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

Einstein Vs. Spider-Man: Who's your favorite scientist?

One of my favorite scientists: Spider-Man!
From Amazing Spider-Man #6

What do Einstein, Galileo, and Spider-Man all have in common?  Answer: They are all scientists!

Sure, Spider-Man isn't real, but he may be more well known than Einstein or Galileo.  And he isn't the only spandex wearing scientist from the world of comic books.

Here are just a few superhero scientists: Batman, Spider-Man, Iron-Man (engineer), The Hulk (alter-ego Dr. Banner), and Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four.

Mr. Fantastic uses his brain to solve a problem.

Even if you have never read a comic book, you have probably heard these names.  All of them, except for Batman, have been employed at one time or another as scientists or engineers.  Science is an essential part of these character's identities.  Often their powerful minds are portrayed as being one their greatest assets.

So how can we use our culture's love of superheroes to generate interest in science?  I recommend going up to someone and asking, "What scientist do you like better? Einstein or Spider-Man?"  Imagine the conversations.


Links:



Here is a cool article on how nanoscience might allow us to make a Spider-Man like outfit which would allow the wearer to crawl up walls: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/nanotech-discov/

Some people have taken another route in relating comic books to science.  They are trying to explain the science/physics in comic books.  If your interested, here is a good site: http://enterthestory.com/superscience.html

Free-Choice Science Learning: A Show for All Ages

Photo from www.lymefreelibrary.org

I don't get requests to travel outside my county very often to perform "Traveling Science Shows," but I am always excited at the chance.  I enjoy the roadside scenery of a longer drive and the time to think.  Yesterday's show came with a 1 1/2 hour drive which culminated with a beautiful sunset over Lake Ontario.

When someone calls to book a show I always ask the age and number of people attending.  Going to a kindergarten class or a middle school assembly requires different science content and styles.  Yesterday's show at the Lyme Free Library was challenging because I was told we would have a small group (10-30 people) with an age range that would be considerable.  Astronomy was the requested topic.  I prepared as best I could and hoped for the best.  When the show started we certainly did have a diverse mix of ages.  There were several elementary age children and one teenager, but about half the audience members were adults who had come without children.

The presentation really was a show for all ages.  Judging by the questions, comments, participation, and attentiveness, the performance was a success.

How do you present an astronomy show and make it interesting for all ages?  What was my strategy?  What I decided to do was write a show that would start in a basic more child friendly place and slowly move to content for a more mature audience.  I also made the show flexible, so that I had ideas on how I could adapt the show as I went, depending on the audience's responses.  For example, if I ended up with all families I would spend more time telling constellation stories.  I must say that this strategy would not have worked at every venue.  The children were well behaved and eager to learn.  They were patient and attentive during the more adult sections and the adults were patient during the more child friendly sections.  I am still grateful that I had such a nice audience.

Some parts of the show seemed to appeal equally to all ages.  As part of my discussion on asteroids I brought a good sized iron meteorite to pass around through the audience.  Everyone got to experience the excitement of holding what was once the core of an ancient world now long destroyed, and the unexpected joy of feeling how heavy the thing really is.  The adults were interested in questions about what minerals we might harvest from asteroids and how we know that meteorites actually come from space.  The other part of the show that was a hit across age boundaries was a video from NASA of our next Mars rover.  One the boys even found a section in a book with a picture of Pathfinder, the first Mars rover, and showed it to me as we were ending.

I am glad I had this opportunity yesterday.  It was the first of its kind for me, and I am definitely interested in trying something like this again.  If you are an educator in a similar situation, or have done this kind of thing before, I would love to read about your experience.  Hopefully, reading about mine was helpful for you.

Here are some related links:
Asteroids as future resources: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/resource.html
Curiosity, next Mars rover: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

Dear Baby #7 Billion

I'm glad I've decided to commit myself to maintaining this blog, because it is also turning me into a blog reader.  Like most people, I check in on the blog's of my friends occasionally to see what they are up to, but until now I hadn't been searching for blogs.  Now I am and I'm glad I've started.  I was searching around today, looking at both artist blogs and science education blogs when I stumbled onto the Nature Conservancy's site.  They are a non-profit organization that purchases land and conducts environmental research and practices conservation.

The post I read is "An Open Letter to #7,000,000,000."  Our human population is currently on the cusp of 7 billion people, and the blog post is a letter to baby #7 billion.  The letter starts by talking about how fortunate modern people are to live in our current age.  It then moves into the many environmental resource problems facing us currently and into our future.  I think the letter does a good job of summing up our current problems, why they matter, and what we can do to help.  I encourage you to check it out.

