Performing for Adolescent Psychiatric Patients: Part 2

In part one of the "Performing for Adolescent Psychiatric Patients," I described my experience last week performing a science show for adolescent patients at a psychiatric center.  I was initially unsure of how it would go, and even uncertain that it was an entirely appropriate venue for a science demonstration show; but somehow it worked.  In this post I want to talk about why I now think psychiatric centers are a great venue.

I don't presume to say that one enjoyable 45 minute show is going to "fix" the patients' problems.  I'm not a mental health worker, or even someone who can be around long enough to see if there are any quantifiable results.  But I do believe that not only did the show not cause any harm (number one rule), but that it was helpful to the patients in a few ways.

1.  Confidence Building - The patients that made up the audience got to ask and answer questions, volunteer to help me, were trusted to pet a turtle, and a couple even got to drum with me in front of the others.  They weren't really working on skill building, like in wilderness therapy programs, or expressing their innermost thoughts, like in journal writing, but they were getting a chance to be heard and included through voluntary participation.

2.  Content - Learning about how an optical illusion works or why a male slider turtle has long claws may not be information that specifically related to the patients' problems, but they don't have to be.  Our universe is a fascinating place, and sometimes we need some exposure to its wonders to remind us of that.  Science stems from our natural curiosity, and demonstrates that there are things worth learning and participating in that are bigger than ourselves and the personal problems we can become trapped in.  Books like Last Child in the Woods describe some of the benefits children gain from exposure to nature and problems that come from losing it.  I don't think it is just the "nature" that kids need, but exposure to ideas about "nature" and the wider world around them.

3.  Role Modeling - This is probably the most important of the three I've listed so far.  In fact, without it I'm not sure much of the confidence building or content gets through.  So, what do I mean by role modeling?  I mean practicing what you preach, embodying a lifestyle or attitude that connects with the content.  Here is a great quote from Kipling that explains what I mean.


No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves – but what the teachers are themselves.

Rudyard Kipling

When my audiences see me giving a presentation I know they are picking up more than I'm saying.  Even if they don't realize it themselves, they are bringing all their experiences, prejudices, and current mood with them to color their perception.  And everything from what I'm wearing and how I'm standing, to my pronunciation and delivery are a part of what they take from the presentation.  Certainly, this could be a roadblock.  Imagine how many people would listen to my message if they thought I was unsure of the content, untrustworthy, or unpleasant.  But, on the other hand, what if I can convince them of the opposite.  Along with the content, the presenter is also the message.  The phrase, "The medium is the message" applies to people as well as newspapers, cellphones, and TV.  

By demonstrating that a life filled with learning, curiosity, and respect can be a path worth traveling, a good role model can open their audiences eyes.  And for an adolescent who isn't sure about their future, this seems like an opportunity any adult working with them cannot afford to miss.

4.  Music - During the show I spent about 15 minutes demonstrating the science behind sound and playing music with various instruments.  I love music and it turns out that just about everyone else does to.  I started by asking them if they thought of music as being an important part of their lives.  Then I mentioned how powerful music can be on our emotions, and explained that even though it seems like magic, we can use science to help us understand how music works.  This seemed to draw them in, but honestly, music doesn't need much help to do that.  Why is music so powerful?  I don't really know and I didn't try to answer that question with the audience, but I do know that music works for any age and for just about everyone.

Performing for Adolescent Psychiatric Patients: Part 1

Working with new groups of people is one of my favorite experiences as an informal science educator.  I find it a great challenge and opportunity to teach science to groups of people I haven't worked with before, especially if I think my interaction with them can have a positive impact.  You may be surprised to learn I've performed science shows for immigrant and refugee children, grieving children, hospitalized children, the elderly, and religiously conservative groups who may distrust science.  In each one of these cases I felt their was something special I could offer, and I did my best to tailor my shows to accomplish this.

Whenever someone calls to request a traveling show, I never know where it might lead. Recently a phone call led to my first performance at a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescent patients.  Huchings Psychiatric Center helps children with a variety of mental health problems.  Their website provides informational material on Depression, Eating Disorders, Schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses.  Before going to the Center I read through all of these materials and asked the women who booked the show a number of questions about what I should expect from the young people and how my shows fit in with their schedule.  The Center wanted to celebrate the Thankgiving school break with the patients, and thought it would be fun for the students to have me visit and provide some educational entertainment.

