Goings-on around the Smithsonian
Here’s some random, current news of potential interest, and opportunities for professional development if you’re interested. Hope you can join us!
The Smithsonian’s Early Enrichment Center is holding their annual seminar, Creating Collection with Young Children, on Saturday, February 9. If you’ve never taken one of their courses, and are interested in reaching pre-K students in your galleries, SEEC is the gold standard. The staff there builds their curriculum around Smithsonian collections, and takes toddlers into our museums every day, so they have a plethora of great ideas to share.
Smithsonian staff were recently treated to a symposium on green and sustainable efforts underway at SI. To see the webcast, click here.
Speaking of sustainability, how do you feel about a few days in the tropics?! The Zoo’s Center for Biodiversity Conservation, Education and Sustainability has teamed up with our Tropical Research Institute to offer “Climate Change and Biodiversity in the Americas,” a forum for scientists to present research relating to climate change and forest biodiversity and build a network of monitoring systems. February 25-29 at STRI in Panama.
Black History Month is almost upon us! The Smithsonian Magazine’s website will post celebrations around the country, highlighting those at Affiliates. To see what’s happening around SI and to grab some educational materials, check out the Black History Month site –
Finally, Smithsonian staff were treated to a fascinating symposium yesterday, outlining the Library of Congress’ new pilot program with flickr.com. Check out the description of the pilot – wherein Library staff uploaded over 3000 of its historic images to the flickr site. It was a great opportunity to witness the power of social media – flickr users’ comments and tags showed how engaged they were in helping others to understand the image, relate them to other topics and websites, and even provide missing information to the library for further research. We’re getting into the game too – check out these flickr photos of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, and his portrait at the National Gallery.
(Stephen Colbert’s portait in the restroom lobby at the National Portrait Gallery)
