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May 16, 2013
Special thanks to our guest blogger, Chris Myers, U.S. Space and Rocket Center®, Huntsville, AL for this post
Bringing the Cosmos to Space Camp®!
 At the U.S. Space and Rocket Center® and Space Camp, we are constantly looking for fun and innovative ways to teach our museum guests and trainees about space history and the science and math concepts that surround it. Naturally, we were excited to participate in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics series of instructional webinars in order to get some fresh ideas and content. The creativity started to flow as we reviewed the background material, but the amount and quality of the lesson plans and information presented to us by Mary Dussault and Erin Braswell was impressive. By the end of the first hour of the webinar, we had solid ideas and lesson plans that could be implemented in every program from summer Day Camp for 5-year-olds to Advanced Space Academy® for high-school seniors. And they meet both state and national curriculum guidelines! In this case, our target subject was astronomy.
For our younger trainees, we adapted the activities that dealt with colors and filters into a hands-on component for our astronomy briefing “Tenacious Telescopes.” We use PVC pipe, colored felt and theater lighting gel in the primary colors to teach the trainees about how real telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope use filters to look for specific information, and how scientists can put these single-color images together to make a full-color picture. In addition to making it look more like a real telescope, mounting the color filter inside a PVC pipe telescope has the added bonus of keeping our filters fingerprint and wrinkle free.
 For our Advanced Academy (junior high to high school) trainees, we added an image processing component into our existing astronomy curriculum which is made up of four components. At the beginning of the week, the trainees participate in a lecture called “Exploring the Night Sky” where they learn the basics of astronomy and focus on finding and naming the constellations and deep space objects. Our second astronomy block is the “Micro Observatory Lab,” where our trainees use the Mobs software to compile full-color images of deep space objects. Our third astronomy block is a “Night Telescope” activity, where the trainees use real telescopes to find the same objects in the sky of which they compiled images the day before. And for our final astronomy block, our Advanced Academy trainees learn the stories behind selected constellations in our inflatable Star Lab.
 We have been running the “Micro Observatory Lab” astronomy block since December, 2011, and have had more than 1,500 trainees from all over the world participate. We have so many students participating that we aren’t able to display all their artwork at once, so we have set up two small rotating exhibits of 12 featured photos each here at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, one located in the Main Museum and the other located in the Science Lab used for our summer Space Academy for Educators® camp, and we plan to add a third, larger display to our computer lab this summer.
These kinds of seminars and programs are what make it so awesome to be a part of the network of Smithsonian Affiliates. Imagine all the fun, innovative and educational activities you can dream up with the help of these services! So get out there and sign up for a class today! And spare a glance for the colorful cosmos while you’re at it!
Summer is upon us, which means the baseball season is literally in full swing. Nothing says America more than a sunny afternoon at the ballpark with a hot dog and ball cap, cheering on your favorite team.
Now baseball fans can share their passion outside the ballpark too, with a new initiative launched by the National Museum of American Jewish History, our Affiliate in Philadelphia. The museum is inviting fans of all ages and backgrounds to submit artifacts, photos, and memorabilia that illustrate their connections to the game. This collecting effort and national conversation will support a major exhibition opening at the Museum in spring 2014 called Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Jews in America.
 Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax during the 1966 World Series This exhibition (which is expected to travel around the country) is the first major exhibition to weave together the history of American sport, leisure and national identity with the story of Jewish immigration and integration into American life. The exhibition will also tell the stories of other minority groups – including African-Americans, Latinos, Italian and Japanese immigrants – for whom baseball provided an important sense of belonging and pride.
The public is invited to share stories and memories of how baseball has affected generations of fans and their communities through the Museum’s site – chasingdreamsbaseball.tumblr.com. Here, fans can post images of their memorabilia and share their stories with the Museum’s curators and fellow baseball aficionados.
 Sandy Koufax’ glove, on view at NMAJH, 2010-2012 Those who have visited the National Museum of American Jewish History in the past have likely seen Sandy Koufax’s glove, on loan from the Smithsonian and on view in Philadelphia when the Museum opened in its current location in 2010.
For more information on the exhibition or public collecting initiative, please read the press release, or visit the Museum’s website at www.nmajh.org.
Just think, here’s something else you can do during the seventh inning stretch!
