In 2019, I joined the team developing ASTC’s IF/THEN® Gender Representation Toolkit as an advisor. I am an independent exhibit designer who also writes and consults with museums on matters of gender and sexuality and I was happy to lend my expertise. This toolkit is part of ASTC’s IF/THEN® Gender Equity project and its aim …
The challenge of measuring gender Read More »
Educators at Impression 5 Science Center in Lansing, Michigan partnered with youth representatives across the city and with University of Michigan STEM learning researchers to re-think and re-design the Center with a focus on social justice. Together, we embarked on a project we referred to as Reclaiming the Science Center (from January 2019 to February …
Reclaiming our science center: Youth co-design of the Dr. Katherine Johnson Room Read More »
Early in my career, I worked in a museum with a storied history of corporations’ dictating content. There were even instances of corporations creating entire exhibitions. It was a difficult introduction to corporate partnerships. Thankfully, there were a few stellar colleagues at that museum who modeled alternate paths. I spent the next decade or so …
Learn how to grow your corporate sponsorship program Read More »
The Lawrence Hall of Science (known as “the Lawrence”) at the University of California, Berkeley, has long offered field trip workshops for students. In recent years—and especially now, during the COVID-19 pandemic—we’ve found that teachers may need these experiences just as much as their students to support their own professional learning journeys. The Next Generation …
“Look-fors”: A tool for teachers Read More »
In early 2007, the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) opened an exhibition on the history, human variation, and lived experience of race. The groundbreaking RACE: Are We So Different? was created by a multi-racial team from the American Anthropological Association and Science Museum of Minnesota, with funding from the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation. The exhibition …
As the ongoing pandemic is showing, STEM disciplines are vital to figuring out ways of coping with a range of disasters. There’s no better time than the present to capitalize on youth interest in increasingly common natural disasters and the technology used to address them. Science centers have been playing a significant role by connecting …
From Fires to Floods: Science centers, natural disasters, and Teen Science Cafés Read More »