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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.
1. Pick a location.
2. Build a small enclosure around yourself.
3. Define yourself to be on the outside.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
It's totally breathtaking. It's just the most awesome theme park I've ever been to. The story does exaggerate slightly, it makes it seem like they are working ecosystems, but in fact they are just big greenhouses. Really big greenhouses, wrapped in the world's largest sheets of bubble-wrap. Hands off, no popping it!
One of the most impressive things about the Eden Project is the simple proximity of such diverse environments to one another - you can walk from a sub-tropical jungle to a european woodland; the similarities and differences between the environments are highlighted, though the flora/fauna imbalance is noticeable.
They made a good try at it, and if they ever activate this eden project it would be nice to see if their's works. But biosphere was doomed from the start and many many scientists were saying so from the beginning. They were lacking a correct sized human waste processing system, the amount of fauna was way too low, and trying to create ALL ecosuystems was plain stupid. Pick a easy to care for system and use that. using all high growth rate plants and high nutn plants is the best route plus you need to take account for the fact that plants will consume Oxygen in the night phase.
Even when Biosphere was being built it didnt seem that they were even trying to build it right and that it was more of a publicity stunt instead of a real research project.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Does that mean the environment was closed after an initial air-supply in order to let its contents re-generate its required oxygen itself ?
If this were the case this would be quite exciting as by just carrying this "life-bubble" on other world we could settle there with the minimum needed.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
"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
Paul Leader
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.
wot no sig
Ahh, the Eden project is about 1 mile from where I grew up in Cornwall, and where my parents still live. It is an awesome project for the millennium and it was great to see it being built. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to go back there since it was completed.
One great thing about the project, is the interest and tourism that it's bringing to the local area - Cornwall has always been a beautiful place for people to visit, but now there's another reason to go as well.
This is an excellent use of one of the open-cast pits left over from the china clay mines that are scattered around that region of Cornwall, taking what was an eyesore and turning it into a thing of beauty. The Eden project is everything the Dome should have been in London.
If ever you're in the area, make a special effort to go and visit the project - it's really something special that you can't see anywhere else - not really anything like the Biosphere2 project - they're entirely different things, with entirely different objectives, on entirely different continents!
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
As for the biospheres themselves, one is a Tropical biome, and the other was Mediteranien (I think that's what they called it); the Tropical one is the big dome on the left, and the Med is the smaller one on the right. Of the two, the tropical one is better (as of now). It takes about half an hour to walk through the thing, and (especially the higher up you go in the dome) it gets bloody hot and humid in there. I went on a September day where I was wearing pants and a fleece outside, and within about ten minutes of beingin the Tropical dome I had ditched the fleece and rolled my pants into shorts. Its got all sorts of funky plants in there (including baby pineapples growing, bananas, and these odd frying-pan water lillies), a big waterfall that runs into a stream, to both add make it look pretty and keep the humidity up. What was really nice was that they didn't chintz the place up like many museums do - there were a few things like that, but for the most part they let the plants speak for themselves, and the small signs explain them - you can see a manilla plant that the paper for manila envelopes comes from.
The Med biome, on the other hand, kinda sucks. It's not really hot enoungh in there, and as Med climate plants don't grow as fast as Tropical ones, it seems a bit sparse in places - but they do a very nice job of decorating that half of the place.
The thing that needs to be remembered about the Eden Project is that the thing is really new. It's been open for about eight-to-ten months, and needs more time to grow. All the trees planted outside arn't ready, and the biomes need more time to grow and flourish. And they need to get anew supplier of Ice Cream in the Cafe. Having said that, Eden was a very pleasant weekend out. The train was like four hours or so from London, so you could do it in a day if you're hardcore. I personally went down for the weekend, doing Eden on one day and the Lost Gardens of Heligan (another gardening project) the other day. The place is cool now, and will be amazing in a few years. And it looks bloody cool when you arrive by car, coming around the corner and you just see these domes down there - and you just know it's gonna be in a James Bond movie sometime :P I highly recomend the place if you're in London and have time to get down to Cornwall.
Cue The Sun...