Goals for the expedition

Why am I taking 3 months to leave what I enjoy most (working at our local science museum here in Ithaca, NY) to do this trip?

Ever since spending a year in Germany as a post-doc in civil engineering in 1987-8, I've had the sense that Europe is ahead of the U.S. in terms of valuing environmental concerns. Back then, I saw standardized community recycling stations in many communities. I saw that taking care of air quality, water quality, and preserving forests were a regular way of life. I saw many signs that corporate respect for the environment was considerably higher than in the U.S.

20 years later, the need has now become acute to preserve our environment and to reverse trends such as global warming, overuse of groundwater, and acidification of the ocean, to name only few.

So my goal is simple: to find out what what is to be learned about the ways in which various European museums have influenced the attitude of their audiences about the environment.

Do they stick to safe subjects, such as well-established topics in science, and avoid the issues?

Do they provide information on their local environment, such as animals to be identified or plant communities to be recognized?

Do they address topics like climate change and go the next step toward advocating action? If so, how? And how have they assessed the effectiveness of their efforts?