Let me introduce you to Dustin... I'm not actually sure what he does

Management meetings and all-staff meetings are held periodically at our museum so that everyone will get the chance to learn about what everyone else is doing.   When I speak at these meetings I let the rest of the staff know what my department is working on.  Unfortunately, saying things like "Harry Potter Day went great.  The kids really seemed to like it and I had a fun time dressed as a wizard," doesn't really give the other staff members a sense of the event and my part in it.  We all leave these meetings with an idea of what our colleagues are working on, but it is only a superficial understanding.  If a museum visitor started asking questions to one of the other staff members about Harry Potter Day, how many could they answer?  Probably not many.

The problem with telling someone about what you do is that some things just need to be experienced.  Unfortunately it is impossible for the whole museum staff to attend every new program or review every project.  So what is the solution?  There are many ways you could address this issue, but I just want to explain one that we have recently started trying at my museum. 

At the beginning or end of some of our meetings we've started adding 5-10 min. presentations.  Today, at the end of our meeting I put on my wizard outfit and did a shortened version of the potions demonstration I had done during Harry Potter Day last weekend.  I've performed and watched so many demonstrations that I didn't fully realize how most of the staff never get to see them.   When I finished the performance I was surprised how many people came up to say how much they enjoyed it, and there were even requests for me to do a demonstration at all of our big staff meetings.

I don't know how to measure the impact of having presentations like this at all-staff meetings, but I do know that everyone who attended can now give much better answers to any museum visitors asking about our potions demonstration.  I'm sure I'll be asked to do more demonstrations in the future, but what I am really interested to see is what kinds of presentations other staff members will give.


If you know of any good ideas to help museum's and other institutions with this issue, please add your thoughts in the comment section.

Don't forget the dry ice, but if you do... it's probably okay

Part of a "thank you" letter from one of the 4th graders today.

This morning I had driven halfway to a school to give science presentations to the students when suddenly I realized I forgot the dry ice for the show.  Just before starting out I had checked the contents of the cooler to make sure the dry ice hadn't all sublimated overnight, and yet somehow I managed to leave it behind.  After pulling over I tried calling the teacher who booked the shows to see if she wanted to push them back a half hour, but I couldn't get ahold of her.  My only choice was to continue on.  Fortunately I was bringing four other demonstrations with me, so putting on a good show wasn't the problem.  What made me feel bad was that the teacher had specifically requested I do the demonstration featuring dry ice as part of the show.  Every once in a while some minor slip-up like this will happen, and I always feel awful.


So what happened when I got there?  Did the teacher and the principal run me out of the school?  Did the students boo and decide they would live a life without science education?  No.  Instead, the teacher and the principal were welcoming, excited to have me, and quickly put my fears at ease when I apologized.  The shows ended up going great.  Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun learning about air pressure, chemistry, and Newton's 1st law of motion.  The teachers even had their cameras out, taking photos of some of the best parts.

An illustration of me doing the Power of Air demo.

You might be wondering why I would want to write about how I made a mistake, even if it did work out in the end.  The point is that most of the time things do work out.  I little mistake like that doesn't mean the program is finished or that you've ruined your reputation.  I think it is best to apologize and then give 100% in your performance.  The teachers want you to succeed.  The students want you to succeed.  The principal wants you to succeed.  The odds are still in your favor. 

I look forward to performing at this school again next year, and even though I know they wouldn’t be upset, next time I won’t forget the dry ice.

Some of the students wrote “thank you letters.”  I’ve scanned some of them to share with you.

I love that this student included all threee layers of cups and saucers, and drew me with such an exciting pose.

If this doesn't warm your heart, what will?

Learning Constellations: Its not too hard... really

Ursa Major (Can you find the Big Dipper?)

During every planetarium show there is this special moment when the lights dim and the stars appear on the domed ceiling.  Apart from a few young children who are afraid of the dark, this experience is exciting and memorable for almost everyone in attendance.  I say this because each time I bring the stars out I can hear the response in the audience.  In the dark, when identities become anonymous, they aren’t afraid to let out gasps of amazement and wonder.  These sounds continue as I use a laser pointer to draw constellation patterns above their heads.  I believe that planetariums and a good starry night are inherently interesting for most people of just about all ages.  Even so, most guests I meet never make it past learning how to find the Big and Little Dippers. 

“Why is that?” I’ve wondered many times.  I remember back when I was in High School and I wanted to learn the constellations.  My friend and I went out to the baseball field a few times and lay in the grass looking up at the stars.  I don’t think we got past learning the Dippers either.  At least I know I didn’t.

It seems to me that learning constellations appears too hard.  I’m here to say that it is not.  When I am training people in the planetarium, it only takes a couple hours for them to learn a number of constellations.  Sure they have to refer back to pictures to double-check later, and maybe some constellations stick while others don’t, but my point is that it might not be as hard as you think.  Especially with free programs like Stellarium (www.stellarium.org), learning constellations has never been so easy.

