When the pandemic temporarily closed the Museum’s doors in March 2020, our traditional operations may have been suspended, but our mission was not. Thanks to strong support from our members, our donors, and our other stakeholders, the MLS Team was able to pivot quickly into developing new ways to bring science learning to our community. Such innovation has been a silver lining of the pandemic, allowing the Museum to fully express our culture of experimentation with new experiences and programs delivered online and at home.
FOR OUR MEMBERS
Lab@Home
When the pandemic temporarily closed the Museum’s doors back in March, we had to find a way to bring science learning to our community. In April 2020, the Lab launched a brand new weekly virtual program: Lab@Home, an interactive livestream featuring science experiments done with household materials that learners could do alongside the facilitators. Following a need for engaging younger learners, we introduced Little Lab@Home in May 2020, which helps young children build science skills and coaches families on supporting their development. Since April, we have done 44 programs, averaging about 40 devices per program with approximately 2.5 viewers per device.
The museum also offers Lab@Home Kits to encourage science experimentation anywhere, as well as enhance the experience of Labs@Home.
"The biggest takeaway from me today was their confidence. I came over when they got off track a bit to try to steer them back. When I came back over the third time, Sarah said 'Stay Away Mom. We've got this.' Hannah chimed in, 'Yeah Mom, we're doing science.'" - Museum Member
FOR OUR SCHOOLS
Real Science: Field Trip Fridays
Durham Public Schools and the Museum of Life and Science have had a long history of collaboration, with a particular focus on hands-on, interactive science activity that supports NC Essential Standards, as well as the Museum’s purpose to help all discover the scientists within themselves. Most recently, the Museum and DPS partnered to create STEM Days, a complete reimagining of the classic museum field trip. STEM Days provides a range of grade-specific, curated science activities placed around the institution.
With the closure of schools, our STEM Days and other traditional forms of science engagement with DPS students and teachers needed to be completely reimagined. Collaborating with DPS Science Coordinators Willow Alston-Socha and Linda Tugurian and their “Science Alliance” of teachers and community partners, we saw an opportunity to address another major goal – to bring the incredible science happening across our region directly to our students. The result is “Real Science: Field Trip Fridays” (FTF), which dives into the real research and science happening in our backyards, at government, corporate, university, and non-profit research centers, in industry settings, and sports fields.
Each Friday throughout the school year, a live virtual “field trip” is broadcast via Zoom and YouTube to all DPS students, teachers, and the broader community. Each field trip is hosted by MLS Educators Steve Scholle and Jenna Gant, and features a real scientist or science practitioner from the Triangle, diving into their science and including an experiment that can be done by participants at home or in the classroom. The selection of these scientists is done to reflect the diversity of our community, and help students see themselves in science-related careers, and applying science to various challenges and fields.
Since starting in September, we have traveled across the Triangle to meet bakers, cheese makers, farmers, luthiers, veterinarians, and many more! At each location Steve and Jenna interview STEM practitioners on the science they use in their everyday lives and conduct experiments related to the week’s video. Throughout our Field Trip Friday’s journey, we have interacted with various wildlife, visited Duke Gardens, learned how cheese is produced and aged, and the journey of coffee from a plant to a cup.
FTF has emerged as an extraordinary partnership across Durham Public Schools, the Museum, and the immense community of science in our region, not only responding to the challenges of the pandemic, but taking advantage of the power of digital media and virtual learning.
FOR OUR CORPORATE PARTNERS
Re:WIRED
Re:Wired is a program that was created once school groups and other organizations were not able to come to the Museum. This program began as an experiment in ‘hybrid’ experience – wherein virtual delivery is combined with physical activity done at the participant’s location. This allowed us to stay true to our strategic objective to “Think Digital: applying digital models to drive real-world exploration.”
Our initial collaborator in the program was a Durham-based company, Avalara, who approached the Museum seeking hands-on educational experiences for their employee’s children. From the first session on aerospace, it has evolved into seven options for groups, and all are aligned with North Carolina Essential Standards. As such, it has also proven a wonderful fit for Title I and other schools, allowing them to continue the tradition of hands-on “science nights” through remote delivery. Our team facilitated eight programs that evening focusing on Animal Encounters and STEM Design.
FOR OUR CAMPERS
Camps@Home
Camps@Home programs with the goal of recreating the camp experience for kids who were staying home due to the pandemic. These programs combine online and self-guided activities throughout an entire week for kids aged four through eighth grade.
This program includes face-to-face facilitation and self-guided activities, that aim to grow community, and foster critical and scientific thinking through project based, engaging activities. Topics include tinkering, coding (with Scratch and MakeCode), forensics and astronomy. Many of these themes include materials kits which provide participants with materials to create fun projects such as electrical circuits, finger printing kits, and constellation projecting tubes.
Camps@Home also connect participants to the Museum through special programs featuring activities like live animal interactions with some of our program animals, behind-the-scenes tours at the Museum’s animal hall and farmyard, or special presentations in our exhibits like Science on a Sphere, all facilitated by our expert educators.
FOR REMOTE LEARNING SUPPORT
Museum Clubhouse
In the fall, when it was clear that schools were going to continue with predominantly remote delivery, MLS again responded to the needs of the community with a complete new program. Museum Clubouse was created out of a need for caregivers to have a safe place for their child to socialize with other kids, get outside, and receive support in their virtual schooling. Each student has different schedules, priorities and needs, but through true engagement with caregivers and schools, we have been able to provide each child and family with a program that works for them. This has all been accomplished with the safety of our staff, the students, and other guests as a top priority.