I ended up performing a show for the younger patients and another for the adolescent patients (ages 13-18), but it is the show for the adolescents I want to write about.  I knew I would have no problem with the younger audience, but I did a lot of thinking about how I would connect to the older kids and deliver a show that would entertain, teach, and possibly help with the healing that the audience needed.  I don't perform traveling shows often for teenagers, and it always makes me nervous.  An 18 year old can ask questions that are a lot harder than a 10 year old usually can, and many times teenagers can adopt an "I'm too cool for this" attitude.  Whenever I do a show for this age group I prepare with some extra reading on the science topics and commit myself to giving an A+ performance.   Having an audience full of teenagers who were potentially cutting, attempting suicide, and starving themselves before entering the Center seemed like it could add more difficulties I couldn't plan for.  Would the patients have problems with me as an "authority figure?"   Would they be angry they were forced to live in a hospital and resent me for being a part of it?  I just couldn't know.

Thankfully, the show went great.  In fact, it was an experience I won't soon forget and I don't think the teenagers will either.  If you had observed, you would have seen an audience eagerly participating and enjoying themselves while learning about optical illusions, the science of sound and music, and meeting the museum's pet turtle, Patsie.  The experience wasn't magical and didn't resemble a Hollywood drama, but it was real.  I noticed only one of the patients seemed a bit withdrawn, but even he was interested when he saw the African hand drum I brought.  I couldn't have asked for a better audience.  I left this show feeling like I had made a positive impact on the patients' day, and maybe even on their recoveries.

If you are an educator and you get the opportunity to work with a group you've never worked with before, or whom you might be reluctant to work with, I say to just go for it.  Do what research you can beforehand, and go for it.

In this post I gave a description of the show and my thoughts leading up to it.  In Part 2 I will talk about why I think the presentation worked and what role science presentations might have in the recovery of adolescent psychiatric patients.

Meat-eating Dinosaur Review

T. rex from Wallpaper Abyss

As much as sleeping in on a Saturday is a highlight to the week, there are some things worth waking up early for.  For me, a dinosaur lecture from a local paleontologist is just such an event.

Dr. Richard Kissel, from Ithaca NY's Museum of the Earth came to the MOST today to give a lecture titled "From Raptors to Rex: Meat Eating Dinosaurs."  This was part of the TACNY sponsored Junior Cafe Scientifique lecture series.  I've only been to a couple of these, as our Education Department doesn't help organize them, but I think they are one of the best things we have going on at the museum.  The idea is to bring in interesting topics that will connect with people of all ages, and to offer this for FREE and include FREE admission to the museum as well.  This winning recipe keeps the attendance growing, and today's lecture packed our IMAX theater with around 200 people attending.  I want to stress that these weren't just professorly types, but all kinds of members of the Syracuse community turned out.  If nothing else, this convinces me that Junior Cafe Scientifique is a success.

A lecture is only as good as the lecturer who gives it, and Dr. Kissel did a great job.  He introduced himself as a dinosaur loving kid who, though now grown up, never forgot to keep asking the question, "Why?"  The lecture was a chronological survey of carnivorous dinosaurs through the mesozoic era.  He talked about a lot of interesting things, and I want to mention five.

Herrarasaurus in the backround, mammals in the foreground.
Image Source: National Geographic, Artist: John Gurche

1.  Dinosaurs ruled this world for a long time - over 150 million years of dominance.  The Age of Dinosaurs was from about 230 million years ago to 65 million years ago.  That means that we, as humans, are living closer in time to the late Cretaceous  T. rex than the T. rex lived to the Late Jurassic dinosaur Stegosaurus.  And the early carnivore Herrerasaurus lived around 80 million years before Stegosaurus!

2.  Dinosaurs and mammals appear at the same time on Earth.  During the Triassic period, around 230 million years ago, the first dinosaurs and mammals evolved.  This is pretty interesting, because often people assume that mammals came only at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.  They lived together for a very long time.  It is true, however, that the mammals during this time were all pretty small; the larger ones usually being about the size of an opposum.  

3.  Carnivorous dinosaurs grew new teeth throughout their lives.  If you ever get to look at a carnivorous dinosaur skull you may notice that the teeth are different lengths.  This is because some were just growing in while others were established.  I think part of me is always rooting for the carnivores, and I was glad to know that if they lost any teeth trying to hunt an uncooperative triceratops, they could just grow them back.

The Swing N Slide See Saw

4.  Large Carnivores are a balancing act - big head means small arms.  I remember that when I first learned about this idea it was an aha moment.  If you look at a bipedal (walks on two legs) dinosaur, their legs are like the fulcrum on a see saw.  Dinosaurs like the T. rex have such huge heads, that they risk becoming front heavy, and face-planting. Having smaller arms kept some weight off the front end.  As this trait developed over time, we can assume that hunting and feeding strategies must have changed as well.

