The New Learning Times, a publication of the Teachers College at Columbia University, did a nice profile about me recently. I’ve reprinted some it below. See the complete piece by George Nantwi at their site. How did your educational trajectory and past professional experience shape your current work? I have a wide-ranging and circuitous educational …
I'm excited to finally be able to share the news about a new podcast I will be co-producing called "Object Oriented: Digital Learning in Collections-based Museums." I am honored to be co-hosting the podcast along with my friends Barry Joseph, head of digital learning at the American Museum of Natural History, and Eve Gaus, head …
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! …
A few weeks ago, I learned that the California Academy of Sciences had obtained a pair of Google Glass, Google’s early adopter attempt at creating augmented reality eyewear. Since I’ve done a lot of work and thinking in virtual and augmented reality before, I was pretty excited to get my hands on these glasses. My …
The awesome Emily Graslie of the Field Museum of Chicago posted on her Instagram feed this simple but profound statement on the recent vandalism of the Mosul Museum by ISIS: "Imagine if all our display cases – like this one – were empty. As custodians of one of the great natural history museum collections in the world, The Field …
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 …
I’m home with some illness, weak but not incapacitated. So I’m in perfect shape for trying out new digital products. Enter “Elegy for a Dead World,” a cross-platform digital game designed to inspire creative writing by the player. I came across “Elegy” in one of my feeds and decided to give it a go. Here’s …
"Interstellar," the new scifi film directed by Christopher Nolan, explores a number of complex and fascinating scientific phenomena and concepts, including black holes, gravity, wormholes, a fifth dimension, and in particular Special Relativity. As a scifi buff, I found the movie to be very entertaining. And as a science educator, I thought that there …
The California Academy of Sciences is proud to a member of the founding committee of Hive Bay Area, a network of San Francisco Bay Area organizations working together to create an "ecosystem of opportunities" for local youth to explore their interests and learn 21st century skills. We work with awesome partners including the San Francisco Public …
Check out these amazing nature photos that were the winners of the California Academy's first "Big Picture" photography contest! Selected from 6,300 photos submitted by photographers from 12 countries, the 42 finalists are just stunning. They span a wide variety of species, environments, and formats — from intimate portraits to enormous vistas. Here are some …