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

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

Our Senior Vice President of Education, Dr. Judy Brown, recently had the honor of being invited to serve on the National Advisory Committee for Early Learning in Museums in Washington, DC. Dr. Brown currently leads the Museum’s research and development project Early Childhood Hands-On Science (ECHOS). A collaboration with the University of Miami’s College of Arts and Sciences, the project is funded by the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science. ECHOS is a pre-school science early intervention program for Head Start children, and a work force development program for Head Start teachers and teacher assistants.  ECHOS brings the Museum’s hands-on learning approach into preschool community centers across Miami-Dade County.  The project combines two of Judy’s passions and areas of expertise: informal museum education and early childhood learning. She traveled to Washington to join other leading museum educators and researchers on the advisory committee, in order to share our research as well as to help design an upcoming early childhood space in the American History Museum.  Judy will continue to advise the Smithsonian on the upcoming National Symposium on Early Learning in Museums. If you’ve ever wondered who gets to be a part of guiding the national conversation on early learning, we are doing pioneering work right here at our Museum.

Dr. Judy Brown, the Museum’s Senior Vice President of Education, was recently an invited guest speaker at the Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference, which is held every year in Washington DC. Judy’s presentation, entitled Success with Science: New Approaches for New Audiences, centered on new ways museums might think about promoting science education to their respective communities, with the particular goal of stimulating science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills. Currently, the Museum leads the National GirlsRISE Museum project, which is a collaboration of museums nationwide committed to engaging girls in science. Using this model as an example, Dr. Brown shared the important role museums can play in developing the next generation of female scientists and engineers. Dr. Brown’s talk emphasized that these kinds of open collaborations are essential in working towards results that can impact local, regional, and even national audiences. Just another illustration that 2-way streets of communication are always better than 1-way!