A few months ago (at the end of March), SDSS Members spent a Saturday taking part in the Big Data Fest at the New York Hall of Science, in Queens, NY.

This event was aimed at helping people find out how data is relevant to their lives and featured interactive experiences focused on data literacy and data gathering and visualization.

Chang Hahn and Yuqian Liu from NYU ready to go with the SDSS booth

Seven SDSS members in total helped out – six from NYU (Chang Hahn, Yuqian Liu, Nitya Mandyam Doddamane, Kilian Walsh, Ben Weaver, and Mike Blanton), along with Guang Yang who travelled up from Penn State University (PSU). This group ran one of about a dozen booths spread throughout the Hall of Science buildings in between the regular exhibits.

The SDSS booth contained an SDSS plate, along with a large-scale printout of the imaging for the part of the sky it was designed for. There was also a set of flash cards with images of galaxies on them, next to an invitation to try classifying them. Visitors were invited to take a card home with them if they wished. There were laptops running both Galaxy Zoo and the SDSS SkyServer. The SkyServer demo was set up to allow visitors to explore the data taken with the plate on display. Finally a monitor displayed a loop of videos about SDSS from the SDSS YouTube Channel.

Galaxy flashcards ready for classifying.

The audience were made up of a mixture of children, teenagers and adults (including some who were very scientifically literate). The location in Queens meant that it was mostly NY area residents – with fewer tourists than Manhatten based museums attract.

Nitya Mandyam Doddamane and Yuqian Liu talks about SDSS with some visitors, while Chang Hahn is running a demo of Skyserver.

This event at the NY Hall of Science is just one example of SDSS scientists around the world working to engage members of the public with our data. If you are running a similar event and might be interested in seeing if SDSS would be able to participate, please contact outreach ‘at’ sdss.org and we will try to connect you with your nearest SDSS institution.