It’s solid, it’s liquid, it’s the non-Newtonian Oobleck!

What can you expect from NYSCI Explainers at this weekend’s World Maker Faire? A whole lot of Oobleck fun.

An Explainer in Crow Canyon

For her summer project, Explainer Jade Johnson wanted to get involved in an archaeology project. But finding a cliff dwelling to excavate—that’s a little hard to do in Queens.

So Jade set out for Colorado’s Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in the Mesa Verde region, home to ancestral Pueblo Indians. Sometimes referred to as the Anasazi, the ancient Pueblo people are best known for the dwellings they built high along cliff walls.

Jade learned about ancient Pueblo history and helped with basic archaeological fieldwork, including excavating and cataloging artifacts. Much of the fieldwork took place at the Dillard Site, Crow Canyon’s current excavation, with visits to the Mesa Verde National Park, a U.S. National Park—created to protect the Pueblo cliff dwellings.

Jade documented her experience with a blog post and web video.

“It is amazing to see what was built in the canyons considering how difficult it must have been to carry materials in and out of them everyday,” said Jade, referring to the Mesa Verde region where she conducted research. “Places like this are rare and I hope I can visit again someday.”

NYSCI Explainers as Designers Project

For the past few weeks, NYSCI Explainers have been learning how to design and pitch a mobile application that would support one of the exhibits on the museum floor. On Tuesday, the four groups presented their app ideas to the President of NYSCI, Margaret Honey, and senior exhibit staff, of which one group was to be selected to get their app professionally developed and placed on the market. Congratulations to the “BioHatchers” group who won the competition!

VHOS Does the Conference Circuit

This week at the International Society for Technology in Education
(ISTE) annual conference in Philadelphia, a team of NYSCI Explainers and Interns presented the Virtual Hall of Science (VHOS) at the student showcase. VHOS is a virtual science center curated by NYSCI’s Instructors, Explainers and collaborating middle school students from our neighboring schools.   

Explainers Valeria Aucapina and Charisse Sanchez and Interns Lauren Shum and Alexious Ross presented their VHOS exhibits to educators and technology professionals whose companies make and sell technology for educational purposes.  

Teachers from the United States, Mexico, China and Japan expressed interest in learning more about VHOS and are eager to connect with NYSCI in this new medium. We are already planning our presentation for next year’s ISTE conference in San Diego. 

Congratulations to Valeria, Charisse, Lauren and Alexious. Their great work is already being recognized. Lauren’s VHOS exhibit on renewable energy, earned her an invitation to mentor high school students in a technology program at Rutgers University. And the entire team was invited to attend the Science Online conference in North Carolina this coming January.