Working at the Cal Academy, I have spent a good amount of time in our aquarium, particularly our main setpiece, the giant Philippines coral tank. I must admit I have wondered if the sheer diversity and density of life in our tank actually represents what you would encounter here in the Philippines. Having done several dives …
As I mentioned in a previous post, we’ve got a really neat makeshift lab that we’ve set up in the dining area of the Atlantis Beach Resort. I did a little walk through and spotted these cool specimens that were recently collected. Kelly Markello was working on this beautiful echinoderm. It appears to be leeching …
Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on a snorkeling dive with Rich Mooi, curator of invertebrate zoology at the Cal Academy. Dr. Mooi is one of the principal investigators of the expedition and an expert on marine invertebrates, particularly sea urchin. He’s also an amazing illustrator and science educator. So really a triple threat! …
We’ve arrived! After about 20 hours of flights from San Francisco to Honolulu to Guam to Manila, an overnight stay in Manila, a three hour ride in a van, and a one hour boat ride, we finally arrived at the Atlantis Dive Resort in Puerto Galera yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, April 7). I have not spent much …
I’m off to the airport, but before I go I wanted to give you alls an easy way to follow along on the progress of our researchers and outreach team in the Philippines. We’ll be tweeting using the hashtag #casfieldnotes. There’s already a bunch of really interesting tweets posted by our researchers who are there …
[crossposted from the "Academy Adventures" blog] Hi Folks! Rik Panganiban here, senior manager of Digital Learning at the Academy. I’m super excited to announce that, beginning on April 5, I will be participating in the 2015 Philippines Verde Island Passage (VIP) expedition, along with 40 or so other scientists and other experts from the Cal …
Hi Folks! Rik Panganiban here, senior manager of Digital Learning at the Academy. I’m super excited to announce that, beginning on April 5, I will be participating in the 2015 Philippines Verde Island Passage (VIP) expedition, along with 40 or so other scientists and other experts from the Cal Academy and other science institutions in the United States and …
I'm incredibly excited to share the news that this April, I will be participating in the California Academy of Sciences' 2015 research expedition to the Philippines. I will be there as part of the educational outreach team on the trip, documenting what our researchers are doing there, connecting with local educators, and sending reports and …
Yesterday my Youth Programs team from the Cal Academy took a well-deserved mini-retreat up to Tomales, Bay, about an hour and a half north of San Francisco. Yes, it was cold and rainy almost the entire time. My feet got wet almost immediately during our hike, which I HATE. And yet I had an …
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 …