POTTSTOWN PA – Some of the best public speakers explain that two important items help win over an audience. The first is a thorough knowledge of your topic. The second is the use of a helpful visual aid.
Students attending communication studies classes at the Pottstown campus of Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) recently relied on both in hoping to impress their assistant professor, Meredith Frank.
Frank looked to a global display system called Science on a Sphere®, which fills a portion of the lobby in the college’s South Hall on College Drive, to inspire her students. She assigned them to research, create, and present informational speeches about the sphere, and to use its features to highlight their talks.
The sphere is similar to a giant, animated globe. Its computers and video projectors display information about the planet on its four-foot-diameter carbon fiber surface.
The professor says she wanted her speakers to see how the tool could enhance future presentations. “The goal is for them to practice giving an informational speech” and also demonstrate using the sphere in creative ways, she says. Hopefully, Frank adds, they “will want to use it again in other classes.”
Photo by Eric Devlin, provided by Montgomery County Community College
A Memorial Gift, in Perpetuity
The sphere is supported by a gift from North Coventry residents Carl and Silvia Landis, in memory of their sons Paul and John.
The “Carl and Sylvia Landis Science on a Sphere Endowment Funds” pay in perpetuity for sphere maintenance and upkeep. They also perpetually support students in kindergarten through 12th grade who participate in STEM extension activities, like those involving the sphere itself or the college’s Challenger Learning Center.
Choosing Sphere-Suitable Topics
Students selected topics intended to effectively utilize the sphere’s animation capabilities. It includes planetary weather patterns, and the effects of climate change. Frank says she appreciates how students incorporated the sphere into their presentations. Plans are already in the works to used the technology again during the coming fall semester.
Students Wynter Liebel, Luke Wisniewski and Delilah Freitas said their speeches benefited from the tool.
“I thought it went really well,” Liebel says. “It’s a great presentation room, and I really liked the lighting and the secluded feeling the space gives you,” Wisniewski adds.
“This was my first speech by myself, so it was a bit nerve-wracking,” Freitas admits, but she says learning how to use the sphere “was fun. I’m very much interested in climate change, so learning about it and having that interest made it more comfortable. I think this is a good tool for people to use.”
Bringing New Tech Into Classrooms
This isn’t the first time Frank has found innovative ways to incorporate new technology into the public speaking classroom.
The League for Innovation in the Community College, an international non-profit organization, recently presented MCCC with a 2024-2025 Innovation of the Year Award to MCCC. It recognized the college’s Virtual Reality for Public Speaking Skills project.
In the project, students can wear virtual reality headsets to practice giving speeches. Frank was among the first to introduce the headsets into her classroom.
The sphere is available for use by all college faculty and staff, to enhance programs or facilitate events. With information from more 600 datasets collected by satellites from NOAA and NASA, the college calls the sphere “a powerful experiential and educational learning tool, designed to help illustrate Earth system and planetary science to people of all ages.”
For more information about Science on a Sphere®, send an e-mail to sospottstown@mc3.edu.
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