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 …
Check out this neat article by Jessica Decker on iNaturalist, a mobile app that is empowering regular folks to make nature observations that help science. To date more than 1 million observations have been made using iNaturalist! One unanticipated benefit has been that the app has been creating communities of citizen scientists. According to Alison Young, science …
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 …
See Frosty and Holiday, two actual reindeer at the California Academy of Sciences through the month of December.
Okay, it took awhile to get out episode three of our podcast "Object Oriented," but we are pretty excited about this one. In this episode, Eve, Barry and tackle one of the most exciting new trends in museums and other learning institutions: the Maker Movement. I begin with the basic but complicated question of whether …
Watch this beautifully shot profile of entomologist Brian Fisher. A researcher at the California Academy of Sciences, Brian shares what he loves about his work in the field and studying ants in particular. "You can't see much when you see them on the ground. But put them under a microscope and they just dazzle you …
This week, I had to quickly come up with a more interactive way to teach our TechTeens about genetic engineering, since they had chosen a topic for their next blog post on creating genetically modified pets. I don't have a background in microbiology or genetics, so was a little stumped. In a pinch, I threw …
Conversation with Alex, one of our TechTeens : Alex: Why does it have to be a "competition" when you have us make stuff? Me: It's to motivate you to do your best. People like competitions. Alex: But we already work hard, whether you make it a competition or not. Besides, you always give the winning team …
I love teaching teens about intellectual property. I get a lot of puzzled looks whenever I say this among other educators, but it’s true. Teens are so much more media-savvy than I was as a young person, since their lives are so immersed in media wherever they are. They are constantly consuming music, photos, videos, digital games …
Check out this neat video portrait of Moises Bernal, one our of ichthyologists (fish biologists) at the California Academy of Sciences. Lots of neat details about what he gets to do as a scientist at the Academy, what makes his job fun, and why he does it. "When you go to the field and you …