"That's really one of the most challenging issues in science today,” MSU Museum Director Mark Auslander said. "We have enormous amount of data, but it's very hard sometimes to make sense of all the data that we have."

That issue could become partially resolved with the use of Science on a Sphere. The idea is to make the concept cross-disciplinary, as the technology isn't strictly for STEM-minded students. 

"So, we're going to be working with students in many, many colleges, including communications,” Auslander said. "We're interested in everything from environmental journalism to geography to geophysics to many other fields and they're going to be creating original data sets that will be displayed on science on a sphere."

The MSU Museum has to purchase the sphere from NOAA, as well as purchase all the equipment to run Science on a Sphere. It requires a high-tech control with special conditions for a large amount of servers, wifi and other computer services.

"Visitors can just come in at any time and be able to interact with the sphere," said Exhibitions Manager Teresa Goforth. "So there will be a touchscreen by the sphere so that they can explore the different data sets depending on what their interests are, whether it's land use or water or the atmosphere."

The MSU Federal Credit Union, or MSUFCU, granted the museum $150,000 in the form of a challenge grant to fund the sphere. A challenge grant is a way to provide lead funding for an initiative which leads to an incentive to find other donors to raise the rest. This puts the museum at a little over halfway to its funding target, and there's another fundraiser aimed at friends of the museum to raise another $100,000. 

"We have been a longtime partner with the museum with a variety of programs...the alignment of the values of the museum for providing learning and education opportunities to students and faculty of MSU matches with our philanthropic efforts," MSUFCU CEO April Clobes said.

The goal of the sphere is to help advance some of the research conducted by MSU professors, according to Clobes. The sphere of science isn't strictly for majors in the STEM realm, but is to become a very interdisciplinary tool for all programs.