Science and Education in Biodomes

Guinnessy writes: "Many of you will remember the excitement around biosphere 2, a project to enclose 8 people in a sealed environment to see if they could survive a year on just the resources produced inside the dome. It failed (although they did discover some interesting data from it). Now, in the UK, a bunch of scientists, engineers and environments have created the Eden Project, a similar scheme (e.g. closed environments mimicking various climate conditions around the world) to biosphere 2 except the general public can walk through the domes to learn about the importance of plant life. Wired News magazine has an excellent article explaining some of the technology used in its construction (it amazed me how far they have come compared to the biosphere 2 design) and how it is educating the public." Hey, according to Mission to Mars all you need is some flapping canvas to keep your habitat secure.

Comments

A refreshing change in education

[NoNeeeed]

"We've gone back to basics with the educational. We've avoided multimedia for now. It's a strange sort of thing ... people talk about interactive learning, but it's actually very passive," says Kendle.

I like this man already. There has always been so much hype about using computer based multimedia in education and museums, and most of it is rubbish. People just stand there looking at computer screens.

Yes, you might be able to get lots of information but it gets pretty boring very quickly. There is nothing like the hands on displays at places like the science museum in london. Even just moving between displays is more interesting than staring at yet another screen.

Another good example of an educational museum is the Norskbremusset (Norwegen Glacier Museum) at Fjaerland Norway. Lots of hands on stuff. If you ever go to that part of Norway it is worth a look.

Paul

The two projects are very different

[Maddog Batty]

I live about 30mins from the Eden Project so I can truely say that is has been a very impressive project in both its construction and its finished state. The biomes are gigantic, the pictures really don't give you a feeling of exactly how big they are. The technology is great as well. The glass is in fact a couple of layers of plastic blown up with gas. On UK TV, they recently balanced a car on one of the cells to show its strength even though the plastic itself is rather thin. Its claimed that the structure weighs less then the air it contains though I do find this hard to believe.

However, the comparison with biosphere 2 is rather strange as the two projects are very different. The Eden Project is basically a big green house. It has never been sealed and has never had that intention. It has value as an educational tool and there are some science studies going on but this is minor. Beyond its construction (which is bleeding edge), I found the biosphere 2 project far more interesting.

With the biosphere 2 project, the entire environment had be controlled. As they found, this is very difficult to achieve and needs to be sorted before any attempts for Moon or Mars bases can start. It should be interesting to see what the next attempt at a sealed environment achieves.

A few links from the BBC and from Google for the Eden Project.

Domed Cities

[Alien54]

Given the generic rise in Air pollution (though this is being address to some degree), I wonder how much of this is going to be practical or applicable to the science fiction vision of domed cities.

The classical domed city is entirely self contained. But a domed city where it wasn't sealed tight could maintain a better environment inside while not having nearly so many of the hassles. Abundant plants to keep the air clean in the dome, etc.

This is't a new idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Montreal have been having one of those for many year now, and I am sure a couple of other city have one too...