I’ve been checking my inbox every five minutes this morning, because I am expecting to receive two of the coolest emails ever.  Let’s rewind a bit first.  Back in November I met with two groups of high school students from Forest Lawn High School and Bishop Carroll High School.  These students have joined the High School Science Café Program at TELUS Spark, where they came in for a training and leadership session for how to run their own Science Café back at their own high schools.  

If you have never been to a Science Café and you live in Calgary, you should check them out at the Ironwood Stage and Grill every last Thursday of the month (next one is Thursday, January 24^th with Jay Ingram and Dr. Valerie Sim discussing Science vs. the Media).  This provides an opportunity to hang out at a pub, enjoy a brew or some dinner, while listening to a panel discussion, followed by an open floor for questions and answers; and let me tell you – the Science Café goers sure know how to ask the BEST questions.

Obviously the youth science cafes can’t take place in pubs, but there are several ways to create an informal environment; science cafés are anything but boring, and nothing like a lecture (So each team is asked to find a non-classroom space in their school as a venue).  During the training session, students participated in their own science café hosted at TELUS Spark, titled “What Questions Do You Ask When Building A New Science Centre?” where they met Julie Bowen, VP of Content and Katherine Ziff, Exhibit Developer to discuss this question and feel out how a science café runs.  The teams explored the galleries and then together they brainstormed a list of questions they felt could make compelling science cafes.  The questions they came up with blew me away, and would all make outstanding Science Café topics:

- Can your eyes pop out if you sneeze with your eyes open?
- What caused the dancing plague of 1518?
- Why is chocolate so addicting?
- Why so breakups suck so much?
- Could you donate your brain?
- Will Star Trek ever be real?
- Overpopulation:  is there enough room for all of us?
- Why do we have toe hair?  (Edit: YES, REALLY, WHY DO HUMANS HAVE TOE HAIR!?)
- What is the speed of STD Transmission?
- Why is processed cheese processed?
- How does glue stick?
- If an airplane is on a treadmill, can it take off? 

So, I am waiting for the email that contains their final questions.  Although the students brainstormed together during the training session, they were encouraged to repeat this process at their schools, and to narrow down their ideas by crowdsourcing their student body to figure out which topics their peers would be most excited to hear about at their science café.   Today is their deadline to tell us their top 3 choices for science café topics.  From there, TELUS Spark has committed to matching these students with a panel of two speakers from either industry or academia who could best address at least one of their three questions to their student body (and we want to match them up with GREAT speakers: knowledgeable, engaging, and maybe even funny folks).  I’m really excited to hear what questions students will want to address – and more so, I’m excited for them to host events that they completely developed on their own. 

Yesterday, I received this note from the Forest Lawn group’s teacher liaison; here is an excerpt. 

“We are meeting tomorrow to go over the results of the student survey and should have some questions by tomorrow. My students were drawn to the topic of relationships so my guess is that our questions will relate to different aspects of love.”

Oh man.  These students are going to be creating something really special.   

If the High School Science Café program sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, please get in touch at and we can discuss how you can join this initiative (Claudia.Bustos@sparkscience.ca).  This a free outreach program, and were students commit to hosting one or two science cafés in their high schools, and TELUS Spark provides them with the training (and a free visit to TELUS Spark with funds from NSERC Canada), tools and funding to produce their own speaker series.  And if you are not in high school anymore, and over 18, please join us at the Ironwood Stage and Grill on January 24^th 2011.   

-Claudia

Comments »

Inspired by many different outlets, at the April Market Collective we wanted to turn an entire room into a cardboard forest.  The best part – we started with an empty room papered in cardboard and had market participants add something to transform it into the forest over two days.

We set up our supplies (broken down cardboard, a table to cut on, hot glue, masking tape, packing tape, box cutters, and scissors) in another space just outside the forest.  It was interesting to watch the reactions of people as they approached us.  A lot of people just thought the building space was it.  One guy even said, “Well, we must be bored, cutting up cardboard”.  Then we directed him into the forest room.  That’s when the impressions turned to amazement, delight, respect, and awe.

