Bill Nye’s Climate Lab
This hands-on exhibition featured celebrity science guru Bill Nye in a hopeful, solutions-oriented experience that showed kids and families how their everyday actions can help create our clean energy future.
At Bike with Bill, visitors pedaled along with Bill Nye while helping people find clean transportation options.
Bill Nye’s Climate Lab explored the effects of climate change on Earth’s interconnected systems, and shared green design and technology innovations that yield long-term benefits for human health and the planet.
This groundbreaking exhibition used gameplay to engage youth and their families and teachers in the topic of climate change in a fun and empowering environment.
Visitors received unique Climate Agent ID cards containing RFID tags. The RFID cards allowed visitors to choose an avatar, collect points at a dozen interactive stations that explored solutions to climate challenges, and continue gameplay through a companion website and multi-level adventure game.
Award: Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award for Visitor Experience, Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC)
Bill Nye’s Climate Lab features tools and techniques used by climate scientists, showing how scientists decipher our planet’s climate history with samples of ancient ice, trees, and mud.
In a hot air balloon observatory, visitors learned how atmospheric jet streams affect our weather and climate.
A vehicle design challenge invited visitors to design the cleanest vehicle to transport cargo between two cities.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Project Type & Size
Long-Term Exhibition
4000 square feet
Location
Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, CA
Project Role
Project direction, content and experience development; liaison with museum leadership, science advisory committee, and production partners; collaborate on marketing and communications planning
Collaborators
Senior science advisor: Bill Nye
Exhibit design: Amaze Design
Interactive design & development: Proximity Lab
Exhibit writing: Jessica Brainard
Fabrication: General Graphics Exhibits, Group Delphi, Gizmo
Media production: Media Factory
Image credits: Bill Nye water intro © Nelson Reeds; Mud core display by Don DeBold, CC BY 2.0; Lab entry by Rusty Lamer; all others © Chabot Space & Science Center