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Water: H2O=Life exhibit

Thanks to a grant from NGWREF, wells and groundwater are an integral part of a traveling exhibit on water that is touring the world’s leading science museums.

The 7,000-square-foot exhibit, Water: H2O=Life, opened November 2007 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where it ran through May 27, 2008. (View highlights from this exhibition.) After New York, the exhibit so far has been to the San Diego Natural History Museum, the Science Museum of Minnesota, Chicago’s Field Museum, the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and is currently installed at COSI (Center of Science and Industry) in Columbus, Ohio (March 17-September 3, 2012).

In addition to Canada, destinations outside of North America include the Singapore Science Center; Instituto Sangari of Sao Paulo, Brazil; and the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. The organizers of the exhibit, AMNH and SMM, expect more than seven million people to see the exhibit during its several-year run. Additional stops are being explored by the exhibit's organizers, as well.

The exhibit, which focuses on all sources of water, features live animals, hands-on exhibits, and immersive dioramas.

The groundwater portion of the exhibit features "Porous Stones," an exhibit component intended to help dispel the common misperception that groundwater occurs largely as underground lakes, rivers, and "veins" of water. Visitors are encouraged to trickle water onto various rock samples to observe that some have sufficient porosity and permeability to permit water to enter and flow through them.

Also featured is a component that shows what may happen when two wells access the same aquifer. When water is pumped from one of the wells (by turning a hand crank), the pressure in the aquifer drops as a cone of depression spreads out until it reaches the recharge area of the aquifer, the discharge area, or both.

A third groundwater component is featured in the three-dimensional GeoWall animation. It shows how groundwater underneath Tucson, Arizona, has fluctuated during the past several decades in response to groundwater pumping and recharge.

"It is important for the groundwater story to be told as often and as widely as possible," said then-Foundation Board Chairman John "Jack" W. Henrich, MGWC, CVCLD, at the start of this project. "We're delighted to be able to be a part of this comprehensive exhibit.

"Efforts that contribute to greater public understanding of the drinking water resource of half of the nation’s population will contribute to better stewardship of the resource," added Henrich.

"At less than two cents per visitor, we can’t find a more cost-effective means of reaching the general public with these important messages," Kevin McCray, CAE, NGWREF executive director, explains.

Major support for the exhibit was provided by the National Science Foundation, with leadership support from the Freshwater Society and the Tamarind Foundation in association with the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

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