Our Year in Review
This year was quite the year for the Smithsonian Science Education Center! We celebrated our 30th anniversary, released several digital products, held many professional and leadership development programs, and have been hard at work expanding our curricular offerings! We are excited to see what 2016 will bring! Until then, see what some of our staff have to say about their work in 2015!
Patti Marohn, Project Editor
This year I transitioned from being the SSEC’s resident style and grammar guru to taking an active role in planning and writing a new literacy series for elementary students. I started by researching best practices in the integration of literacy strategies into science content. Writing for young learners presented a challenge, but I was eager to write stories for children about real-world examples of how the Earth changes on the largest scale and even in our own backyards.
Ashley Deese, Digital Media Specialist
Woah! This year was very busy! I had the incredible opportunity to produce four game apps with the help of Filament Games! FOUR! BumperDucks, Morphy, Showbiz Safari, and Disaster Detector are aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and a lot of fun to play no matter your age. I also had the opportunity to lay the groundwork for my upcoming video project, Ada Asks. You can take a peek at a test project here! Stay tuned for more!
Ada Asks
Katya Vines, Ph.D, Science Curriculum Developer
A January trip to Wisconsin may not be everyone’s idea of a good time but it was definitely one of the highlights of 2015 for me. It was my first time in Wisconsin, my first visit to a game design studio, and my first experience of cheese curds. The reason for the trip was to kick off development of two elementary science games aligned to NGSS. Our host was the fantastic Filament Games, who have a young and dynamic studio outside of Madison. We spent two days with their developers discussing whiskers, wings, webbed feet and other animal features. The results? Two fun, beautiful, animal based educational games for 6-9 year olds, Showbiz Safari and Morphy. The cheese curds were pretty good as well!
Morphy
Taryn White, Curriculum Product Specialist
This year at SSEC felt like a whirl wind. I worked on many different projects including helping to write readings for our curriculum, conducting photo research and one of my favorites, managing the development of the Anyone with a Question can be Scientist poster. But one project that really stands out was taking on a lead role in the redesign of SSEC’s new website. I thoroughly enjoyed working with our contractor Interactive Strategies, helping with the design and concept of the new site and learning a lot about website design and functionality. I am extremely happy with the results and can’t wait to see what SSEC has in store for me in the coming year.
Brian Mandell, Ph.D, Science Curriculum Developer
There are so many projects I’d love to reminisce over, from games like Disaster Detector to writing about Earthworms, Volcanoes, and What it Means to be a Scientist, but if I had to pick just one it would be the Weather Lab. It’s not every day you get to embrace your inner weather nerd and develop an app that helps children and adults visualize how North America’s weather is formed.
Weather Lab
Jean Flanagan, Science Education Research Specialist
This year was an exceptional one for me! As a project lead on the development of our web series for teachers, Good Thinking!: The Science of Teaching Science, I got to work with professional artists, animators, TV writers, voice actors, and more, through our friends at FableVision Studios! Not the usual year in the life of a “science education research specialist.”
Good Thinking!
Margaret Chmiel, Ph.D, Division Director of Curriculum and Communications
This year I had the opportunity to meet a variety of people who love and support Smithsonian through my involvement with People Passion Purpose. I loved connecting with audiences in Boston and Los Angeles to tell them about all the work Smithsonian does with educators in their area. It also gave me a chance to better understand the work my colleagues are doing around the Institution. Expect to see some of their work in our future curricular offerings!
Marjee Chmiel presenting at People Passion Purpose. Image courtesy of Smithsonian People Passion Purpose.