The Site of Rik Panganiban
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 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
I'm proud to share this video produced by our viz studio intern Sophia Li on volunteering at the California Academy of Sciences. This was the final product Sophia created for the Academy during her nearly year-long internship with us. Such a great picture of volunteering opportunities at the Academy. And that is was created by …
Check out this beautiful tape art that has been cropping up around the staff-side of my museum, the California Academy of Sciences. We are beginning a staff-wide, month-long solicitation for "Big Ideas" for the future direction of the Academy. This is by far the most creative response to the call for inspiring ideas. But …
Sheryl Grant, a veteran in the Digital Media and Learning community, has written a concise and very helpful report on open digital badges called "What Counts as Learning." I am personally really interested in digital badges and view them as having a lot of potential for opening up learning pathways for young people, allowing them …
Check out the three awesome science videos created by our teen filmmakers this summer at the California Academy of Sciences. They each reflect the hard work of three teams of 3-4 teens working for under two-weeks on a science topic that they selected. Each video was inspired by our latest exhibit at the Academy, "Skulls." …