Breaking Down Barriers
Supporting Community Engagement and Effective Science Communication
In Case of Cellulose dives into the digestive tracts of four species - human, panda, horse and cow; and explores how cellulose is digested differently.
We have discontinued the Breaking Down Barriers program but will continue to make available its web resources. If you have questions, please email us.
Activity Kit
Misconceptions about evolution are addressed in Geology Park as participants must travel a scaled model of deep time. In addition to exploring the radiations of important phylogenetic groups, participants can also collect data useful in reconstructing the past.
Article
Mammals exhibit remarkable variety in their sense of hearing; from elephants communicating with infrasonic sounds to bats navigating their environment through echolocation calls at ultrasonic frequencies, many non-human mammals hear outside the typical human hearing range.
Activity Kit
This project uses Climatograms to determine change in precipitation over the last 100 years, using Pittsburgh, PA as a reference point. Participants pick a time point and build the precipitation for that year using counting cubes.
Activity Kit
The activity, Climate Change on File: Trees as Environmental Secretaries, by NCSE Graduate Student Outreach Fellow Taryn Dunivant describes many environmental conditions that trees rely on and face and how they become recorded in their wood.
Activity Kit
Choose from three modular activities, developed by NCSE Graduate Student Outreach Fellow Meera Sethi, to achieve linked learning goals. In the first, historic vs. contemporary photos of the same glaciers dramatically illustrate the retreat of mountain ice.
Activity Kit
Engage in a climate-health discussion focused on the spread of West Nile virus, transmitted by mosquitoes which flourish during the warmer, wetter conditions brought about by climate change.
Activity Kit
As the climate continues to change, we see changes to the hydrologic cycle occurring worldwide.
Activity Kit
Mosquito populations are predicted to extend their ranges to new areas as a result of climate change. This brings about concerns for the spread of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, Zika, and West Nile.
Activity Kit
Many cities act as urban heat islands, significantly warmer than their surrounding areas due to human activities. Our warming climate will only make these cities hotter, leading to intense heat waves and lowered quality of life.
Activity Kit
Warming oceans and melting landlocked ice caused by global climate change may result in rising sea levels. This rise in sea level combined with increased intensity and frequency of storms will produce storm surges that flood subways, highways and homes.