If you read the recent post on this blog and were hoping for a real time-lapse video of the construction so far on our new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science, your wish has been granted. The following video was released today, and condenses months of work into just 14 seconds. Watch closely!

With the help of a State Farm Youth Advisory Board grant and the Museum’s Reclamation Project, students participating in the Museum’s Upward Bound program are serving as Eco-Ambassadors to south Florida’s unique environments. We have all seen the PSAs (public service announcements) that make you stop and think, like NBC’s “The More You Know…” series. Now, our student Eco-Ambassadors are creating their own PSAs in a 5-day One Water Workshop. They’re learning about the whole process of creating a PSA, from scripting to filming to editing, and doing it all themselves in small groups of 4 or 5. The teamwork and creativity brought out in a project like this represents the same kind of effort that we need to apply to involving our communities in environmental conservation. These students are taking a first step towards that goal, by creating their PSAs on topics ranging from natural resource exploitation to restoration to environmental economics. The final films will be finished on January 7, and will be posted to the Miami Science Museum and State Farm Youth Advisory Board websites. So be sure to check back! Because the more you know…

Channel 10 reporter Christina Vazquez speaks with Museum President Gillian Thomas at the construction site for the new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science

Museum President and CEO Gillian Thomas, Vice President of Marketing Tony Lima, and the workers at the construction site for the new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science had a very special visitor this week. Channel 10 WPLG reporter Christina  Vazquez joined them on “the plaza level” of the new Museum building – which was a first for everyone!

The visit resulted in a piece aired on Wednesday evening’s newscast, as well as a Channel 10 webpage to support our story. Click here to watch the broadcast, read the story, and see lots of amazing photos!

A lone mangrove seedling

On Saturday, December 8^th, 60 Upward Bound Eco-Ambassadors joined a group of volunteers from Miami-Dade College in replanting almost 1,000 mangrove propagules at R. Hardy Matheson Preserve. The Preserve is undergoing a major management effort by Miami-Dade County to remove exotic plants, replant native habitats such as mangroves, and create a multi-use protected area for recreational activities.

In all, over 100 volunteers participated in planting mangrove seedlings that had been exhibited on a wall at Miami Science Museum since November 2011, as part of the Museum’s Reclamation Project.  Specifically, they planted young mangrove plants along the banks of the Snapper Creek, a historical waterway. Not only does Snapper Creek have historical significance, as evidenced by a 500 B.C. Tequesta Indian habitation mound, but it is also one of the largest tracts of coastal native habitat in Miami-Dade County. Until recently, the banks of the creek where the volunteers planted were covered in large mounds of landfill which were dumped there as part of periodic dredging of the creek for the purpose of recreational navigation. These mounds were also, until recently, covered in invasive plants such as Australian pine and Brazilian pepper, and devoid of any native vegetation. Thanks to the efforts of these Eco-Ambassadors, this area will once again be covered in mangroves and associated plants which will provide food and shelter for native birds, mammals and reptiles, such as the endangered American crocodile and the West Indian manatee.

This effort is being funded by a State Farm Youth Advisory Board grant to engage local teenagers in restoring local habitat, outdoor learning and telling their own stories about South Florida’s natural areas through film. Click here for more information on the Reclamation Project, the Eco-Ambassadors, and the State Farm Youth Advisory Board.

The eco-ambassadors gather to start the day

The group wades into the water to replant mangroves

In recent times, it seems more and more difficult for humans to avoid negatively impacting nature. But that does not mean that we can’t make a positive impact. The Museum’s eco-art Reclamation Project works to help restore our coastal environments. You can see these efforts every day, on an exterior wall by the Museum’s Wildlife Center. More than 1,100 mangrove seedlings are lined up in biodegradable cups, waiting to be replanted at several restoration sites scattered throughout Miami. Each year, when all the seedlings are taken to be planted, 1,100 more seedlings are brought in to replace the ones that were taken out. This year, as part of a grant from State Farm Youth Advisory Board, students from the Miami Science Museum’s Upward Bound Math and Science program replaced the 1,100 red mangrove seedlings on the wall with new ones they had collected in September from Bear Cut Preserve on Key Biscayne and Matheson Hammock County Park. The seedlings taken down off the wall will be replanted by the Upward Bound students over the next couple weeks at R. Hardy Matheson Preserve, a Miami-Dade County Park, and on Virginia Key. As part of the same grant, students also visited a restoration site at  Oleta River State Park that is currently covered in invasive species. In the spring, students will help restore the site by replanting 1.5 acres. Through these activities, students begin to have a first-hand understand of the importance of nature – because humans and animals need nature in order to survive, and nature certainly needs our help to survive as well.