5.  Birds are dinosaurs - or at least their ancestors were.  If you've ever taken any time to learn about dinosaurs in the last decade or so, you have probably heard this before.  I thought Dr. Kissel did a good job of explaining the development of feathers (T. rex probably had some) and flight in dinosaurs, and their evolutionary relationship to birds.  This topic could have easily taken the entire lecture, so I wasn't sure if he would cover it.  I'm glad he did, because his pictures and explanations helped me to understand this better.  The short of it is that dinosaurs and birds share some unique bone structures as well as a timeline that makes sense for their evolutionary relationship, but the new understanding of feathers has really been the clincher in this debate.

Sinosauropteryx and its striped tail.

In some ways, a bird is defined by its feathers (see here).  Until dinosaurs were discovered to have feathers too, birds held this feature alone.  Feathers are complicated enough that the idea of convergent evolution (both evolving independently in birds and dinos) seems unlikely.  But the real victory here is that we are now starting to piece together how and why feathers first appeared on dinosaurs and how they led to flight.  Having feathers and using them to fly seems like such a remarkable thing, that figuring out were they came from is rather difficult.  Features like feathers, eyes, or just about anything else an animal has must be assumed to have evolved naturally from random genetic changes (such as mutations) and natural selection (if your being scientific about it).  This means that these things don't come fully formed and that animals can't start working on developing feathers because they hope their descendants will learn how to fly.

So what have we found?  We see that the role of the first feathers appears to be for display and insulation.  Some were found as long feathers on the ends of dinosaur tails, while another example of early feathers even shows that dinosaurs had stripes.  One fossilized oviraptor specimen shows it using its feathers to keep its eggs warm (link here). 

We have examples of dinosaurs who are using feathers for gliding, and fossils of the mesozoic bird archeopteryx that look so remarkably like other dinosaur species it is easy to get them confused. Archeopteryx is so closely related to dinosaurs that is is still debatable if it could use its feathers for flight.  So it appears that as feathers developed for display and insulation, they eventually led to gliding, and finally to full flapping flight in birds.

I am not a paleontologist, but that is the story as best as I can make of it from Dr. Kissel's lecture as well as a number of other resources.

So if birds evolved directly from dinosaurs, does that make them dinosaurs.  According to paleontologists, the answer is yes.  When asked by the crowd to explain this further, Dr. Kissel even said that birds, according to modern classification rules, could be considered reptiles.  If you are interested in learning more about this topic, check out this site from Berkely.

Dinosaurs are such an interesting topic.  I sure am glad I didn't sleep in today.

P.S.  I couldn't resist posting an anti-feathered dino propaganda sticker.  I'm not sure how serious this is supposed to be, but I thought it was too funny not to post.  If you refuse to believe dinosaurs had feathers, you can even join the Facebook group.

Why Working at a Science Museum is Awesome

There are a number of colleges in Syracuse, NY, and they are a great source of workers, volunteers, and interns for the Museum.  In fact, I'm not sure what we would do without them.  But one of my favorite interactions with the students is when Syracuse University's Museum Studies graduate class comes to visit.  Each year a group of roughly 30 students visits the museum for a tour and question and answer session with some of our staff.  I really enjoy their visits.  I love sharing what it is like to be an informal science educator (hence the blog), and listening to the kinds of questions the students have.  I also like feeling that I am helping. Reading books and blogs is good, but getting to ask working professionals about their lives is much better.  The times I have gotten to do this have been very rewarding (check last blog entry), and I hope these students are getting as much out of the opportunity as they can.

So what kind of questions do the students and their teacher ask us?  They want to know about our backgrounds, what a normal workday is like, how the interaction between Curator and Education Department work, and what it is that we like best about our jobs.  Maybe I'll get to all of these on later blogs, but for now I would like to focus on just one question.

What is my favorite thing about my job?

I wouldn't have this job if I didn't love teaching, but I think my favorite thing about specifically being an informal science educator may be the freedom.  The freedom to be creative, to ask questions, to have flexible hours (sometimes), to follow my interests, and to bring together my diverse passions.  I love that I'm not confined to a cubicle, and that the office I share with the other educators is a place of ideas, collaboration, and playfulness.  I love that every week brings new experiences that never stop challenging me.  I love that I spent some days at my office, others in the planetarium, and still more traveling the county and beyond teaching audiences about science.   I love the freedom to attend conferences and meet interesting people.  I love that I am respected at work by my co-workers and the guests.  I love that I have a job that will never get boring, where my ideas are listened to, and my effort recognized.