April 30, 2013
From amazing animals to the immigration experience in America, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) exhibitions reflect the depth and breadth of the Smithsonian’s research and collections. Host a SITES exhibition and find out how it can expand your community of visitors and supporters, lead to creative programming opportunities and generate greater press coverage. Here are some of our newest available exhibitions:
 Rothschild Giraffes, Barbara von Hoffman, Nature’s Best Photography Nature’s Best Photography: Windland Smith Rice International Awards
Nature’s Best Photography features 48 award-winning, large-scale, color photographs of wildlife and wild places from around the globe. From animals on land, in the sea and in the air to images of people in nature, Nature’s Best Photography reveals the majesty, diversity and even humor of the animal and natural world. Nature’s Best Photography includes information about the species and its habitat, a description of how each photographer captured their shot, technical photo specifications and a video of polar bear cubs in the wild. Don’t miss your chance to host this eye-opening exhibition of rare and wonderful images of our animal cousins. Now booking! Tour begins April 2014. Contact: Ed Liskey, liskeye@si.edu, 202.633.3142
 Asians worked the Hawai’i plantations, playing a major role in the archipelago’s agricultural industry. Photograph courtesy The Bishop Museum, Hawai’i I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story
Asian and Pacific Americans (APAs) make up more than 5% of the U.S. population –over 17 million people—and those numbers are growing. In the first exhibition of its kind, the Smithsonian celebrates APA history across the multitude of incredibly diverse cultures, and explores how APAs have shaped and been shaped by the course of our nation’s history. Rich with compelling, often surprising stories, the exhibition takes a sweeping look at this history, from the very first Asian immigrants to the influx of highly skilled workers many decades later. Thanks to a generous grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Wide American Earth is available at a modest fee of $2,000 per 10-week booking, plus outgoing shipping. Now booking! Tour begins September 2013. Contact: Minnie Russell, russellm@si.edu, 202.633.3160
 Dancers and musicians perform a Bollywood show at a restaurant in Jackson Heights. Queens, New York. Photo by Preston Merchant Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation
Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation is a groundbreaking exhibition exploring the vibrant heritage, daily experience, and diverse political, professional and cultural contributions of Indian Americans in shaping the United States. Told through captivating images, music, visual art, and first-person narratives, Beyond Bollywood documents a history of discrimination, resistance, achievements and the lasting influence Indian Americans have had on the American experience. Tour begins January 2015. Contact: Ed Liskey, liskeye@si.edu, 202.633.3142
May is a busy time in Affiliateland!
CALIFORNIA
The Japanese American National Museum will open SITES’ American Heroes: Japanese American WWII Nisei Soldiers and the Congressional Gold Medal, 5.4. The museum will also host the National Portrait Gallery’s traveling exhibition Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits in Los Angeles, 5.11.
 Detail of a historic firearm to be displayed in Cody, Wyoming. WYOMING
64 artifacts from the National Museum of American History’s firearm collection go on display at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, 5.4.
FLORIDA
The Polk Museum of Art will host the Mayfaire Arts Festival. Beverly K. Cox, formerly Exhibits Coordinator for the National Portrait Gallery, will serve as the jurist for the museum’s annual two-day arts festival in Lakeland, 5.10.
St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum will host a public program on the Art of Boatbuilding, featuring curator Douglas Herman from the National Museum of the American Indian. He will present a public demonstration on boatbuilding by Pacific Islanders in St. Augustine, 5.18.
NORTH CAROLINA
The Schiele Museum of Natural History and Lynn Planetarium will open an exhibition entitled Mammal Safari, featuring 25 mounted specimens on loan from the National Museum of Natural History, in Gastonia, 5.18.
MARYLAND
College Park Aviation Museum will host their second Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos workshop in College Park, 5.19.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum hosts a reception for all Affiliate staff during the American Alliance of Museums annual meeting in Baltimore, 5.21.
 Native skateboard culture is headed to Connecticut CONNECTICUT
The Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center hosts SITES’s Ramp it Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America in Mashantucket, 5.25.
TEXAS
Fort Worth Museum of Science and History is hosting SITES’ Elvis at 21, featuring 40 Smithsonian artifacts in Fort Worth, 5.23.
MAINE
Abbe Museum opens SITES’ IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas, in Bar Harbor 5.23.
April 29, 2013
Spring has sprung, and 2013 continues to be a successful one for our Affiliates!
Funding
The Ohio Historical Society (Columbus, Ohio) has received $155,000 from the Ohio General Assembly for repairs on the sternwheeler W.P. Snyder. The Society also received two awards from The National Endowment for the  Humanities: one for $248,600 to continue the digitization of Ohio’s microfilmed newspapers as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program and one for $359,994 to support a project to increase and share knowledge about Midwestern Native American tribes with community college educators.
Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, Michigan) received a $1.9 million gift to create the first endowed curatorship. The Berryman MSU Museum Curator of History Endowment established by Julie Avery, Stephen Stier and Val Berryman will create a new curator position for the museum’s historical collections.
Hugh Moore Park, home of the National Canal Museum, (Easton, Pennsylvania) will receive $475,000 in upgrades, including a canal-themed playground, an outdoor classroom and signs detailing the park’s historical elements. $175,000 will be from a state grant for the project and the rest of the funds will come from the Hugh Moore Trust.
Awards/Recognition
 The Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, Texas) recently achieved a four Green Globes(R) rating from the Green Building Initiative for its sustainability practices. The museum’s achievement is a rare feat — only 12 out of 759 Green Globes certified buildings in the US have achieved four Globes.
Executive Transitions
Smithsonian Affiliations would like to welcome the following new directors to the Affiliate network:
- Patrick D. Lyons, Ph.D. will be the new director of Arizona State Museum (Tucson, Arizona)
- Ramiro A. Ortiz and Stuart A. Chase who have been named to lead HistoryMiami (Miami, Florida)
- Kay Peninger recently started as executive director of the Charlotte Museum of History (Charlotte, North Carolina)
 Students from the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center explore shapes in a nearby sculpture garden. In 2012, the Institute of Museum and Library Services hosted a series of meetings to inform the development of a groundbreaking report on the role of libraries and museums in early learning. Among the advisors to those meetings were representatives from the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, a model school on the Smithsonian campus that combines the best practices in both early childhood and museum education.
In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama declared, “Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road… I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.”
Given the increased interest and discussion at all levels about the importance of early learning, the timing is prime for museums and libraries to articulate and advance their participation in this arena. The IMLS report, to be released this month, will make the case for decision makers at the local, state, and federal levels to fully use the capacity of libraries and museums in their early learning efforts. The role (both current and potential) that museums and libraries play in the effort to educate our youngest children is immense, powerful, and inspiring.
As the executive director of the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, Dr. Kimberlee Kiehl is well-positioned to discuss how museums can take a leadership role in supporting early learning. In her keynote talk at the Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference on June 12, Dr. Kiehl will focus on collaboration ideas between the Smithsonian and the Affiliate network, and how such partnerships can change the face of early learning in our country.
Do you have ideas to share about what your organization is doing with young learners?
Do you have specific questions about integrating early learning into your museum?
Take a few minutes to let us know in this quick, 3-question poll, so we can make this session as useful and productive as possible! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5NF7PRY
The Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference is for current Affiliates only. If you are interested in becoming an Affiliate, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee, 202.633.5304, for more information. Click here for 2013 Conference hotel information, agenda and registration.
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At the U.S. Space and Rocket Center® and Space Camp, we are constantly looking for fun and innovative ways to teach our museum guests and trainees about space history and the science and math concepts that surround it. Naturally, we were excited to participate in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics series of instructional webinars in order to get some fresh ideas and content. The creativity started to flow as we reviewed the background material, but the amount and quality of the lesson plans and information presented to us by Mary Dussault and Erin Braswell was impressive. By the end of the first hour of the webinar, we had solid ideas and lesson plans that could be implemented in every program from summer Day Camp for 5-year-olds to Advanced Space Academy® for high-school seniors. And they meet both state and national curriculum guidelines! In this case, our target subject was astronomy.
For our Advanced Academy (junior high to high school) trainees, we added an image processing component into our existing astronomy curriculum which is made up of four components. At the beginning of the week, the trainees participate in a lecture called “Exploring the Night Sky” where they learn the basics of astronomy and focus on finding and naming the constellations and deep space objects. Our second astronomy block is the “Micro Observatory Lab,” where our trainees use the Mobs software to compile full-color images of deep space objects. Our third astronomy block is a “Night Telescope” activity, where the trainees use real telescopes to find the same objects in the sky of which they compiled images the day before. And for our final astronomy block, our Advanced Academy trainees learn the stories behind selected constellations in our inflatable Star Lab.
We have been running the “Micro Observatory Lab” astronomy block since December, 2011, and have had more than 1,500 trainees from all over the world participate. We have so many students participating that we aren’t able to display all their artwork at once, so we have set up two small rotating exhibits of 12 featured photos each here at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, one located in the Main Museum and the other located in the Science Lab used for our summer Space Academy for Educators® camp, and we plan to add a third, larger display to our computer lab this summer.