2013 Galaxy Gala Committee (from left to right): Patty Garcia, Irene Korge, Linda Levy Goldberg, Lizette Martino Diaz, Tori Anderson, Rose Weiss, Alan Randolph, Alicia Cervera, Anne Owen, Tara Solomon, Gillian Thomas, Trish Bell, Nancy Batchelor, Nicole Lozano, Jennifer Diliz, Maria Goodno, Steven Arch, Jennifer Gibbs, Terry Buoniconti, Swanee Dimare, Maria Beguiristain, Kristen Scorza, Abigail Dubearn. Not Pictured: Ana Maria Bezerra, Debora Duro, Joseph Falk, Vanessa Grout, Lee Hare, Caressa Lanier, Lesley Lyons-Monahan, Bronwyn Miller, Brenda Nestor Castellano, Helena Poleo, Kim Smith, Electra Spillis, Elizabeth Taylor, Susie Wahab, Dale Webb, Steven Weinger.

Under the leadership of co-chairs Nancy Batchelor and Nicole Lozano, along with a stellar committee of the leading ladies and gentlemen of Miami’s business and philanthropic communities, the Committee for the 2013 Galaxy Gala is off to a great start!

Scheduled for March 9, 2013, the gala’s theme this year will be centered on an out of this world aquatic experience. The inspirations are the outdoor aquatic spaces and the 600,000 gallon aquarium facility that will be featured in the museum’s new facility at Museum Park. Among the many amazing elements conceived by Miami’s top event planning/marketing company WOW Factor for the gala are: live fish tanks, an LED screen over the dance floor that will make guests feel like they’re truly under the sea, and a few surprises that will blow guests out of the water!

Committee members have already helped line up top sponsors that include Neiman Marcus, Bacardi, City National Bank and Baptist Hospital, among others. In addition, they have secured a line-up of top-notch, luxurious items for the auction that range from a Gucci handbag and Rene Ruiz gift certificates to a 2-night stay at the Shore Club and box seats to the Sony Ericsson tennis finals.

The gala is taking place just as the construction on the new facility continues to progress. Designed by internationally recognized Grimshaw Architects, the 250,000 square-foot Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science will be among the world’s most innovative and sustainable science museums. According to Grimshaw, the Museum is intended to act as a demonstration of ecological and sustainability principles. The building will harness energy from water, sun, wind and even museum visitors to power exhibits and conserve resources.

Slated for completion in 2014 and grand opening in 2015, the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science will be state-of-the-art center for science education and innovation.

The Smithsonian is a name recognized all over the world. Internationally, if people know one Museum in the US, it’s most likely the Smithsonian. But through Smithsonian Affiliations, museums all over the country can partner in efforts to share science, art, and history with everyone. The Miami Science Museum is a proud Affiliate member, and recently has taken advantage of several unique opportunities made available by the Smithsonian.

One of these opportunities was sponsored by Smithsonian Magazine’s Museum Day Live, and it allowed our Museum to open its doors for free and allow even more of our community to come here and get up close to science activities and exhibits, planetarium shows, and even live animals like starfish and turtles. We had a special visitor that day, 3 month old Colton, who came to the Museum for the first time with his family – just like his mom did when she was a child. Colton’s mom wrote a gracious email to the Museum telling us all about Colton’s adventure, and how much he enjoyed his first Museum visit. Click here to see more of Colton’s day and read his family’s letter to the Museum.

Colton and his mom Tracy

For the Smithsonian’s National Youth Summit, the Museum was able to invite local youth to participate in a national conversation about environmental stewardship. Students previewed clips from Ken Burns’ documentary “The Dust Bowl,” which shows the very real cause-and-effect relationship that humans can have with nature, and focuses on the 1930s, when the wheat farming boom caused a large-scale, decade-long drought. Miami students participated in a nationwide videoconference with students from around the country, and then in a “town hall” meeting with local experts. Because of this event, these students now know more about being responsible for their environment. Click here to find out more about this event.

Students and local experts at our “town hall” meeting

In yet another amazing opportunity, the Museum applied for and received a grant from Smithsonian Affiliations to involve students in astronomy and astrophotography through the Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos program. Students were able to remotely operate NASA MicroObservatory telescopes, request their own images, and then process their images using real astronomy imaging software. Students were given complete creative freedom, and the result was a new exhibition at the Museum showcasing their work, which illustrates the spectacular detail and amazing structures in our Universe. At the exhibition’s opening weekend, students were present to show their work to visitors, and lead hands-on activities related to color, light, and telescopes. Click here to see more of the students’ images of our colorful cosmos.

Raymond and Giselle at their exhibition

What’s next? We can’t wait to see!