I understand I didn't really pick one favorite thing, but hey, can you blame me?

What kind of a job would you like to have?

Here are some links about working at a museum.
Benefits of Working at a Museum
So You Want to Work in a Museum
Why I Love Working at the National Museum of Natural History

God's Mechanics Book Review

A review of the book God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion, and the author, Guy Consolmagno

Before I talk about the book I want to write a little about my history with the author leading up to reading the book.

My first experience with Br. Guy Consolmagno was at an annual fundraising event for Kopernik Observatory in Vestal, NY a couple years ago.  He was the special lecturer for the event and even gave two lectures over the course of the night.

Brother Guy's first lecture was given after a nice meal at the Polish Center for local politicians and  other supporters of the Kopernik Observatory.  In his talk, Br. Guy explained that he was a Jesuit priest who was also an astronomer at the Vatican in Rome.  It seems that when most people think of the Catholic Church and Astronomy they think of Galileo, and assume the Church must still have problems with science.  The fact that the Church has an observatory and scientists doing real science, and that it even takes part in the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is certainly a surprise to most people.  His talk centered around the work at the Observatory and how Catholic theology supports a love of the physical universe and the study of science.  He advertised the book he helped put together of photography from the Vatican Observatory called The Heaven's Proclaim.  

His second lecture, given a little later at the Kopernik Observatory was about the decision of the IAU to change Pluto's standing from a planet to a dwarf planet.  This is certainly an interesting topic, and since he was actually one of the scientists involved in the decision, he had a lot of great information to share.  Interestingly, he did not vote to have Pluto characterized as a dwarf planet, but he accepts the decision and teaches people about the debate with evidence for both sides of the argument.  At the end of the lecture, as Br. Guy was getting ready to head out I stopped him to introduce myself.  And to my surprise, he actually visited me at my museum soon after.

Spending an hour or so with Br. Guy was an inspiring experience I'll always appreciate.  I showed him the planetarium, gave him a tour of the museum, and talked with him about science, art, and religion.  He took a look at our private meteorite collection (his expertise) and told me all kinds of things about them I hadn't know.   I felt so honored (and still do) that he took the time to visit with me while he was in the area.  I hope that some day I can be in a position like his, and make a difference in someone's career and life like has done with mine.  During the last couple years I've checked in occasionally online to listen to him on youtube or read reviews of his work on amazon.com.  A bought his book, God's Mechanics a while ago, but I finally recently took the time to read it.

God's Mechanics book review

God's Mechanics is about Br. Guy's personal journey to try to understand what purpose religion has for "techies," and to illustrate some of the ways religion works for him.  By "techie" he mostly means science and technology geeks, and includes himself in the group.  If that premise excited you, than this is really a good read.  If that premise doesn't strike you as interesting, than the book wont either.  Thankfully for me, this is exactly the kind of book I've been looking for.  It is smart and humorous, manages to stay interesting through all 230 pages, and deals with a topic I think is important.

The book is set up loosely like this.  Br. Guy talks about religion and his theories on what a religion is and how someone with a "techie" way of thinking might understand and participate in it.  He interviews scientists of different ages and backgrounds and discusses the role of religion in their lives.   As the book goes on he starts to realize that generalizing "techies" thoughts on religion is a lot more complicated than he thought.  But he makes some good attempts to find patterns and explain them to the reader.  Br. Guy then spends the last part of the book using himself as an example of how a techie thinks about religion.  I really enjoyed reading about his own thoughts, and admired his honesty in admitting he was biased toward Catholicism.  I suppose he could have been more sensitive to other religions by leaving out his feelings towards them, but then we wouldn't have really gotten to see an honest look at his thought process.

One of my favorite things about this book is how Br. Guy effortlessly uses scientific examples in explaining his thoughts on religious experiences.  Here is an example: "...as quantum physics has emphasized, any attempt to make a measurement invariably alters the thing being measured.  If, by presenting yourself to be judged by the standards of your religion, you try to twist yourself into a shape that perhaps is easier to measure but is no longer you, you've defeated the reason to have a religion."  It's statements like that one which really impress me.   If that line get's you excited, too, than please take the time to give his book a try.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Reading Online Museum Reviews

If you work at a science museum, nature center, zoo, etc. I recommend reading through the reviews your guests post online.  Be prepared for both the positive, the negative, and the strange.