It was crazy wonderful to see how one person’s small woodland creature added so much to the overall effect. Kris also had the great idea to outfit the room with bird and forests sounds.  It became an immersive experience; many people commented they wanted this in their house or bedroom.

Check out Day 1:

-Stacey.

Comments »

We piloted this program at Market Collective back in December because at the time toys and holidays seemed to fit really well.   Since then we have had requests to bring our toys and tools to other community partners any time of the year.  (Which is pretty great – I would gladly run this forever.  And we’ve kept all the creations.  They are on display at the current Creative Kids Museum and we will move them along with us to the New Science Centre).

Most recently we were at the International Festival of Animated Objects Opening Galabash hosted by the Calgary Animated Objects Society (CAOS) in March.  This is in part a bar with a concert showcase, puppet peep shows, and includes participants dressed like Muppets.

What I found really great about Toy Mash Up here was these people gave behaviors, voices, and in part played with their creations as they developed.  It was like a five year old birthday party full of imagination, but more wicked (no surprise these folks love puppetry).  Also, Quickdraw Animation Society was on hand with a city scene and cameras to create stop motion movies not unlike Godzilla.  Check it out:

Toy Mash Up at CAOS Gala

The CAOS crew hanging out after world domination:

-Stacey

Comments »

The premise:

A black tie event, bring something for teens, last 6 hours amongst 1300 guests including over 600 children.

Oh, and to make it worth your while, you must learn something about the activity and how it might run in the New Science Centre. Easy. And turns out, pretty amusing.

Being black tie everyone from the very old to the very young was in fancy dress clothes. Our usual materials of hot glue and recyclables were going to be tricky to entice participants – let alone teenagers. Instead of fighting it; join it – set up materials to make boutonnieres to wear with your black tie.

Using tissue paper, an LED and battery, participants were able to make paper flowers that were simple and yet beautiful.  We provided step-by-step instructions on an easel board – we’ve found this to be one the best strategies to facilitate multiple ages and abilities. Older participants can read and follow them on their own, and parents can read along and help younger children if the facilitator is busy helping those who are literally ‘dropped off.’  Labeled baskets hold smaller and specific materials. It helps to have enough baskets of repeated materials within arms reach of any walk up spot on the table:

The activity has all of the elements that normally appeal to a teen:  style, fashion, choice, technology, and the ability to work with friends. It also appeals very well to the average nine-year-old girl. So much in fact that, we barely saw teens at all – I imagine their thought process was, “Hey look, a batting cage, spray on tattoos, and oh.  Never mind, this isn’t for us.”

Fine. Teens didn’t do the activity and now we know things that look like ‘arts & crafts’ will appeal to those that love arts & crafts on a daily basis.

Also, a floor program should run no longer than 2 hours. After this point, everyone who wants to do the activity has done it and anyone who liked it stays and uses up materials by making one for their friends, mothers, brothers, and long lost pen pals. We knew going in that were to be there for 6 hours – but it was very clear that after 2 hours, we had seen everyone that was interested.

Highlights of the Night:

Three eleven-year-old boys came up and proclaimed, “We NEED to make some flowers!  We’re going to give them to the girls so they’ll dance with us.”  I had a laugh and helped them refine their skills to make ‘good ones.’  I was impressed they asked for help and spent time until they were satisfied with the result.

A girl returning: after asking what happened to her flowers she said, “My mother stole it she like so much.  I came to make another so I could have one too.”  We saw many parents (moms and dads) not only helping, but curious in owning one as well.

The LED’s were super successful. After we ran out of batteries, the activity was still OK but everyone still wanted to make them light up. A lot of parents commented how easy, entertaining and beautiful the flowers were – many mentioned that they wanted to recreate this as a birthday party activity.

Wishes:

No one iterated on the design. With teens, I was hoping that once they got the general materials figured out they would create new flower shapes. Our younger audience was appreciative of the praise they got from the first one; they just repeated it again and again.

Children younger than 5 had a difficult time with the dexterity required. Parents took over and were frustrated that they were doing all the work while their child didn’t pay attention.

Otherwise I would say overall successful.  We spent less than $100 for six hours worth of core materials and saw over 600 children!  And thanks to the clowns we were able to get a little silly too:

- Stacey.

Comments »