The Miami Science Museum is one of only 10 museums nationwide that was selected to participate in the Smithsonian’s National Youth Summit on October 17th.  The focus of this summit was contemporary environmental issues and the legacy (as well as lessons learned) from the Dust Bowl period in the 1930s. During this time, the boom of wheat farming (sometimes called the “great plow-up”) brought on a 10 year drought, showing that human activities can cause large scale environmental effects. Students from around the country participated in the summit via video/web conferencing, and had the opportunity to view clips from Ken Burns’ recently released “The Dust Bowl” documentary. They discussed what they learned from the Dust Bowl and shared ideas on how they can be protectors of their environments.  The overarching theme of the event was to explore how to better understand the complexity of environmental issues and to learn what people can do today to avoid (or lessen) other environmental crises.

Each of the 10 selected museum sites also hosted a local town hall discussion with these themes in mind, but in the context of their own local environmental issues, especially as it relates to how humans can impact their environment and what the youth can do to help.  The Miami Science Museum’s town hall focused on climate and conservation in South Florida environments. Local experts were invited to talk with local students for the event. These included Dawn Shireffs of the National Parks Conservation Association, Dr. Benjamin Kirtman of the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Dr. Jayantha Obeysekera of the South Florida Water Management District, and Maria Beotegui of Biscayne National Park. Over 100 students from Centennial Middle School and Riviera Middle School that were present for the event now have some idea of how they can have a positive effect on their own environment.

Students filled the Museum theater for the town hall meeting to talk to local environmental experts

Every year, the Museum celebrates our Universe, and everyone with a passion for observing, investigating, and learning about it. On a large scale, it’s officially National Astronomy Day. Here at the Museum, we called our celebration AstroJam: A Cosmic Quest. On Friday under a nearly full Moon, and on Saturday under sunny skies, visitors were treated to space-related film screenings, hands-on activities, planetarium shows, a live theater show featuring Galileo, and the chance to look through the Museum’s rooftop observatory on Friday night, and through solar telescopes on Saturday provided by the Astronomy Club from Florida International University. Also on hand at the event was the Southern Cross Astronomical Society, who provided materials for guests and shared news of their weekly observing nights that are open to the public. Visitors received materials from Astronomy Magazine, and were treated to an exhibition of astrophotography sponsored by the Smithsonian Affiliations’ Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos project, and created by high school students from the Museum’s Upward Bound program. (Click here to see more of the students’ exhibition.) During the event, young visitors went on a “Cosmic Quest” throughout the Museum – every time they completed an activity, they received a sticker on their “quest port card.” Activities included a laser maze, building your own Mars Rover, making ultraviolet jewelry, and lots more. And of course, being so close to Halloween, what event would be complete without a costume contest? A few lucky visitors (like Mario & Luigi, Darth Vader, and Athena) walked away with prizes like Celestron telescopes, a Straddle game (kind of like a space version of Twister), and glow in the dark stars for their rooms. The whole event was a cosmic hit! Check out a slideshow of photos below.

We’ve all seen the amazing images from the Hubble Space Telescope. The details in the colors and swirling patterns are not just beautiful – they also tell a story about what is happening there. Is that cloud of gas and dust a nursery for newborn stars? Are these massive bubbles of gas that have exploded from a supernova? And perhaps most importantly, who creates these images, and how?

As a member of Smithsonian Affiliations, the Miami Science Museum was recently able to answer that last question … in our case, it’s students! As a recipient of a grant from the Smithsonian’s Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos program, the Museum was able to give students participating in our Upward Bound program the opportunity to remotely operate NASA’s MicroObservatory, a system of robotic telescopes in Arizona. Students chose the objects they wanted to observe, including the exposure time and the filter through which the telescope would take the image. The next day, they received emails from the telescope with their images. Most of the time, the images appeared dark, as if there wasn’t much there. But students learned how to use professional-grade software to adjust brightness scales, reduce the background “noise” of the image, and add color schemes. All of a sudden those seemingly dark images became spectacular images of our colorful cosmos!

MicroObservatory telescopes

Lagoon Nebula (raw image)

The students were not done after they created their works of astrophotography art. Their work has now been combined into a new exhibition at the Museum! Students were also present for the exhibit’s opening weekend (which coincided with AstroJam, the Museum’s annual astronomy event) where they led activities on color, filters, and light, to pass on to Museum visitors their knowledge of telescopes and our Cosmos.

Lagoon Nebula (created by Claudia)

The Sun (created by Raymond)

The Pinwheel Galaxy (created by Giselle)

NGC 891 (created by Odelkis)

Orion Nebula (created by Samwood)

The Dumbbell Nebula (created by Randy)

Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos Exhibit

Jerry, with his creations

Ivory, with future scientists building a laser maze