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Press Release
Global Factors, Local Impacts: NYSCI Launches Global Science and Technology Initiative with $2 Million Award from Google
4-06-11
Queens, N.Y. – The New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) today announced a $2 million award from Google, which will help launch NYSCI’s new Global Science and Technology Initiative, a project to engage the public in understanding the global nature of science and the social, economic and environmental factors that make our communities thrive or fail. The Initiative will include a suite of components, including educational games, interactive presentations, “citizen scientist” mobile apps, and a new signature exhibition for NYSCI’s Great Hall.
“The Global Science and Technology Initiative will provide NYSCI visitors with an interactive learning experience where they can analyze and interpret interconnected sets of data,” said Margaret Honey, President and CEO of NYSCI. “The Initiative will employ powerful computational tools for aggregating and visualizing information. These facts and figures will then be translated into activities and exhibits that make for an evocative, highly personal visitor experience. Schoolchildren, teachers and families will gain an understanding of how all this data from disparate global sources affects their daily lives. We are thrilled to receive this award from Google, enabling us to launch the Global Science and Technology Initiative.”
The award to NYSCI was one of seven announced by Google to science museums nationwide. The recipients are located in communities where Googlers volunteer and have ties, with funds being used to meet diverse needs of the museums, from the construction of new facilities, to the development of new exhibitions, to new curricula that will extend their work outside of the museum walls. “By transforming the curious learners of today into the innovators of tomorrow, museums perpetuate both creativity and accomplishment,” said Google’s Chief Technology Advocate, Michael T. Jones. “That’s why I am thrilled that Google is supporting beloved science museums including the New York Hall of Science.”
Work on the Global Science and Technology Initiative will commence this year, culminating with the new Great Hall exhibition in 2014, the 50th anniversary of the iconic structure that opened at the 1964-65 World’s Fair. The Great Hall, with its undulating 80-foot concrete and blue, dalle de verre glass walls, was designed by Wallace Harrison to give the illusion of being in deep space. At the World’s Fair, the Great Hall hosted an exhibition about space exploration, the greatest global aspiration of the time. Now, in the 21st century, the Great Hall will once again invite audiences to explore the most immediate issues of global significance—the unprecedented rate of social change, technological advancement and population growth, and the impact of these on our planet.
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