ASTC Annual Conference-goers have an opportunity to visit Santa Catalina Island, 26 miles offshore from Long Beach, California, on a full-day post-conference tour, October 17.

Southern California’s eight Channel Islands, located off the coast between Santa Barbara and San Diego, are home to rich biodiversity. Nearly 90 percent of the 75-square-mile land mass, created when tectonic plates collided, is now under the protection of the nonprofit Catalina Island Conservancy.

After a one-hour ferry ride, the tour will begin with a visit to the Catalina Island Museum in the resort town of Avalon. This repository of cultural artifacts, housed in the historic Avalon Casino, captures the island’s roles as home to the native Gabrielino/Tongva tribes (who mined soapstone there), a safe haven for pirates, a cattle ranch, a military base, a Hollywood film location, a spring training site for baseball’s Chicago Cubs (whose owners, the Wrigley family, controlled the island from 1919 to 1975), and more.

Next, Conservancy staff will host a coach tour of the inner island for a behind-the-scenes look at how the group is protecting and restoring Catalina’s unique plant and wildlife communities. The schedule includes visits to nature centers at Airport in the Sky (with lunch at the DC-3 Café) and Avalon Canyon and the chance to meet wildlife ambassadors Tachi, a Catalina Island fox, and Pimu, a bald eagle, members of native species restored through Conservancy efforts. Rounding out the tour are a stop at the restored El Rancho Escondido hacienda and stables, part of Catalina’s cattle ranching history, and a visit to the beautiful beach at Little Harbors.

Participation is limited to 55 people. Register now.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA’s research center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, will open its doors to ASTC Annual Conference-goers on October 12.

JPL’s “Explore Space!” tour will follow the lifecycle of a scientific mission from concept to assembly, test, and operations. Along the way, participants will have the opportunity to visit key facilities, see full-scale replicas of historic spacecraft, and meet senior staff, both at their work sites and in panel discussions.

Since its establishment in the 1930s, JPL has been central to numerous space missions, from the development of the first U.S. satellite to the Phoenix Mars Lander that was launched August 4 on a mission to explore the planet’s icy northern plains. 

Participants in the October 12 tour should register through ASTC and then complete JPL’s online security form. Note that the early-bird registration deadline is August 10.

ASTC 2007 conference registration

Geoffrey Canada, author of Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America and president/CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) in New York City, will be the Saturday keynote speaker at this year’s ASTC Annual Conference, October 13–16. Named one of “America’s Best Leaders” by U.S. News and World Report in 2005, Canada oversees an interlocking network that delivers social services, education, and community-building programs to children and families in a 60-block area of Central Harlem. Prominent among HCZ’s initiatives are the Beacon School, Harlem Peacemakers Program, and Community Pride Initiative. Canada, a third-degree Black Belt, is also the founder of the Chang Moo Kwan Martial Arts School, which teaches the principles of Tae Kwon Do to community youth, along with anti-violence and conflict-resolution techniques.

In 1994, Canada won the first $250,000 Heinz Award for his “passionate concern for children and his selfless determination to make their lives safer and more successful.” Other honors he has received include the McGraw Prize for Education, the Robin Hood Foundation’s Heroes of the Year Award, and Child magazine’s “Children’s Champion” award. In January 2006, he was chosen by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to be co-chair of a task force charged with significantly reducing poverty in the city. He is also the East Coast regional coordinator for the Black Community Crusade for Children, a nationwide effort coordinated by Marian Wright Edelman and the Children’s Defense Fund to make saving black children the number-one priority in America’s black community.

Science centers and museums worldwide are invited to join a discussion Forum on ASTC Connect, August 6-10, in preparation for the October 4 National Conversation on Climate Action. Led by Andrea Bandelli, project manager for the European project Decide, the forum will give participants an opportunity to try out a global warming “game” designed to foster and support public discussions about climate policy. To sign up, contact connect@astc.org. If you can’t participate actively this week, you’re still welcome to join the forum.

July/August 2007
IN THIS ISSUE

Researchers who study the human brain and nervous system continue to find connections between environmental sound (both ambient and organized) and behavioral and emotional response. Anthropologists and neuroscientists alike tell us that music has been and remains critical to the development and survival of our species. It seems that people are hard-wired to respond to the quality of sound around us. Yet the auditory environments of science centers do not always reflect that understanding. The July/August 2007 issue of ASTC Dimensions draws on research into acoustics, the brain, and learning, as well as current museum practice, to explore the effect of sound on human experience—with implications for the design of both exhibits and the larger museum environment.

CONTENTS

• Wild Music: Making the Most of Sound in an Exhibition, by Wendy Pollock and J. Shipley Newlin
• Sound Advice: Acoustic Considerations for Exhibit Design, by Andrea Weatherhead
• Designed for Attentive Listening: Dealing with a Challenging Environment, by Eric Dimond
• Wired for Music: The Science of Human Musicality, by Donald A. Hodges
• Composing an Exhibition, by Philip Blackburn
• Heureka’s Music: Sound with a Sociocultural Perspective, by Mikko Myllykoski
• Science Sonatas: Listening to Data, by Stephen Pompea
• Sound Resources

Download the full issue.

Subscribe/order back issues