STEMvisions Blog

Editor's Note: This post was written for Computer Science Education Week. Learn more about Computer Science Education Week and how you can get involved here. 

Video games provide exciting and entertaining experiences for millions of people around the world. The production of video games is now bigger than those of film and music—and growing each year. If you’re interested in designing and developing your own games, there’s never been a better time to start learning! There are now many learning opportunities available for students and teachers online.

The video game development process begins with programming. 

100&Change is a MacArthur Foundation competition for a $100 million grant to fund a single proposal that will make measurable progress toward solving a significant problem. 

Watch the Smithsonian's proposal below! 

If you live in a rural area, or near a park, you’ve probably observed this unique squirrel behavior. When the weather catches a chill, these bushy-tailed creatures begin what looks like preparation for a wide-scale scavenger hunt. In great numbers, these squirrels begin to bury nuts! Squirrels hide nuts this way as preparation for cold weather when otherwise food will be scarce. This kind of proactive stashing raises a lot of questions for squirrel enthusiasts—the most pressing being how do the squirrels find their nuts again?

It’s been just over 110 years since Einstein published his groundbreaking papers in 1905 that revolutionized physics as we know it and ushered in the quantum age. Among these papers were his theories on special relativity (not to be confused with general relativity, which he published 10 years later in 1915). His theories on special relativity discussed such strange things as length contraction and time dilation when an observer moved at speeds approaching the speed of light (3 x 10⁸ meters per second, or c).

Fall 2016 National Advisoary Board Meeting

The Smithsonian Science Education Center held its fall national advisory board events which included a materials center tour, board dinner and board meeting in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, one of the states where SSEC tested the efficacy of its Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) model. The tour was held on Monday, October 17th at the Johnston county industries materials center (JCI) in Selma, NC.

When it comes to pushing the boundaries of science, you need to look no further than the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN). Based in Geneva, Switzerland, CERN is a complex of particle accelerators and detectors—the most well-known being their Large Hadron Collider (or LHC), which is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Now, you might reasonably ask, “Why are we accelerating particles?” At the core of these experiments is one true objective: to find out what the Universe is made of.

The Neville-Pribram Mid-Career Educators Awards allow mid-career educators to be in residence and utilize the Smithsonian Libraries distinctive collections, focusing on science, history, culture and arts.  The awards are open to middle & high school teachers, college teachers, and museum educators working on curriculum development or publications in print or electronic form. The Library offers excellent resources for developing curricula relating to Common Core, Core Arts Standards, and Advanced Placement curricula.

The Smithsonian Libraries is pleased to offer a call for applicants for the 2017 Neville-Pribram Mid-Career Educators Award. The National Museum of Natural History Library is the host library for the selected 2017 Educator. The National Museum of Natural History Libraries consists of the main location (on the 1st floor and basement of the NMNH's East Court) and 11 specialized collections throughout the NMNH building totaling more than 500,000 volumes. These collections are located within the NMNH Entomology, Invertebrate Zoology, Botany, Vertebrate Zoology, Mineral Sciences and Paleobiology departments.

The Smithsonian Science Education Center teamed up with the South Carolina Coalition for Mathematics and Science and the South Carolina Afterschool Alliance to host the 2016 Next Steps Institute in Charleston, SC on September 26-28th. Close to 300 individuals and teams from across the country came together to gain advanced leadership training in one of seven different Pathway topics. Dr.

We’re sure that you’ve played (and can’t stop playing) our physical science game BumperDucks. In case you haven’t, here’s the gist: in BumperDucks your job is to help a wayward band of ducks reach their final destinations – tasty treats! With the help of collisions and rebounding you can slingshot these ducks to victory. BumperDucks is all about the laws of motion and how we can utilize their effects once we figure out how they work!

What has six legs, a body like an armored tank, and spent all summer in the Curriculum Development offices at the Smithsonian Science Education Center? If you answered roly polys, you would be correct! However, the roly polys weren’t the only new addition to the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) this summer. I also spent my summer as an intern at the SSEC, and it isn’t one I’m going to forget. My experience at the SSEC was unique. I learned a lot and spent time doing new things.

Visitors from Colombia

Summer's over, but birds are still chirping, and the Sun is still shining! Well… sometimes at least. It was a rainy summer here in Washington, DC, but with rain comes prime conditions for one of nature’s greatest shows: rainbows! The majestic, multicolored bows of light that lead to pots of gold and appear after rainstorms as if by magic—except it’s not magic, it’s physics! It might seem intimidating to unravel the secret of rainbows, but it’s actually really simple and so rewarding!

