For awhile now I have been toying around with "TheBlu," a virtual ocean environment. The creators describe "TheBlu" as "the world's first social digital ocean you can download, explore and share." Essentially it's an interactive screensaver composed of different ocean environments that is populated by marine life created by digital artists from around the…
Category: Education
Young Science Geek Charlieiscoollike Nerding Out on Saturn (video)
I love this video of Charlieiscoollike (aka Charlie McDonnell) completely nerding out on why he loves Saturn so much. His love of science and discovery is so genuine and infectuous. [Hattip: Bad Astrology blog]
Geeking Out with 2,000 Other Science Educators in Columbus
For the next five days, I'll be in Columbus, Ohio for the annual conference of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, or ASTC for short. ASTC gathers nearly 2,000 professionals from science centers and museums from around the world. I'm looking forward to learning about all of the work being done by science centers and…
Cal Academy Digital Learning Team Expands: New Roles & Job Openings!
I realize I haven't updated my blog on the exciting changes to my role and my awesome team at the California Academy of Sciences. The Digital Learning Department at the Academy has been busy launching some awesome pilot projects over the first year of it's existence, from a citizen science scavenger hunt in Mt. Tam,…
Watch this Youth-produced Video on Coral Reef Bleaching from the Cal Academy! (video)
I invite you to check out this short science video produced by a group of teenagers during a program that I co-facilitated at the California Academy of Sciences called the "Science in Action Summer Intensive." Entitled "Fading Jewels of the Sea," this is the first of three science videos our team of 10 students produced…
BAYCAT Digital Youth Program in SF Robbed: Donate to Help Them Recover
I've met the awesome folks at BAYCAT (The Bayview Hunters Point Center for the Arts) and admired their work with at-risk youth, giving teens access to digital media equipment and tools so they can express themselves and achieve a better future for themselves. So I was devastated when I learned that BAYCAT was broken…
Rafi Santo on the Purpose of Education
Take a few minutes to listen to my buddy and former colleague Rafi Santo in an interview for Purpos/ed talking about the "purpose of education." Rafi is described as a "new media & learning theorist, educator, technologist, activist, researcher, photographer, meditator, cook, [and] learner." Love it! Rafi states much more clearly than I ever could…
Teaching Teens about Citizen Science, Mobile Game Making, and California Ecology
You may have noticed that the volume of my posting here and elsewhere has been way down for the past couple of weeks. That's because I've been head-down, 100% focused on facilitating a teen summer intensive for the California Academy of Sciences. The summer intensive involved giving a group of 13 middle-school youth a…
Baby Ostrich Chasing its “Mother” Tim at the Cal Academy
Here's your daily adorable-ness. A baby ostrich on its first exercise run outdoors chases Tim Steinmetz, resident ostrich (ratite) expert at the California Academy of Sciences. As their first and main caretaker, Tim functions as a mother figure for the ostriches, who are under the Academy's care for a short spell, as part of…
Learning about The Cal Academy’s Amazing Expedition to the Philippines
Tonight I got around to watching "Reefs to Rainforests," the documentary about the 2011 scientific expedition to the Philippines organized by the California Academy of Sciences. It's a really amazing story about the largest expedition ever organized by the Academy in its 158 years of existence, with about 100 participants from the Academy and…