I'm excited to share the news that the California Academy of Sciences has a acquired a state-of-the-art high resolution microscopic camera called the "Magnify2," created by the company GIGAMacro based in Napa, California. It looks, frankly, totally badass. The Magnify2 is billed as a "complete, high performance, precision robotic 3-axis linear motion control, image …
Check out the beautifully designed new website of the California Academy of Sciences. Planned to better serve our many audiences, to showcase the wonder and beauty of our collections, and work well on a variety of different devices from a cell phone to a 25" monitor, the new calacademy.org launched today. Surf around and tell …
The Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) Conference is one of my industry’s main gatherings of the year. It brings together more than 1,500 museum and science center professionals from hundreds of institutions from around the country and the world. This year it was held from October 18-21 in lovely Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s always fun and stimulating …
This morning I got up at 4am to catch the live broadcast by NASA of a spacewalk by astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore on the International Space Station. Their mission was to replace a malfunctioning "sequential shunt unit" that regulates electricity generated by one of the solar panels on the ISS. Sounds super boring, but …
The California Academy of Sciences invites high school students to participate in a Game Design Playshop on November 8th and November 15th. Ethicist Mark Budolfson and award-winning game designing Chris Bennett will lead teens in designing tabletop (board, card, dice) games around important, natural science issues like climate change and ecology. Students will combine science …
I'm so excited to return to the Association of Science and Technology Centers annual conference (ASTC), from October 17-19 in Raleigh, North Carolina! My youth programs team and I are involved in more sessions and panels than ever. Here's a quick snapshot of where you can find us at the Raleigh convention center. Date Title Time …
I got a new iThing so I decided to try out the timelapse video function on one of the simplest, and yet most attractive bit of technology we have at the California Academy of Sciences : Foucault's Pendulum. Foucault's Pendulum is found at science centers and museums around the world, since was first exhibited in …
My youth programs team at California Academy of Sciences is hiring a specialist for our Science Action Club. It's a great program and my team is the best. From the job description: The Science Action Club (SAC) program engages middle school youth in hands-on science exploration through partnerships with local afterschool providers. Youth in SAC conduct outdoor …
My educator colleagues at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburg are in the midst of a minor internet brouhaha (see wonkette and jezebel) over some apparent disparities in their workshop offerings for Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, as exemplified by this image that has been making the rounds. Infuriating, right? Sexist, right? Well the story is a bit …
In case you didn't know the mermaid lifecycle, our Cal Academy TechTeens have made a handy infographic that explains it. Seems about right to me. #science