Creative inspiration can be found anywhere—especially in science! Science is an amazing way to spark inspiration and curiosity and this poem by Gavin does just that. Our poet hails from the Greater Chicago Area and, at the age of only 11, has written a beautiful poem inspired by his awe of bioluminescence in nature. We loved Gavin’s poem so much that we wanted to ask him a little more about his process. 

At the end of May, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) were able to install a new module to the station—by just inflating it! This new addition, known as the BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) is the first of its kind when it comes to inflatable habitat technology. Delivered to the station at the beginning of April the BEAM has deflated dimensions of 2.16 meters (7.09 feet) in length and 2.36 meters (7.75 feet) in diameter but has now grown to a whopping 4.15 meters (13.16 feet) in length and 3.2 meters (10.5 feet ) in diameter.

Image Jim Lillicotch

Leadership Week: K-8 Principals (Pittsburgh, PA)

Earlier this summer, 21 teachers from across the country came together in Washington, DC, for this year’s Smithsonian Science Education Academy for Teachers (SSEAT) on Earth’s History and Global Change. The participants spent time behind the scenes at the National Museum of Natural History, the National Air and Space Museum, the Carnegie Institute of Washington, and NOAA Headquarters. Throughout the week, they learned about the origins of the solar system, about our footprint on Earth, and about the Smithsonian.

Editor's Note: This post was written with the assistance of Patti Marohn. 

Dr. Carol O’Donnell welcoming NC educators to the Smithsonian Image: Sarah Wells/Smithsonian Science Education Center 

Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript of an interview conducted with Kim Van Eaton. Some answers have been lightly edited for clarity. 

Here at the Smithsonian Science Education Center, we’re passionate about science communication and creating an infectious love of science. As part of this mission, our director, Dr. Carol O’Donnell, met with science teachers in Washington State this June to talk about the importance of science education. While there she meet 6th grade teacher Kim Van Eaton from Marie Curie STEM Elementary School. Kim had nothing but kind words to say about STC^TM and how the kit had changed her teaching of science! It’s always heartwarming to hear that your work has impacted someone’s life in a positive way. We wanted to know a little more about how Kim has been affected by STC and SSEC, so we got in touch to hear more of her thoughts.

The Smithsonian Science Education Center Helps to Lead Master STEM Teaching Training in Yakima, Washington

Image: Juliet Adams/Smithsonian Science Education Center

Earlier this summer, 19 teachers from across the country gathered in Washington, DC, to learn about biodiversity at this year’s Biodiversity Smithsonian Science Education Academy for Teachers, or SSEAT. The participants received the opportunity to go behind the scenes at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), spend time in the Q?rius lab space there, and travel up to Edgewater, MD, to visit the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC).

Happy Pollinator Week! We can all appreciate the beauty of blooming flowers and budding trees, but we don’t always take a minute to be thankful for their silent helpers. Nine years ago the U.S. senate declared a week each June to be National Pollinator Week. This weeklong event is not only to celebrate the pollinators who make summer beautiful but to raise awareness. Populations of pollinators are in decline, and without these pollinators the fragile ecosystems they live in will fall into disarray.

Director Matthew Brown’s newest film, The Man Who Knew Infinity, opened in April to positive reviews from critics and shed light on the life of a little known mathematician: Srinivasa Ramanujan. Born in Erode, India, in 1887, Ramanujan had a veracious love and instinctual understanding of mathematics. Living poor in South India with no college degree, Ramanujan was able to gain recognition for his inventive theorems and began a correspondence with a Fellow, G.H. Hardy, at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge.

It’s an indisputable fact that as a society, we have fallen head-over-heels for pandas. Whether it be at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, or the Wolong National Nature Reserve in China, these furry giants steal hearts wherever they go, except maybe in their own backyards. Giant pandas are an endangered species, with only 1,600 living in their natural habitats in China’s mountain ranges and 300 in captivity around the world.

Hebrew University 

On Monday, May 16, 2016 the Smithsonian Institution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem formally signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.  The Smithsonian and Hebrew University will leverage this significant Einstein anniversary to collaborate on projects, produced by the Smithsonian Science Education Center, that employ the resources of the Smithsonian Institution and the Albert Einstein Archives to make science, technology, engineering and mathematic

International Conference on Improving the Learning of Biology 

During April 13^th through 16^th Dr. Carol O’Donnell and the Director of Professional Services Dr. Amy D’Amico attended an International Conference on Improving the Learning of Biology and Other Related Science in the K-12 School Year in Santiago, Chile. The conference focused on inquiry based science education, and Dr. O’Donnell presented the results of the Smithsonian Science Education Center’S 5-year research trial of the LASER model.

100Kin10 New Partners’ Unconference

 O'Donnell addresses the "unconference" attendees