Author: lis

Like most jobs, sometimes mine is a big pain in the ass. I certainly don’t get paid much. I have to work every Saturday. The commute is a drag.

However…

Once a month I organize a program called Critter Day, where different live animal educational organizations come in and do presentations. So I get to see a lot of creatures, which I love, and sometimes I get to hold them which is always super cool. Today’s organization was called Jungle Encounters. The owner, Debi, has a really fantastic assortment of critters including some very cool cats, a skunk, a fox, and this guy:

And this is why sometimes I think I really have a pretty groovy job.

I was asked to remove this image. If you really really really want to see it, let me know.
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It was bad enough this morning, with the thermometer hovering around 7 F as I approached the museum.

I’m not one to get all Whitney Houston and sing about how children are our future. But these two boys were just adorable. They are five years old and in the same Kindergarten class. They were palling around together and I asked if they were best friends. “No,” they said. “We’re brothers.” This seemed unlikely and as they explained their lives to me, I realized that they are not, in fact, brothers, but that’s what they call themselves.

Meetings can be serious business: decisions get made, plans finalized, policies change. And when it’s the Boston Children’s Museum Educators getting together, little toy cars are brought out and zipped across the table, which may result in a multi-car pile up…involving a reese’s miniature…

This is how an exhibit gets built.

First, someone comes up with an idea. Then a team gets assembled, consisting of people who know the content, other people who know how to build exhibits, other people who just know about a lot about exhibits. An advisory board who is also familiar with the topic will be organized.

Then a lot of ideas get thrown around: what topics do we want to include? what do we want visitors to learn? what kinds of  interactives should we have? how do we make it maintainable? how do we make it safe, and fairly indestructable? what do we want it to look like? what do we want the text to say? what colors do we want?

Eventually there are drawings and sketches and a model or prototype gets built, and we ask visitors a lot of questions. Then we go back and change things and try it again.

The whole process takes many months or even years, and it looks a lot like this:

I go to the library nearly every Monday on my day off. My usual routine consists of bank–>library–>grocery store(s), with the occasional post office, pharmacy or other errand thrown in. When I got to the library today, I had to park on the roof of the garage, which never happens. Anyway, when I got out of the car and looked out, all I could see were chimneys.

We got a few inches of snow last night–not the 8-10″ they were forecasting, but enough of a layer that Doug and I decided to take out our new snowshoes again. We  headed up to the center of town to walk around Chestnut Hill Farm, a recently created conservation area. We were clearly the only ones who had been there that day, aside from a few critters. It was really windy as we crossed the field, but once we got into the woods, it was peaceful and still and the only tracks to be seen were ours.

This is one of my favorite activities from the “Kitchen Science” series I do at the Museum. It’s super easy and has instant gratification.
Pour some milk to cover the bottom of a shallow plate (I use pie plates)
Place 3 or 4 drops of food coloring in the milk. Don’t mix.
Dip a toothpick into some dish soap.
Gently touch the toothpick to the surface of the milk and/or your drops of color.

Like, wow, man. The colors..!

spotted while wandering around the hallways of Mass. General Hospital.

caught in the act of getting breakfast