Rocking an Old School Science Action Club Tee
Today my colleague Andrew dug up this old Science Action Club tee-shirt for me, back from 2012. Any ideas why we don't use this graphic anymore?
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Announcing my new role at the Academy: Senior Instruction Design Lead at Science Action Club!
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 …
When I gave our teens 45 minutes to save humanity
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 …
Designing Museum Educational Programs that Impact Environmental Actions
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 …
Academy’s Teen Think Tank talks about KQED’s #EngineerThat Challenge
Another awesome new youth program at the California Academy of Sciences is our Teen Think Tank, a group of teen leaders at the Academy that provide feedback and advise on exhibits, programs and communications that we produce here at the museum. It’s a group that we’ve wanted to create for a very long time, so …
Preparing Youth for Success in a Digital Economy: From College Admissions to “Dynamic Range”
I've been thinking a lot about this interview with former Facebook exec and angel investor Chamath Palihapitiya. It's chock-a-block with mind exploding ideas and concepts. As a teen educator, I'm particularly focused on the first ten minutes where Chamath talks about what he sees as a fundamental shift in what counts as "social capital." I highly …
2015 Highlights of Digital Learning at the Cal Academy
The year two-thousand and fifteen was a HUGE one for the Digital Learning program at the California Academy of Sciences. We’ve had a lot of changes, pivots, sad goodbyes, and successes over the past twelve months that are important to acknowledge. Farewell, Christine / Welcome, Jeff! Over the summer, we bid a fond farewell to …
Youth Showcases and Creating “Stand and Deliver” Moments
On Saturday, we held the end-of-the-semester showcase for our Digital Learning TechTeen program. Creating these “stand and deliver” moments for our teens is one the best parts of my job. Youth showcases are a great way to see what your students are getting out of your program, in their own words. It is a way for all the …
My Teens Demonstrate their Mental Powers
So this interchange happened during my Techteens program yesterday. They were researching whether it is possible for the human mind to be uploaded to a computer. Alex: Guys, GUYS, telekinenis isn't real, right? Ori: Sure it's real, I'll show you. Alex: Let's see it. Ori: I'm going to use MY MIND to move my backpack… My MIND sends signals …
Neil Degrasse Tyson on Losing and Learning
Neil Degrasse Tyson is one of America's best known and most loved scientists, for very good reasons. I'm always blown away at what a great science communicator he is. Here's Degrasse Typson just killing his appearance on the popular NPR quiz show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me". Listen to it, and then scroll down for the …