ALL NEW 2007 EDITIONS

EARTH UPDATE is an interactive, real-time display system of Earth images and data designed for Museums and Schools and available to the general public as a "museum in a case"! Running from the CD-ROM, the program displays hundreds of images and movies of the best of earth images and data, documented, with web references of how to find out more. Roughly 15% of the material represents "today's data" - weather maps, bioactivity maps, earthquake maps, etc. By copying the software onto a hard drive, you can see "today's data" by downloading today's images free from the internet with a single click. Museums can subscribe to our automatic updating service. Each of the submodules can be run separately, resulting in 6 different kiosks if desired. Over a million visitors have interacted with our software in museum and school settings. This powerful software suite is now available for purchase as a single CD which includes both Mac OSX and Windows (2000/XP) versions!

System Requirements
Frequently Asked Questions

EARTH UPDATE currently includes 5 modules and 3 games!:
ATMOSPHERE
Topics include hurricanes, weather, cloud cover, ozone hole, and much more.

BIOSPHERE
Topics include bioactivity maps and much more.

CRYOSPHERE
Topics include glaciers, sealevel rise, icebergs breaking off; daily data include ice coverage.

GEOSPHERE
Topics include plate tectonics, seismology; daily updates include earthquake maps and volcano maps.

HYDROSPHERE
Topics include El Nino, ocean currents; daily data include ocean temperature and wave height.

If you run our software suite on a computer attached to the Web, you can, with a single click, download today's images free from the internet.



Sample screen from EARTH UPDATE : HYDROSPHERE module

EARTH UPDATE is written in Macromedia Director and is NOT the same software which is directly accessible from the Web. The complete program is ~200 MB, with many movies and sound. Both real-time images and instructive sample images are provided. Web references are always available, so that a visitor can learn more on his or her own. The system is all "point and click", with no technical ability required. Reading level is middle-school, although even non-readers enjoy the simple navigation and gorgeous imagery. The software is easy to use - each image can update on demand with a single click, like a browser, but since it is a captive program, it is safe for unsupervised use (the visitors are not allowed unlimited access to the often inappropriate material on the web). Included on the CD-ROM are stand-alone versions of each of the modules, plus a linked version of the total EARTH UPDATE program. The architecture is simple and open - users can easily find the images or movies on the CD and use them in creating curricula or student reports. New topics can be added easily at any time.
 


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The "Public Connection": is an outreach arm of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University in collaboration with the Houston Museum of Natural Science [ Project Director: Patricia Reiff ]. This project is funded by NASA as part of the Earth Science Information Partners.
The project was originally part of NASA/Goddard's Digital Library Technology Project, and now is part of the Learning Technologies Program.
ACCESSED BY connect@space.rice.edu

UPDATED: 01-19-07