Carnegie Mellon University Skyglow Projects

Assuming the role of a local public official, we wanted to effectively educate our audience about light pollution issues using a trifold educational brochure to achieve responsible nighttime lighting for the community. The brochure focuses on concrete suggestions and actions that can be taken to help improve the nighttime sky and an impetus for trying to make a difference in the first place.

This project is an educational short film about a boy and his frog best friend, Gorbo, and their journey in discovering the night sky. The film uses narrative storytelling to communicate an educational experience about light pollution and its effect on nighttime visibility of the sky to young viewers. Because the film is meant for children but is attempting to communicate a translatable experience, the film would be animated in a realism style to attain an eye-catching charisma.

This art installation aims to introduce the idea of light pollution when people interact with

Light pollution, often overlooked amidst the hustle and bustle of urban life, has a profound impact on our environment and community. As a local official committed to fostering a sustainable and vibrant community, the idea for this project was to create an informational brochure that would help constituents identify, understand, and combat light pollution in the community. The brochure seeks to shed light on the extent of light pollution and its consequences on various aspects of our lives, such as ecology, public health, and the preservation of cultural heritage.

This project aimed to develop a teacher’s lesson plan about light pollution and wildlife with an emphasis on experiential learning and with two objectives: how it could be introduced outside of the classroom using the local landscape to explore the different scales of light pollution and how light pollution could be framed as a complex environmental, social, and health concern, rather than a topic exclusive to STEM. The target audience is middle and high school students, but the content could be simplified for younger students.

This project created an advertisement video as the means to best communicate with lighting designers and the lighting industry to incorporate better dark sky practices in their work. Beginning with a brief introduction of light pollution, the video covers some of the best dark sky implementation methods to reduce skyglow, along with direct examples and applications to combat light pollution.

In a storybook format for teachers, this project examined how light pollution affects animals in numerous ways, including behavioral modifications, ecological effects, and conservation implications. Some of the most important discoveries include the disruption of natural light/dark cycles, altered feeding and foraging patterns, alterations in sleep and reproductive behaviors, and confusion in animals. Additionally, alterations in community structure and biodiversity, changes in predator-prey interactions, and disturbances in plant-pollinator interactions are all brought on by light pollution. As a result, light pollution threatens vulnerable and endangered species, causes habitat fragmentation, and necessitates the adoption of conservation techniques and mitigating practices.

Among all the LED lights we used at night, LED screens and billboards are one of the most common one, so our project focused on how we could modify LED billboards to physically reduce light pollution and evoke more people’s consciousness on light pollution. The first design for the LED billboard folded the upper part of the billboard at a 45-degree angle to project the light downward. The second design is composed of “Lehman asymmetrical” material. This material could modify the screen by increasing the top sight angle and decreasing the bottom sight angle, which also reduces the amount of light that goes into the sky.

This project focused on reaching out to local officials, who possess the power to raise awareness among their constituents. The objective is to create pamphlets catering to different levels of knowledge, enabling citizens to understand and combat light pollution more effectively. The materials aim to be easily reproduced, cost-effective, and in easy-to-understand language to engage a broad audience.

Not all lighting designers and specifiers are knowledgeable about LED lighting’s issues. This project focused on identifying effective, efficient and light pollution limiting techniques that professional lighting designers can implement into their projects. Its goal is multidimensional: raising awareness, bringing lighting designers together to communicate and help one another, and receive advice from fellow lighting designers on how to decrease light pollution.

The goal of this project is to inform the public about the importance of anti-light pollution legislation and encourage them to act within their own communities by advocating for local legislation. This project proposed an easy-to-read information brochure for distribution at local community centers. The brochure dedicated two panels to introducing the reader to the types of anti-light pollution legislation available including evidence that supports them. To support implementation, the brochure concludes with examples of supporting actions communities can take to build community consensus and implement them.

