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Patrick Hamilton, at center, Science Museum of Minnesota’s director for the Water: H2O=Life exhibit, receives the NGWREF grant check from Foundation directors Jack Henrich, MGWC (at left), and Mark Husnik, CSP (at right). |
Thanks to a grant from NGWREF, wells and ground water will be an integral part of a traveling exhibit on water that will tour the world’s leading science museums.
The 7,000-square-foot exhibit, Water: H2O=Life, opened November 3, 2007
at its first stop, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New
York City, where it ran through May 27, 2008. (View highlights from this exhibition) After New York, the exhibit travels to the San Diego Natural History Museum (July 19-November 30, 2008), the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) (January 17-April 26, 2009), Chicago’s Field Museum (June 12-September 20, 2009), the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland (November 14, 2009-April 11, 2010), and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (March 12-September 5, 2011).
Destinations outside of North America include the Singapore Science Center; Instituto Sangari of Sao Paulo, Brazil; and the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. The organizers of the exhibit, AMNH and SMM, expect more than three million people to see the exhibit during its several-year run. Additional stops are being explored by the exhibit's organizers, as well.
The exhibit, which focuses on all sources of water, features live animals, hands-on exhibits, and immersive dioramas.
"We expect the exhibit to invite people of all ages to discover the beauty and wonder of water and explore the challenges to protecting Earth's most precious life-giving resource," says Patrick Hamilton, SMM’s director for this project.
The ground water portion of the exhibit features "Porous Stones," an exhibit component intended to help dispel the common misperception that ground water occurs largely as underground lakes, rivers, and "veins" of water. Visitors are encouraged to trickle water onto various rock samples to observe that some have sufficient porosity and permeability to permit water to enter and flow through them.
Also featured is a component that shows what may happen when two wells access the same aquifer. When water is pumped from one of the wells (by turning a hand crank), the pressure in the aquifer drops as a cone of depression spreads out until it reaches the recharge area of the aquifer, the discharge area, or both.
A third ground water component is featured in the three-dimensional GeoWall animation. It shows how ground water underneath Tucson, Arizona, has fluctuated during the past several decades in response to ground water pumping and recharge.
"It is important for the ground water story to be told as often and as widely as possible," says Foundation director Mark Husnik, CSP. "We're delighted to be able to be a part of this comprehensive exhibit."
"Efforts that contribute to greater public understanding of the drinking water resource of half of the nation’s population will contribute to better stewardship of the resource," adds Jack Henrich, MGWC, also a Foundation director.
"At less than two cents per visitor, we can’t find a more cost-effective means of reaching the general public with these important messages," Kevin McCray, NGWREF executive director, explains.
Major support for the exhibit was provided by the National Science Foundation, with leadership support from the Freshwater Society and the Tamarind Foundation in association with the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.