Science, Art, Inquiry, & Tinkering at the EXploratorium

In 2010 after completing my MFA in Studio Art at Mills College in Oakland, I joined the Field Trip Explainer team at the Exploratorium to facilitate inquiry-based learning experiences for museum goers, particularly K-12 school groups. I’d come to the museum having completed my formal education, but I quickly learned that working as an educator at the Exploratorium meant stepping confidently into the role of lifelong learner. Weekly professional development sessions with Senior Scientists gave me an expanded foundation in light, color, sound, electricity & magnetism, social science, atmospheric sciences, and biology.

I embraced the Exploratorium’s philosophy that learning starts with asking questions, sharing dialogue, and trying and testing ideas through engaging our senses. My background as an artist drew me to the Tinkering Studio and their founding philosophies of constructivism (the concept that knowledge is actively built in the mind of the learner, rather than transmitted from teacher to student) and constructionism (the idea that building and making a physical artifact can contribute to additional isight and understanding).

As an educator at the Exploratorium I worked alongside (and later mentored & trained) a team of 20+ adult educators in science communication, designing public programing in areas of psychology, biology, atmospheric sciences, & physics. As a part of the Tinkering Studio team I prototyped hands-on STEAM activities and facilitated workshops for visitors of all ages, including professional development workshops for teachers. The museum’s fluid approach to coupling art, science, and hands-on learning extended to my own experience as a educator and maker, enabling me to move seamlessly from public science communication roles to the machine shop, where I worked to prototype, fabricate and refurbish interactive exhibits for the museum floor.

My years at the Exploratorium taught me that the first step to being an effective science communicator is diving in to explore new concepts as a learner, and that tenaciously following the thread of my own curiosity can trigger and amplify the curiosity of others and empower them to take control of their own learning. Likewise, the Exploratorium taught me to step back and observe and to anticipate and make space for ideas and ways of thinking that are different from my own.