{"id":7198,"date":"2020-02-26T19:26:30","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T19:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/ccb\/?p=7198"},"modified":"2021-07-15T19:45:03","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T19:45:03","slug":"raven-exhibit-aiding-stem-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/ccb\/raven-exhibit-aiding-stem-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Raven Exhibit Aiding STEM Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Using the STEM Model to Customize a Raven Exhibit<\/a> for The Macedonia Forest Block Important Bird Area<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Customizing
Customizing a Raven Exhibit. Credit Joseph Westgate (Class of 2020)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This blog is a guest post from Olivia Pignataro, a high school junior (Class of \u201921) at Marvelwood School in Kent, Connecticut. This is the first post in a multi-part blog from Olivia and her instructor Laurie Doss, Science Department Chairperson at Marvelwood School. The blog explains how student groups and other organizations can create customized Raven Exhibit demonstrations for their own communities. This project takes place at the Macedonia Forest Block Important Bird Area in the northwest corner of Connecticut and is part of a Conservation Training Partnership Project through the University of Connecticut Natural Resources Conservation Academy<\/a> and Kent Land Trust.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the name might suggest that a <\/span>Raven Exhibit is a place to visit in a zoo where one would see a bird called the Common Raven (<\/span>Corvus corax),<\/span><\/i> it is actually the name for an interactive display portal that can provide an immersive and educational experience on a topic of your choice! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The <\/span>Cornell Lab of Ornitholog<\/span>y created software allowing users such as schools, nature centers, museums, and zoos to customize their own <\/span>Raven Exhibit in order to visualize sound and associate the sound with a particular wildlife species or habitat. Another untapped potential of the software is that<\/span> it could help museums to creatively showcase their art, music or other collections. Currently, around the globe, more than 20 of these informative exhibits have been installed but there is room for so many more exhibits! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Aerial
Aerial image of the Marvelwood School campus by Oliver Sanchez \u201920.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Raven Exhibit software allows participants (students and adults) to utilize <\/span>STEM (<\/span>Science, Technology,<\/span> Engineering and <\/span>Math) identities to collaborate in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math to create meaningful, information display portals. A customized Raven Exhibit developed by Marvelwood School may help educate others in our community about the <\/span>Macedonia Forest Block Important Bird Area and the responsibility we all share, young and old, to protect and provide habitat for birds. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ideas, Inspiration, and Action<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Marvelwood School is a small, independent boarding school in Kent, Connecticut, with a long history of community service and experiential learning opportunities, especially in environmental sciences. Our teacher, Laurie Doss, attended a <\/span>week-long introductory-level Sound Analysis Workshop offered by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. During this workshop, in addition to learning how to use <\/span>Raven Pro<\/span><\/a>, a sound analysis program, one of the workshop instructors, Ashakur \u201cAshik\u201d Rahaman, introduced the workshop participants to <\/span>Raven Exhibit. Ms. Doss\u2019s wheels started turning; she wondered if there was a way we could combine the grant we were writing in our Field Research and Advanced Ornithology class to purchase passive acoustic recorders to document birds for the Connecticut Bird Atlas Project, with the creation of a Raven Exhibit display to showcase birds found within the Macedonia Forest Block Important Bird Area. The grant was successful!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Converting
Converting natural sounds into an audio visual experience with Raven Exhibit. Credit Joseph Westgate (Class of 2020).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of this blog is to share our experiences building a Raven Exhibit as an example for others to learn from as they create their own exhibit. We experienced many roadblocks and multiple detours during our project\u2019s journey, and we believe our tips and templates, using our project as a model, will be a useful guide for others to build their exhibit more rapidly than it took us to complete our journey!<\/p>\n\n\n\n