Events

May 17th, 2024 - September 20th, 2024

The Exploring Climate Change Through Art exhibit debuted at the Mesa Laboratory at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO on May 17th, 2024. The exhibition included 39 works of art from 32 local artists including the punch needle tempestries from local middle school students from Casey Middle School.  The event was a collaboration between Friends of the National Center, Museum of Boulder, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Center for Science Education. The climate tempestries created by Casey Middle School students was on display during this four-month exhibition. 

March 16th, 2024 

Data-driven art made another appearance at CU Science Discovery's largest, free community event of the year - Family STEAM Fest 2024. This year, participants created a community quipu, inspired by the ancient Incan data-keeping artifacts. Participants were provided temperature and precipitation data for Boulder, Colorado from 1956 to 2020. After finding the correct color of fabric to represent the temperature in their chosen year, they added large wooden beads to represent the total amount of precipitation (in) for that year. Facilitators engaged in rich discussions with participating families over trends in the data while producing a beautiful hanging art piece from the event. 

January 20th, 2024

CU Science Discovery partnered with the CU Museum of Natural History, and the CU Museum of Art to create a three-part series entitled Science Art Nature - Ciencia Arte Naturaleza exploring science's connection to nature through art with families of gifted and talented Latinx students from the Boulder Valley School District. During the January event,  CU Science Discovery hosted a total of 32 adults and 40 students and led attendees through three different data art projects: Ojo de Dios, Climate Quipus, and Tree Cookies. 

March 11th, 2023

During CU Science Discovery's largest single-day community event, Family STEAM Fest, visitors to the community data-art station (pictured to the left) created a histogram of climate data. Participants looked for their birth year, identified the average high temperature during that year, and hung colored fabrics to create a histogram that captured not only a beautiful representation of temperature change in Boulder, Colorado over time, but also data on the birth-year of participants!

December 2nd,  2022

Dr. Alexandra Rose, education and outreach coordinator for the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research program (LTER) and CU Science Discovery, initiated the project with Casey Middle School students and science, art, and AVID teachers at the school to help the students create climate tempestries using punch needles to show temperature trends in Mazatlan, Mexico and Boulder, Colorado. The data show the average temperature across a year, coded by color, in 1923 and almost 100 years later in 2021. This project took place during school time over the course of several weeks. 

Read More: https://outreach.colorado.edu/article/middle-schoolers-use-needlework-to-make-a-point-about-climate-change/