Contributions to Support Climate Change Public-Education Program
07/17/2013
Contacts: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu or Christine Gillette, 978-934-2209 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu
LOWELL, Mass. – UMass Lowell has launched its first-ever crowdfunding campaign, seeking support for a program that provides climate-change education to schoolchildren in the classroom and commuters in the neighborhoods where they live, work and shop.
In the next three weeks, donors to IndieGoGo at www.indiegogo.com/projects/cool-science will help fund the second phase of the Cool Science program. The initiative invites the state’s students to create illustrations depicting their understanding of climate issues and transforms the best of these submissions into educational media displayed on the outside and inside of Lowell Regional Transit Authority buses and bus terminals. An estimated 5,000 commuters a day throughout Greater Lowell saw Cool Science’s first educational campaign, which ran from January to June.
That campaign was funded by a one-time grant from the UMass President’s Creative Economy Initiatives Fund. Cool Science was so successful its leaders want to continue the program, broadening its reach in the coming academic year with the help of public support.
Donors to IndieGoGo may give gifts of $10 to $5,000 in support of the project, with UMass Lowell providing matching funds of up to $5,000 donated through the website. All donations are tax-deductible. As they did during the first campaign, the Lowell Regional Transit Authority and Anastas Advertising Associates of Lowell will donate the advertising space for the initiative. Funds raised will help implement the initiative’s next phase, which calls for the program to expand beyond the LRTA to other mass-transit authorities across Massachusetts.
Cool Science is led by David Lustick of Nashua, N.H., and Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier of Westford, both professors in the UMass Lowell Graduate School of Education, along with Prof. Robert Chen of UMass Boston. Last year, the initiative received nearly 600 artwork submissions from students at more than 30 elementary, middle and high schools across the state. During a six-month run from January to June of this year, the top six student entries were featured in the Cool Science LRTA educational campaign and the other honorees’ work was featured on the Cool Science website. To view all of the winning submissions, visit www.coolscience.net.
“We hope the crowdfunding campaign helps rally the community around the important issue of climate change,” Lustick said. “Media such as billboards and bus placards are so effective in marketing products and services. We want to find out how these media can help teach scientific concepts to people. Using students’ artwork to communicate these concepts is a powerful learning experience for everyone involved.”
In engaging the public on the Internet, the crowdfunding campaign mirrors the way Cool Science engages the public in learning about science via the mass-transit system. Both initiatives are innovative ways of reaching as many people as possible, according to representatives of the UMass Lowell project.
“Crowdfunding websites help make giving more immediate, fun and personal for donors who want to see the impact of their gifts immediately,” said Louise Griffin, UMass Lowell’s director of corporate and foundation relations. “They are also a great way to engage younger donors. We expect this pilot project to be the first of many UMass Lowell crowdfunding campaigns.”
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