & VisEarth were the #1 and #3 most popular Web

sites at GSFC, respectivelyBoth sites remain among the Top 5

• Total unique visits in April 2004: 496,412Total unique visitors in April: 244,332 An average of 8,144 unique visitors per day

• Total amount of data served: 586 GB (19.5 GB per day)An average of 626 global data sets served per day

• Total subscribers: currently 37,576 (gaining ~9 per day)1st year: 9,254 (~ 23 per day)2nd year: ~17,000 (~ 21 per day)3rd year: 23,940 (~ 19 per day)4th year: 34,216 (~ 28 per day)5th year: 37,576 (~9 per day)

Quantitative Assessments

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• From May 4 - 18, 2004, we surveyed both site subscribers & visitors and received a total of 3,717 (+1,896) responses

Quantitative Assessments(see http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/SurveyResults/)

• 509 Teachers (14%,+2%)

• 238 Students (6%, -4%)

• 673 Scientists (18%)

• 224 Media Professionals (6%, +2%)

• 94 Legislative Officials (3%)

• 1,979 “None of the above” (53%)

General Public

Scientists

Public media

Legislative

Teachers

Students

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• If you had easy-to-use software and easy access to RS data,

would you take up Earth observation as a hobby?Almost two-thirds (63%) said “Yes” and 29% (+2%) said “Maybe”

2004 Survey Results

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Public Media Legis. Teachers Students

Yes

Maybe

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• Many people are not aware of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise28% of public visitors to Earth Observatory did not know NASA studies the Earth before visiting our site

• 91% of public visitors said the EO makes them want to learn more about Earth34% Strongly agree57% Agree7% report “no influence”1% each either “disagree” or “strongly disagree”

2004 Survey Results: The Public

Agree

Strongly Agree

No influence

Disagree Strongly disagree

57%

34%

7%

The EO makes folks want to learn more.

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2004 Survey Results: Teachers • Teacher Feedback (511 respondents, +287)

50% (+13%) were undergraduate or higher, 30% (+3%) were 9 - 12 grades, 13% (-8%) were 6 - 8 grades, 6% (-9%) were K-5

67% (+4%) of respondents teach Earth science or related course(s)

Most of our respondents encourage students to visit the EO — 35% (-17%) said “Often,” and 41% (+12%) said “Sometimes”; 11% said “Never”

Most of our respondents incorporate materials from the EO into their class- room lessons

» 29% (-15%) said “Often,” & 43% (+5%) said “Sometimes”; 12% (-2%) said “Never”

Incorporate EO materials in classroom

Sometimes

Fairly often

Very often Never

Once or twice

12%

16%

43%

21%

9%

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• Student Feedback (239 respondents, +59)87% (+6%) were undergraduate or higher, 8% were grades 9 - 12 (-5%), and

3% (-2%) were grades 6 - 8

Interestingly, 74% (+6%) said their teachers “Never” encouraged them to visit the EO — indicating students are finding it on their own

66% (-3%) of respondents have used the EO as a reference tool when doing schoolwork assignments, while 34% (+3%) have “Never”

Use the EO for schoolwork assignments?

2004 Survey Results: Students

Never

Yes

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• Student Feedback (239 respondents, +59)

The EO helped 55% of student respondents to consider taking science courses in the future

The EO helped 36% of respondents to consider becoming scientists

2004 Survey Results: Students

Considering future science coursework?

No influence

Agree

Strongly agree

36%

42%

19%

Disagree

Considering becoming a scientist?

No influence

55%

Agree

27%

Strongly agree

9%6%Disagree

Strongly disagree

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• Scientists’ Feedback (672 respondents, +325)83% of respondents not affiliated w/ ESE or EOS; 17% said “Yes”

Scientists read popular articles outside their disciplines quite frequently — 16% (-10%) said “Daily,” 12% said “5 to 6 times per week,” 19% said“ 3 to 4 times per week,” and 31% (+4%) said “1 or 2 times per week”

56% (+21%) consider the EO as a viable medium for publication, while only 18% (-10%) said “No”

98% of respondents rated the content in the EO as “Good” or “Very high” quality

» 2% rated us “Average”» One individual rated us “Very low”

Rate the quality of EO content

2004 Survey Results: Scientists

Very highHigh

Average

Very low