One of my favorite finds at the Walt Disney Family Museum yesterday was this flow chart of a Disney animated film, created in 1943 as part of an employee handbook for their Burbank studios. I love how it details the relationships among all the of the hundreds of people involved in a film production, from …
Today I finally got a chance to spend some quality time at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Situated in a stately building that was originally an army barracks in the Presidio, the Disney Family Museum is dedicated to the life and legacy of Walt Disney. As a long-time Disneypark nerd — I’ve …
In my department, we just found out that we carry these adorable mini-plushie tardigrades (water bears) in our store. A bunch of us immediately ran down and bought out the sets that were on display, which confused the store clerks. "We've been carrying these for months," one of them explained. Tardigrades are of course much, …
Attention all educators, artists, scientist, facilitators, and otherwise generally awesome people. The California Academy of Sciences’ Youth Programs is looking for the perfect person to help lead our Teen Advocates for Science Communication (affectionately known as the TASC Force) program as the new Assistant Manager. What is the TASC Force? Well, TASC is one of …
Tonight was the second annual "Teen Science Night" at the California Academy of Sciences, what we believe is the largest teen-led celebration of science in a museum in the country. We welcomed more than 1,000 young people to take over the museum for the night, doing cool science demos, showing off awesome tech toys, dancing …
I'm excited to share the news that the California Academy of Sciences will be hosting the second annual Teen Science Night on Friday, August 15th 2014, for Bay Area teens to engage with the fascinating world of science. Teens (13-18 years old) are invited to join us from 6:30-9:00pm at the Academy in Golden Gate …
This is me at my job. Yeah, I'm a lucky duck. On Friday, I had the awesome opportunity to join our new head of research and sustainability Dr. Meg Lowman for some tree climbing in the Cal Academy's east garden. Dr. Lowman, also known as "Canopy Meg," is a champion for forest preservation and …
Are you a Bay Area teen who loves science, wants to geek out about technology, and is interested in making digital media with other teens? Â The Academy wants you! I’m excited to announce that Digital Learning at the California Academy of Sciences is launching a new program for high school-aged youth called the “TechTeens.” We’re …
To get this blog started, I wanted to provide some background on what the Digital Learning program at the California Academy of Sciences has been doing since it was launched about three years ago. Over that time, I’ve loved getting to design fun and engaging youth programs that combine my interest in tech and my …
Welcome to my new blog, RangerRik.com! This is where you will find my thoughts and activities from my work as a digital learning educator and program developer at the California Academy of Sciences. This is also where I am going to share out lots of the awesome work, tools, approaches, conversations and events happening …