Travel advice sites like Trip Advisor and Google Reviews are great places to learn about what your visitors are really thinking.  Sure, every place has a comment card or book for visitors to put there thoughts, but my experience with these is that visitor's leave very limited constructive feedback.  Usually people only scribble off a few words like "Awesome, Awesome, Awesome" (well I guess that's one word three times) or they write long angry messages that make their visit seem so dramatically terrible that it is hard to take them seriously.

Online reviewers can sometimes be as extreme as the people who write out the long angry letters, but most online accounts seem written by people who want to honestly share what they experienced, and they often give examples of the good and bad.  Reading details about their experiences can be really helpful, but sometimes their examples can be tricky too.  Two reviewers might mention the same thing, but one uses it as a positive example and the other uses it as a negative one.

Here is what I mean:

Positive:  "It was great to go to a zoo that was affordable and walk-able in a couple hours.  What a perfect trip for an afternoon."
Negative:  This zoo is so small that I walked the whole thing in 2 hours.  Don't waste your time or money on this.  There is a bigger zoo a couple hours from here. Go there instead.  I'll never support this zoo again."

Positive:  "Museum is located downtown, so there was plenty of on-street parking with credit card friendly meters and lots of places to eat for lunch.  The kids loved all the hands-on exhibits, and I loved reading all the accompanying explanations.  What a great museum for all ages."
Negative: "Museum is located downtown, so of course parking is a nightmare.  Also, the museum doesn't have a real cafe, only vending machines so you have to leave the museum if you want to eat.  Also, all the exhibits seemed too old for the kids at the museum, because they seemed to be running around and grabbing everything."

These are just two examples of many more that I could give.  So if reviews are so contradictory, how do you interpret them.  When I read them, what pops out is the expectations of the reviewers.  It reminds me of the saying how different all our perceptions are.  I think it is impossible to please everyone, and especially hard to please someone who is having a no good, horrible, terrible, very bad day.  But as museum staff, we can use these reviews to see if there is anything we could be doing to better align peoples expectations with what they can actually experience.

We need to be careful about how we word our advertisements and program descriptions.  I once made the mistake of describing a program I was giving as good for "all ages."  Of course, after the show a mother came up to me disappointed because she thought it wasn't good for her 3 year old.  She was right, and I'll never make that mistake again.

As an educator I think my opportunities to help with this mostly come from listening to visitors and helping them understand why things are the way they are.  I try to make visitors comfortable enough to share their positive and negative criticisms and express my appreciation when they do.  And, if it is appropriate, I try to get across just how much our staff and volunteers care about what we do and how hard we work to create a safe and enjoyable learning experience for our visitors.

Oh, and one more way that reading online reviews of museums can be helpful to you is to read reviews of other museums.  Do visitors say the same things about the other museums as they do about yours?  Is your museum missing something everyone liked at the other one?

If you find any particularly interesting online museum reviews, I'd love to see them linked to or posted on here.

It's a bird, it's a plane, its a... cloud

For as long as I can remember I've been able to find faces and pictures in unexpected places.  Whether in a cloud, smudge, or a crack, pictures seem to jump up at me. While this can sometimes be frightening when trying to sleep and the shadows on the walls take the form of scary faces, it is mostly an enjoyable talent.  But as it turns out, there are about 7 billion other people who have the same talent.  The technical term for recognizing familiar faces or likenesses in clouds and shadows and other things is pareidolia.    The reason this happens to all of us is because our brains are constantly trying to recognize and make sense of what we see.  Our brains are designed to find familiar patterns and will do so even when a pattern isn't complete.

Which face do you see in this optical illusion?

So what do clouds, constellations, optical illusions, and inkblot tests have in common?  They can all become examples of pareidolia.

Besides being a science educator, I am also a photographer.  If you have ever visited my website: www.dustinangell.zenfolio.com, you might have noticed that I like to photograph clouds.  There are several reasons I find clouds such interesting subject matter.  The pareidolia aspect is certainly one of the main fascinations for me.  Please take a look at some cloud photos I took a few weeks ago and let me know what you see.

Links:

Pareidolia and Astronomy: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/lenin.html

Brain looks for simple patterns: http://www.whatmakesthemclick.net/2010/12/30/100-things-you-should-know-about-people-49-the-brain-looks-for-simple-patterns/

Pareidolia: http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html

Brain searches for patterns: http://dukechronicle.com/article/brain-constantly-searches-patterns