There are 88 official constellations.  Wow, that seems like a lot doesn’t it?  How could anyone learn that many?  The good news is that you don’t have to.  Learning just a few constellations is all you need to go out on a clear night and feel good about yourself.  There may be 88 constellations, but a bunch of them are for the folks on the other side of the equator to worry about, and many others are seasonal, so you don’t have to worry about them until their season.  I recommend starting with a few circumpolar constellations.  These are the ones closest to the North Star, and because of that they never set (depending on where in the Northern Hemisphere you are).  These will always give you a good idea about what you are looking at in the north.  Each season has some good beginner constellations which I find easiest to look for in the eastern and southern skies.  This means you only have to learn a few at a time throughout the year in order to start becoming comfortable.  Once you get to know them, some will pop out every time, looking obvious; while others will still give you trouble.  Below is my list of some of the best constellations to start with.

Circumpolar:  Ursa Major (Big Dipper), Ursa Minor (Little Dipper), Draco

Fall:  Perseus, Cassiopeia

Winter: Orion, Taurus the Bull

Spring: Leo the Lion

Summer:  Scorpius, Sagittarius, Cygnus (Summer Cross),

A Normal Week: Harry Potter Day, TV Morning Show Appearance, and an Inner City Afterschool Program

Thank you for checking out my new blog.  This is the first post and I'm excited to think about what the future might hold.  The general idea is to share my thoughts on science and education with everyone in the blogosphere, and to write about what it is like (at least for me) to work at a science museum.  If you work at a similar institution of free-choice learning, hopefully you can find some ideas here that will be helpful to you. Or if you are still in school wondering about what kind of career might be the right fit, maybe reading these posts will help you decide.  Or perhaps you are visiting this blog for some other reason all together.  No matter why you came, I hope you found something useful.  If you have, I would love to hear about it.


So what is a normal work week like for someone like me?  It is hard to say what is normal, but I can share some of the more interesting parts of the past few days.


Saturday: Harry Potter Day at the Museum!  This was a lot of fun.  The museum is currently showing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Prt. 2 in our IMAX Omni-theater so we decided to invite our guests to dress like wizards and witches and attend special Harry Potter planetarium shows, potions demonstrations, and a Herbology lesson.  Setting the date for the two days before Halloween was pretty smart, too, as lots of kids had their costumes on.  I wrote and performed the planetarium shows and the potions demonstrations.  As a big fan or Harry Potter and of astronomy and the history of science, this is exactly the kind of thing I love to do.  I spent the day in my wizard costume, calling myself Professor Merlon and talking about how science is used in the world of Harry Potter and pretending to make magical potions.  One of our volunteers grows mandrake, monk's hood, and belladonna plants.  He brought those in for the Herbology lesson, helping to flesh out the day with a station that parents could really get into.  July 31st is Harry Potter's birthday, and I am thinking I might suggest we celebrate it each year with a Harry Potter Day at the museum.


Monday: TV Appearance:  One of the coolest and scariest things about my job is making TV appearances.  Every month or so I'm usually a guest on Channel 9's Bridge Street morning show for a 4 minute science segment.  A couple times I've also been interviewed by other channels asking about things like "blue moons" or the "new zodiac."  Bridge Street is broadcast live, which means that any mistake I make is seen by a whole lot of viewers as well as my colleagues and boss.  This was probably my fifth time on, and like always it was a lot of fun.  The staff there is friendly and likes to joke around, making a confortable atmosphere.  Since it was Halloween I dressed up as Merlon again and did some science/magic demonstrations with pumpkins.


Tuesday Morning:  Planetarium Shows for Syracuse City 6th Graders:  This is the second year in a row we have brought all the 6th graders on special field trips to the museum.  Within the course of a few months we end up bringing about 1,600 students to the museum and running them through a number of science activities.  For my part I give a custom planetarium show related to their curriculum.  Today's three shows went well, and in fact I was surprised by how well behaved the students were.  I really like doing these shows, because it gives me a chance to talk about subjects we don't usually cover in our general audience weekend planetarium shows.  This year I'm focusing a big portion of the presentation on human and robotic space exploration of asteroids and the planet Mars.  If you've never heard of NASA's NEEMO or Desert RATS programs, check them out.  They are so cool.




Tuesday Afternoon:  Afterschool Program @ Local City School:  This year our Education Department has started working with the federally funded Say Yes program in our school district.  Every Tuesday and Thursday three of us go to one of the city schools and work for two hours with elementary students.  This is only our second week, but we are starting to develop trust with the students and are figuring out what kinds of activities work best for them.  This afterschool program is probably the hardest thing I have had to do so far with this job.  My experience lies in performing science shows for students, not managing a classroom.  Being in a city school adds a number of challenges too.  I am working hard to try to understand the culture and needs of the students.  Each day when they arrive at the classroom, even after a full day of school, almost every one of them is excited to learn about science and is curious about the day’s lessons.  Whenever I'm feeling like I'm in over my head, I remind myself of the amazing opportunity I have to help these students explore that curiosity and love of science.