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“Cool Science” ~ UML/GSE and Commonwealth’s students educate LRTA commuters about climate change
“Cool Science” is a program at UMass Lowell in the Graduate School of Education. The program allowed students across the Commonwealth to participate in a project whereby they could teach others about the science of climate change through art. For this competition, David Lustick and Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier – both Associate Professors at the UML/GSE – asked students and teachers to choose one of the following questions to address with their artwork:
- How does climate change impact your local community?
- What historical trends, patterns, and evidence help us understand climate change?
- What question about climate change would you like to ask a scientist?
The reward for the top six entries? They would receive a $50 gift card and the “art” would be displayed on the Lowell Regional Transit Authority (LRTA) buses. Here is the outcome of the latest project as blogged by Eliot Silver on www.Lowell.com.
Schoolchildren to be Honored for Art that Educates Commuters
Posted by Elliot Silver on Apr 02, 2015 | Community Updates | ShareThis
UMass Lowell will honor schoolchildren from across the state – winners of the annual Cool Science contest – for creating artwork that is educating public-transit passengers about the effects of climate change.
The competition asked elementary-, middle-, and high-school students to create posters that depict concepts behind climate science. The contest’s winning entries are displayed inside Lowell Regional Transit Authority buses and commuter terminals through June, where they are seen by thousands of patrons daily. Now in its third year, the public-education initiative caught the eye of The Advertising Club of Greater Boston’s Hatch Awards, which honored the program.
This year, Cool Science received more than 500 submissions from students at 28 schools around Massachusetts.
The event will feature an exhibition of the students’ art, both in a gallery display and on and inside an LRTA bus that will be parked on site. Artwork on the side of the bus was created by Mi Choi, a sophomore at Belchertown High School. Other students scheduled to participate in the awards ceremony are from Chelmsford, Holbrook, Lowell, Marblehead, Milton, North Andover, Rochester, Somerville, Taunton and Tyngsborough.
Speakers are scheduled to include Nashua, N.H., resident David Lustick – who was recently honored at the White House for his work on Cool Science – and Westford resident Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier, both associate professors in the university’s Graduate School of Education, who are leading the program with Prof. Robert Chen of UMass Boston.