Using Schenley Park in Pittsburgh as a prototype, this project identified three lighting scenarios to illustrate how artificial lighting can impact birds and other wildlife in park-like settings and solutions for each to mitigate lighting’s nighttime impact. The three accessible scenarios were: street lighting on a park roadway, a stroll along a dark trail in the park, and an information pavilion capable of demonstrating lighting types and ecological lighting solutions to create habitable nighttime settings safe for both wildlife and humans.

Using the software Prezi as a host, this project proposed populating an interactive multimedia platform, “Illuminate”, as an innovative educational tool to raise awareness about light pollution among adults who are interested in environmental issues. As a database, Prezi is capable of creating many levels of information adding more detailed information about a topic or issue. The authors proposed utilizing high-quality visuals, including graphics, animations, and videos with clickable infographics and interactive maps that would allow users to explore various aspects of light pollution in greater detail.

This project proposed an infographic from the persona of a town official working in an environmental protection agency of a local government. The infographic is to inform community members about the little-known issue of light pollution and its impacts. It was designed to contain pictures, minimal text, and three main sections: why should I care about light pollution, what is being done (on the global and town level), and what can I do?

Imagine a platform where students can satiate their curiosities about the visibility of the

Through engaging storytelling and vibrant illustrations, this project created a children’s book to educate young readers about the negative impact of excessive artificial light on the night sky and nocturnal wildlife. The book tells the story of Stella, a bright and curious star who embarks on a journey to find her missing sparkle. The project fills a gap in the current market of children's literature and aims to inspire future generations to become advocates for dark skies and sustainable practices.

This project sought a way for public officials to easily communicate with their constituents the issues of light pollution and build a consensus for action. The result was a video designed as a preface for community gatherings that covers general information about light pollution, what Pittsburgh was doing to mitigate its effects, how citizens can get involved, and citizens’ concerns about safety.

Bats play an important role in the environmental ecosystem, yet most people are unaware of their contribution. These nocturnal creatures help maintain a balance with the insect population that benefits our food chain and those of animals. This project developed an educational pamphlet about how light pollution damages this species which, in turn, has a multiplying effect on other environmental concerns. Intended for an adult audience, the pamphlet draws on facts and statistics commonly shared between scholarly articles about bat populations with the hope the information will intrigue others to become more interested.

This project produced an illustrated children’s storybook designed as a teaching aid for elementary school teachers. It examined the effects of light pollution on migratory birds relating to their flight patterns and general health. This storybook is intended to empower children with techniques they can use to mitigate the serious problem of light pollution.

For use by local government officials to educate their citizens about the harmful effects light pollution has on their communities, this project proposed an interactive infographic for presenting actionable information through simple graphics and short text blurbs. The infographic developed a typical residential street scene with prompts for users to open that describe different nighttime lighting issues that create harmful effects for humans and all living things. The infographic is intended to be expandable by adding multiple layers of increasingly more informative facts, including items from the internet, for curious users.

A multi-part, interactive classroom lesson plan about astronomy and light pollution for upper elementary and middle school students. The plan includes teacher-led storytelling about the history and myths of the night sky, a hands-on student construction of a “planetarium-in-a-box” to observe how artificial light obscures star visibility, student worksheets that include personal reflections, and group discussions about the ecological consequences of light pollution. The proposed lesson plan draws from literature review of how students learn-by doing and the value of experiential demonstrations in addition to light pollution information and best-practice solutions from DarkSky International and the National Geographic Society.

This project proposed a plan to establish a dark sky observation zone within Schenley Park, a large city park adjacent to Carnegie Mellon University. The objective was to locate a place suitable for viewing the night sky and Milky Way from within the city of Pittsburgh. Through numerous visits to the park a suitable site was found, an educational program and experience was developed, and design features including an accessible access pathway, lighting that meets DarkSky International’s guidelines, signage, and landscape modifications were proposed. The goal was to carve out a moment of stillness within the city – a place where a student, family, or a curious visitor can step into the woods, look up, and rediscover.

