The UI Mobile Museum will be visiting communities throughout Iowa this summer with a variety of exhibits, including contributions from two centers based in the College of Public Health.

The centers created digital content for an interactive touch-screen display.  The content from Iowa’s Center for Agricultural Safety and Health (I-CASH) focuses on rural safety topics.

“We’re presenting five main topic areas: livestock, ATV use, tractors, fatigue, and hearing protection,” says Brandi Janssen, director of I-CASH. “When you touch a topic on the screen, you get a question, such as ‘how many people are injured by livestock each year?’, and then information about how some of the I-CASH youth injury prevention grant projects have addressed each issue.”

The UI Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRC) partnered with the UI Children’s Hospital, Hank Virtual Environments Lab, and the UI Office of Sustainability for topics on bicycle safety.

“We tried to highlight all the bike research, advocacy, and safety outreach taking place at the university,” says Cara Hamann, a post-doctoral scholar who helped develop the IPRC portion of the presentation.

The IPRC section includes a map showing police-reported bicycle-motor vehicle crash locations in Iowa and information about biking behavior research that uses a bicycle simulator.

The Mobile Museum was launched in 2014 as a partnership between the UI Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development and two of its reporting units, the Office of the State Archaeologist and the Pentacrest Museums, with the mission of bringing exhibits with cutting-edge research, one-of-a-kind artifacts, and interactive digital media to Iowa’s communities statewide.

During its first year, the Mobile Museum visited 48 Iowa communities across 36 counties, seeing 33,433 visitors. This year’s travel plans include RAGBRAI and the Iowa State Fair, along with other community events and school visits.