Museums as Agents of Community Action and Social Responsibility
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Presenter(s): Nina Silver, Manager of Noah’s Ark Programs, Skirball Cultural Center Alison Young, Citizen Science Engagement Coordinator, California Academy of Sciences Eli Presser, Technical Coordinator, Performing Arts Program, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Moderator: Jenny Gillett, Assistant Educator, Skirball Cultural Center How can museum educators motivate people to take action in their community beyond their own needs? This session discusses programming that inspires empathy and cooperation, both in and out of the museum. Discover how to help visitors address sometimes weighty subjects such as homelessness, at-risk youth, and environmental stewardship in engaging, interactive and age-appropriate ways.
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Museums as Agents of Community Action and Social Responsibility
- 1. Empowering and Supporting the Public in Biodiversity Discovery and Documentation for Research, Conservation, and Community Building Alison Young Citizen Science Coordinator California Academy of Sciences @alisonkestrel ayoung@calacademy.org
- 2. Citizen science is a process by which everyday people take an active role in scientific discovery, joining forces with researchers and managers to answer important science and management questions. Citizen Science
- 3. People contributing to and furthering the scientific endeavor.
- 6. Citizen Science at the Academy Goals: • Connect people to and educate people about their local nature • Document biodiversity to collect data for research and management purposes • Conserve biodiversity through research, management, education, and stewardship
- 7. “… we can’t conserve species if we don’t know what or where they are.” – Kenn Kaufman Endangered Marin Elfin Butterfly caterpillar found by citizen scientists on Mt. Tamalpais
- 19. Pillar Point: San Mateo County
- 31. Citizen science at the Academy: • Teaches people about nature & the process of science & empowers them to take part in the scientific endeavor • Provides valuable data for research & management • Connects people to their local nature & each other • Builds community, in person & online • Leads to conservation through education, better management, & stewardship Citizen science provides a way for people to DO something People are actively making a difference - in their own communities, in places they love, for their local museums & scientists & resource managers
Editor's Notes
- 1. Title slide
- So what is citizen science? Essentially, it’s engaging the public - people not formally trained in science, including students-anyone – in scientific research. Answering a real, scientific question. There is an end-user of the data. You can find examples of citizen science projects in almost every type of science, as well as subjects beyond science!
- Why are scientists having us do their work?. When there are BIG questions to be answered, that require lots of data, or data from a large geographic area – one scientist or a small team of scientists can’t be everywhere to collect the data they need. So they ask the public for help!
- Place for informal science learning! San Francisco GGP 1.5 million visitors/year Tens of thousands of members We are the third oldest natural history museum in the United States Education: Formal, informal, Science Visualization and Docents 18 curators, 30 PhD scientists in total We hold the largest and most comprehensive specimen collection of California biodiversity in the world. Taxonomy, systematics phylogenetics and genomics-collections based…making and using collections to answer big questions
- Our researchers work in biodiversity hotspots around the globe, observing and documenting biodiversity. CA is a biodiversity hotspot. We’re engaging our citizen scientists in very similar work as our researchers.
- 3. Goals of our citizen science program Citizen science: involving the public in authentic scientific research. All parts of the scientific process apply (most projects utilize citizen science for data gathering), but data have an end-user. Academy citizen science initiative: documenting California biodiversity. Much in the same way our researchers document biodiversity in global biodiversity hotspot, CA is also a hotspot and we’re involving the public in similar work. Our goals: engaging people in the scientific process and understanding of the value of nature/biodiversity, providing valuable data about California biodiversity…. both of these working together toward conservation outcomes through stewardship and management.
- Title slide
- But the real value is in the community of naturalists, scientists, students, beginners, and citizen-scientists participating in the social network
- How many of you have taken a photo and shared it on social media-fb, instagram, twitter, etc…this week, month year…. Imagine if those photos could help save nature and change the world…or fundamentally improve our understanding of our world!
- plants and animals are going extinct at a rate and magnitude equaling that which took out the dinosaur. To stem the extinction, we have to know where species are, in what amounts, and where they are moving, particularly with climate change. We also have to keep tabs on how relationships between species are changing, like plants and butterflies and bees. We can be the global species sensor….actually there is NO other way to do it!
- They can probably ID nudibranchs almost as well as most experts. Science can be a silo, only talking about your subject/interest with other scientists. Appreciation for amateur knowledge – think of birders, amateur botanists, etc.
- Knowing a place so well that participants know when something is new/different/unique. E.g., the bloom of Okenia rosacea, the Hopkin’s Rose, we experienced/are currently experiencing. Citizen scientists were some of the first to document this taking place.
- Going back to Donna & Robin, who spend so much time at Pillar Point looking at nudibranchs…