From Earth to Us: Training guide

Big Idea: To meet our needs and wantsover time, Canadians have developed and used technologies to transform the Earth’s natural resources and in the process we change the world around us.

Storyline:

What do we need and want in our daily lives?What is the correlation between our needs and wants and the natural resources sector? This exhibition will present: i) how by transforming natural resources we yield our essentials, comforts and conveniences, ii) how these transformations impact the world, and iii) how as our needs and wants have and continue to change over time so does the way we transform natural resources. This exhibition will be presented from a Canadian perspective.

Modules:

A – Needs and Wants

Big Idea: For me to have and use products, food, transportation, and daily comforts and conveniences, we transform natural resources.

Core message: There are things in our lives we need, and things that we want, and to obtain these, we transform multiple natural resources.

Experience summary:

  • Exploded products (smartcar, salad, toaster, Barbie’s dream house) – learn about the chemical elements, natural resources, materials which go into the products we use daily.
  • Lighting, heating, cooling artifacts – we transform natural resources to have modern comforts and conveniences
  • Transportation needs – gas station artifacts
  • Needs and wants sorting interactive

B – Materials

Module Big Idea: To satisfy our needs and wants we produce objects from materials which come from natural resources.

Module Core messages:

  1. Our everyday products are made from four categories of materials which are produced from natural resources.
  2. Material properties inform their use as products.
  3. The properties of the elements contributes to material properties.
  4. Over time, the materials that we have developed and used to produce things around us have changed.

Experience summary:

  • See and touch different materials (representing each category)
  • Experiment with material categories and encounter select material properties in the material test lab – slides (friction) and bouncing balls (elasticity)
  • Periodic table interactive- licenced from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, this touch screen game allows visitors to interact and combine chemical elements into reactions, and to see which of them go into their daily products.
  • See how the materials that are used to make irons have changed over time, providing different properties to this item.
  • New materials – from new techniques (fold forming) to new materials (cellulose nanocrystals)

C – Steel

Module Big Idea: To transform natural resources into a product we use various tools, technologies and processes. Case study: steel.

Core messages:

  1. Steel is an alloy of various elements that we extract from the Earth.
  2. We have been developing steel for thousands of years and have altered its characteristics to meet our needs and wants.
  3. Canadians develop scientific knowledge related to steel processing.

Experience summary:

  • What goes into steel? Visitors see various chemical elements that go into steel and learn about the different properties that each element imparts to steel.
  • Types of steel – visitors can touch a few of the more than 3500 types of steel.
  • How do you make steel? Visitors interact with 3 hands on stations representing key steps in the steel making process. Accompanying this will be an infographic showing how steel is made.
  • History of steel making models – Visitors see detailed models which capture three times within steel making history (Pre-industrial steel, Forges St. Maurice, Bessemer process)
  • Vases -

D – Mining

  • Prospector’s tent
  • If it’s not grown it’s mined – a digital interactive where visitors identify objects in a picture that come from mining.
  • Mining from then to now, and beyond – From the world’s oldest mining car to Lunabot – a robot designed to move minerals in space.
  • Mining lamps – visitors see a range of mining lamps over time, and use a touch screen to navigate through additional photos of them in use.

E – Fertilizer

F – Energy

  • Energy street – encounter energy basics and learn about the 10 sources in Canada’s energy mix through a diversity of experiences – from artifacts to interactives to games.
  • Hydroland – see artifacts, learn about the story of Niagara Falls, install a dam and see how it changes the landscape.
  • Canada’s nuclear expertise – see artifacts and

G – Oil

H – Climate change

  • Immersive glacier
  • Hear voices of people affected by climate change in this immersive audio and visual experience.
  • Climate change 101
  • Weather vs. climate
  • How do we know the climate is changing?
  • Climate change mitigation and adaptation

I - Water

Collection highlight:

Energy collection – Sault St. Marie control panel and generator; Motor-generator set + governor from Adams Power House at Niagara; AC Tesla Westinghouse generator; oil pumps and drill bits from Alberta and Oil Springs, ON; ZEEP and Tokomak; VAWT and HAWT; solar tile and a solar panel; tidal turbine; biomass samples

Mining collection: Lunabot rover, Canada’s oldest mining car,

Sample visitor experiences:

Visitors will discover fascinating stories of people who made and used artifacts exhibited in the gallery.

Locating and extracting resources: Visitors will play the role of a prospector and use prospecting tools to find resources. Visitors will try their hand at remote mining. Visitors will experience changing work conditions in mines through interacting with mining lamps and mining drills. Immersive Drilling/Mining experience: Immerse yourself into a working mine. Be transported virtually down a shaft and explore the surroundings. Virtual Mining: Dig for minerals in a virtual mine using a “sandbox” smart table interactive.

Energy: Experiment with water, wind and solar energy. Power your cell phone using hydroelectric energy. Race solar powered toy cars. Experiment with wind turbine design and configuration to maximize your power generation. Explore 3D mapping on a nuclear reactor.