This seven-minute YouTube video discusses the impact of light pollution on insects. Intended for adult environmentalists who understand that protecting the environment and insects is a worthwhile goal but has the additional aim of convincing people who are not focused on the environment that working with environmentalist groups to improve lighting design is a good thing to do. The video is in sketch, or storyboard, form with audio that makes a convincing argument that insects and humans share more than we may think when it comes to the harmful effects of light pollution.

An educational game, “Light My Way,” was the focus of this project that developed a lesson plan and game involving simulated settings, including a park, a neighborhood street, and a city street, where a player can place different lighting solutions into these settings and receive immediate feedback about their light pollution mitigation implications. Given a budget to work with, a player needs to balance cost vs lighting solutions that have varying degrees of light pollution properties. Its intention is to create real-world scenarios that require balancing mitigation intentions with their cost, where sometimes it is better to pay a higher cost for environmentally sustainable solutions. To make the game more interesting, intermittent “disaster” and “helper” cards are introduced that add challenges, but if a player can meet mitigation thresholds one can proceed to the next round and setting. Players learn lighting vocabulary and an understanding of different lighting types, their properties, and costs that public officials face when implementing retrofit lighting programs.

A curated photo exhibition titled “Reclaim the Night” designed to educate and inspire good-practice lighting actions within communities. Using visual storytelling and real-world examples, the exhibition illustrates how communities around the world have addressed the growing issue of light pollution without compromising safety, development, or quality of life. Each photo represents an International Dark Sky Community (now DarkSky International) that has successfully reduced light pollution, and is accompanied by descriptions of policy changes, lighting retrofits, and community events that supported their transitions.

An educational slideshow titled “ LED Streetlighting: A Guide for Public Awareness” is intended for use by local officials to help them communicate clearly and effectively with communities about the impacts of LED streetlighting. The slideshow covers LED lighting basics, clears up common misconceptions, highlights potential harms, and suggests responsible implementation practices. Intended for use in council meetings, neighborhood briefings, and community workshops. The slideshow’s intentions are to make science and policy more accessible so that a someone without a technical background can make informed decisions and better engage with their community.

Development of an educational mobile app, Starry Night, designed to raise awareness of users’ personal contributions to light pollution and encourage meaningful behavior change as part of a broader research initiative exploring how individual actions can mitigate light pollution. The app awards users for completing light-conscious activities such as dimming lights or closing curtains. Interactive learning modules explain the environmental and health impacts of artificial light and the app is designed to sync with smart phone systems, GPS, and phone sensors to provide positive feedback and foster eco-friendly lighting habits. The project described the app’s learning modules, real-time sensing and tracking using the phone’s camera, and reminders to implement better lighting solutions for others to develop the software.

An interactive simulation of light pollution causes and solutions for adults to achieve better residential lighting for their homes. The simulation involves a virtual residential property set in an urban community at nighttime where users can turn on and off lights both indoors and outdoors and adjust their brightness and color temperature to achieve best-practice solutions for achieving dark sky objectives. For each location, the selected light will visually show its effect on creating or mitigating light pollution and provide a text box describing its contribution. The user can experiment with a variety of different lighting combinations and receive real-time feedback about their choices. The project described the simulations in detail along with visual examples for others to develop the software.

A five-day interactive lesson plan about light pollution, including an introduction to light pollution and its four types: glare, skyglow, light trespass, and light clutter. Each day’s lesson includes a topic description, a video specific to the light pollution topic, teacher questions to encourage discussion, and an interactive student game. The plan also includes ideas for take-home assignments that engage their parents or caregivers for later student presentation to the class.

Formal communication by local officials, such as speeches and reports, are more trusted by citizens. This project developed an agenda and program for a local official’s event communicating the need for dark skies that included an Announcement Flyer, a word-by-word 20-Minute Speech, and a Follow-up Questionnaire. Its objective was to create and easy and effective way for local officials to inform their communities about the need for local dark sky initiatives.