FOR COVID AWARENESS
Parenting in the Pandemic
Through a partnership with Innovations in Healthcare and Duke Global Health Institute, we ran a four-part series on Parenting in the Pandemic with a diverse group of experts and healthcare workers. The program aimed to help parents navigate the new realities of living through a pandemic with their families and providing effective and accurate science communication about public health messages. This four-part limited series ran from March into late April, and featured panelists from Duke, Harvard, UNC, NCSU, WUNC, Science Friday, CBS, and NBC, among many more.
The Museum hosted a panel of global healthcare and technology experts, in partnership with Duke Global Health Institute, about how the pandemic was hitting and being dealt with in countries on all seven continents, featuring panelists from Rwanda, Peru, India, South Africa, England, Canada, and the US. Panelists provided guidance and advice on helping out frontline workers and supporting technological infrastructure that could protect people worldwide.
With Seminario Pandemico, the Museum partnered with Duke Center for Women’s Health Technologies to provide essential coronavirus communication in Spanish about South and Central America, as well as for Spanish-speaking audiences in the US.
The Museum’s Lab@Home programming creating a three-part series on the coronavirus for children, called Safer With Science. We felt it essential to create programs outlining the basic science of how and why basic tenants of public health were important for them to understand in order to keep themselves and their families safe. The program featured three episodes – Masks, Social Distancing, and Handwashing. The episode on Masks featured the co-authors of a groundbreaking new study from Duke about mask efficacy and efficiency, who joined as special guests to urge kids to wear their masks to stay safe.
FOR OUR COMMUNITY
Virtual Engagement and Community Science
Our Virtual Programming this year helped us to broaden our horizons beyond the traditional Museum setting, and reach thousands of new audience members that we would not typically have reached. The programming we offered ranged from essential science communication about the pandemic and public health communication about staying safe in an unprecedented time, to programed aimed at bringing light and levity to an otherwise dark time. We worked with experts, forged new partnerships, and earned field-wide recognition for our rapid, quality, and innovative free public programs.
Of particular importance were our programs about coronavirus, climate, outdoor learning, gaming, and space. We aimed to create a full suite of programs to engage audiences of all sorts – from very young children (ages 0-4) with our LittleLab@Home Program, to teenagers with our It’s Environmental limited speaker series (in partnership with DPS, EPA, and Duke Nicholas School), to adults with our Climate Conscious NC Project. These aimed not only to get peoples’ eyes onto our content, but to promote and provoke deeper learning, appreciation, and understanding of science in a time where public engagement with science is of vital importance.
We aimed to maintain our mission of engaging and immersing learners into authentic learning processes where they had an opportunity and a window to engage with experts and expertise, build science literacy, and become astute critical thinkers through a variety of types of learning – from mini-seminars, to public forums, to play-along game jams.
Vitally, we wanted to ensure that this programming was free, understandable, and accessible to all, which meant bringing in a variety of experts and also creating programming in Spanish. It also meant creating a variety of different ways to engage – be it games, co-building projects, webinars, or short-form videos, all of which help learners to engage in science content and learning in different ways.
Some of the many examples of this work include:
>> MLS hosted a six-part series of mini-seminars about climate change in North Carolina called Climate-Conscious NC, partnering with the NC State Climatologist Dr. Kathie Dello and funded by NOAA. The work was featured in a Science Connected Magazine article about public engagement with climate change.
>> Our climate-related work was further extended in a collaborative series between MLS and Yale Climate Connections, where MLS Lab@Home Participants from a youth program about climate change asked questions to YCC Editor Sara Peach, featuring original cartoons for the entries by cartoonist Tom Toro.
>> Partnering with the NC State Rob Dunn Lab for Applied Ecology’s on the Wild Sourdough Project, the newest incarnation of the Sourdough for Science project optimized especially for the pandemic. The success of the program led it to be highlighted in an article in Discover Magazine.
>> Hosting a virtual “Summer Bug-Out” with local entomologist and author Dr. Eleanor Spicer-Rice, which included an interview, special Lab@Home programming, weekly creative prompts for engaging with the insect world, and a raffle with insect-themed prize packs.
>> Supported advancing scientific understanding of ecology in Durham with three virtual bioblitz events – with Duke Gardens, the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, and our own limited series with iNaturalist called Summer Bug-Out! With local entomologist and author Dr. Eleanor Spicer-Rice of NCSU’s Applied Ecology. This included included interviews, special Lab@Home programming, weekly creative prompts for engaging with the insect world, and a raffle with insect-themed prize packs.
>> Digital programs for Pollinator Week, including a virtual storytime where the facilitator read a book aloud and did a short insect program over Zoom, a special Lab@Home program called “Pollinator Power”, a live program checking the Museum’s bee hive called “Hivestream”, a behind the scenes tour of the Insectarium, and a program with our partners at Toxic Free NC as “Pollinator Protectors”.
>> Co-hosting a cooking and pickling program with celebrity chef Vivian Howard, with Quail Ridge Books and NCSU Applied Ecology.
FOR ANYONE
Bite-Sized Science
Bite Sized Science is an effort to give Museum members a way to continue to discover and explore science despite the Museum’s closure due to the pandemic. Using tools and materials likely to be found in or around the home, these Bite Sized activities helped families explore topics including Chemistry, physics, anthropology, and astronomy. The program makes use of written instruction as well as short videos facilitated by I&L staff demonstrating the science behind the activity and step by step instructions. Highlights of the program include surface tension propelled boats, engineering and testing parachutes, and creating a sound map of your yard or neighborhood. The entire set of Bite-Sized Science can be found on the MLS@Home website.
DISCOVERING THE SCIENTIST IN ALL OF US
For more information on all of our education experiences - on and offline - at the Museum of Life and Science, please contact mitchell.sava at lifeandscience.org.
Credits:
Museum of Life and Science