I’m excited to announce that I will soon be taking on a newly created role at the Academy, the Senior Instructional Design Lead for Science Action Club. This is a new position working with our largest youth program, the Science Action Club (SAC), a high-impact STEM learning program that designs professional development and teaching kits for middle school afterschool …
Just a teaser that on Monday I have some exciting news about my new role at the California Academy of Sciences. Meanwhile, here's a video of one of our biologists introducing our Digital Learning TechTeens to a Giant Pacific Octopus under our care.
I have been helping lead one of our teen project groups for the internship program at the Academy. Project groups are opportunities for our interns to work together on some longer term project or topic, supported by a staff person, over the course of a semester. My project group is called “Big History”, a group of five teens …
This past weekend at the California Academy of Sciences, nine teams of teens from across the Bay Area (including SF, Oakland, North Bay, and the peninsula) gathered to rapidly develop digital climate games on the topics of Bay Area food, water and energy for the 2nd annual Science Game Jam. The game jammers were ably …
I just read a chapter from the book Behavior Change Theories and Free-Choice Environmental Learning (2009) that examines behavior change theories as they apply to environmental learning and action. The author Nicole Ardoin of Stanford University reviews several relevant behavior change theories that are particularly relevant to institutions that offer "free-choice" environmental learning. That is, places …
Check out this super fun music video produced by some dancer friends of mine, an homage to our sister science museum the Exploratorium! Big congrats to main instigator and star Jade Stone!
I’m in a dance battle with Oliver, one of our teen museum volunteers, trying to move like a peacock spider in love. His moves are slightly better than mine — his head grows to enormous proportions and sprouts antennae. Then fuzzy legs spring from his abdomen. I am … still me. My dance moves just …
I'm excited to share the news that the California Academy of Sciences is hosting our second annual Science Game Jam from April 23-24 at our museum. It's going to be a fun and exciting weekend of game jamming around science topics for select Bay Area teens. Applications to participate in the jam have just opened, and …
I finally got a much coveted "women in science" LEGO set, which took the internet by storm a couple of years ago! For those that don't know, LEGOS has a system called "LEGO Ideas" for people to propose to the toy company sets that they want produced. If at least 10,000 people vote for that design, …
I'm so excited to share the news that the California Academy of Sciences is unveiling our latest planetarium show on March 11, "Incoming!" The full-dome presentation tells the story of how asteroids and comets have collided with our planet throughout its history and have dramatically shaped live on earth. It's a really great science show …