Reception for New OmniGlobe at UW Geological Museum Oct. 14

The University of Wyoming has some new teaching technology in the form of the OmniGlobe, which comes preloaded with more than 300 datasets to explore our Earth, solar system and society.

Digi-Know?, UW’s Innovate Tech Open House Series, continues Thursday, Oct. 14, from 3-5 p.m. with a reception to demonstrate the OmniGlobe in the UW Geological Museum. Refreshments will be provided.

“The OmniGlobe was purchased with program fees specifically to assist in classes and labs,” says Laura Vietti, collections manager of the UW Geological Museum. “The Digi-Know Open House Series is an awesome collaboration between several tech-focused units on campus to promote use and collaboration between us.”

The OmniGlobe’s datasets are organized in the following broad categories:

-- Geophysical science, which includes visuals on plate tectonics, volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis.

-- Atmospheric science, which includes visuals on air currents, pollutants and climate models.

-- Oceanography, which covers ocean currents and temperatures.

-- The natural Earth, which includes visuals on snow, ice, hurricanes, biomes and plant covers.

-- Astrophysics, which covers the solar system, exoplanets and the Death Star from “Star Wars.”

-- Ethnographic data, which includes poverty, death rates and other population statistics.

The OmniGlobe is available for use in conjunction with any class at UW, and it also can be used as both a museum piece available to the public and a teaching tool, Vietti says.

While campus use of the OmniGlobe is ramping up, the UW Geological Museum will soon bid farewell to its “Wyoming Oceans” exhibit. The current “Wyoming Oceans” exhibit has been in place upstairs for decades, with its most recent change occurring around 2012. The late Donald Boyd, UW’s last invertebrate paleontologist, developed the display to highlight the common marine fossils that lived in Wyoming.

“In honor of Don’s lifework and contributions to UW, we are updating ‘Wyoming Oceans’ to make the exhibit more modern, accessible and immersive, but we are still using many of Don’s hand-picked specimens,” Vietti says.

For a video of the OmniGlobe, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IZe27-lDsc.

For more information about the reception, email Vietti at geolmus@uwyo.edu.