This is my last blog post here at The Works.  It has been an honor and a pleasure to work in an environment as welcoming as this, with such great programs and tools for kids to learn about science, history, and the arts – sometimes all at once.  I had a great time when I could work on the floor, watching kids explore the museum.  I had great conversations with the volunteers, such as Mike, and Wib in the woodshop.  I got to watchglassblowing, witness the power of enthusiasm and persistence in teaching, and explore a great museum.  I learned a great new response to someone sneezing – happy sternutation – and record some of Music in theCourtyard.  I got to share my experiences through this blog, create a more active twitter feed, start relationships with other users, and put togetherclips of recorded activities and events into YouTube videos that tell a story.  I got to improve the social media scene at The Works, and I only hope we will soon have someone to continue the work.  I am looking into volunteers or other interns writing one or two posts so that the window into this place expands instead of shutting down.  I am satisfied that I have done good work – I only hope it is not lost.  If you are interested in a social media internship, please contact Samantha Harris (samanthaharris@attheworks.org) call us at 740–349-9277.

Have you ever volunteered at a food bank?  Taken the time to chaperone a school trip?  Lent a hand at the public library?  Helped Habitat for Humanity build a house? If you have, you know that volunteering can be very satisfying and fills a real need within communities.  Churches, food banks, political organizations, schools… they all need volunteers. Tasks ranging from manning a desk to building a house, going door to door to maintaining a website, fundraising, or tutoring kids - there are so many ways to give back, and many people do. The Works is fortunate to have many volunteers that work in front of and behind the scenes; staffing the museum floors, giving tours, assisting Guest Services, working in the gift shop, supporting special events, and fixing and building new exhibits and so much more.

It’s important to remember the act of volunteering is something that needs to be taught to children at a young age. This is a lesson to be learned through words and example. By adults showing that being a volunteer is a priority in their lives, children are likely to follow in their footsteps. The Works’ featured Book of the Month highlights the lessons and rewards of volunteering at any age.  Selected by our Volunteer Coordinator, the children’s book “The Giving Book: Open the Door to a Lifetime of Giving” has space to record thoughts, add pictures, and record ideas alongside a fun narrative and great illustrations. For adults, we recommend Changing the World on a Tuesday Night.  This book highlights stories of volunteers doing extraordinary things – an inspiring read.

The volunteering I remember most from my childhood was the summer my sister and I would go out on Saturday mornings to the Farmer’s Market where I would play my viola and my sister would Irish Step dance to raise money for our public library’s children’s programming.  We finished the summer with a donation of $200 that allowed the director of children’s programs take the older book club out for ice cream, gift cards for volunteers, hamsters, extra books, and anything else that needed a slush fund.  That was several years ago now, and the money has just run out – and been replenished by the Friends of the Library.   Our volunteer experience was rewarding, satisfying, and we made a permanent change that we hadn’t anticipated.  Let’s teach kids that you can do things to help – little things, big things… it all helps, and it may become bigger than it feels at the time.
For more on our book picks: http://www.attheworks.org/ClassesCampsAndPrograms/LiteratureLinks/BookOfTheMonthLiteratureLinks.aspx

“It’s like a hug!”

There’s a little girl sitting on a stool by the blood pressure station, trying the blood pressure cuff.  She smiles at me as she says it, and I wonder why I never thought about it that way.  This happens a lot – why didn’t I think about that ordinary, functional object in that beautiful/fanciful/scary/etc. way?  I believe I think in those terms more than many adults:  I vividly recall the time I described breathing in the heavy humidity as feeling like breathing underwater (if it could be done in a nonfatal, non-painful way), the other person just looked at me with utter incomprehension… However, I would not in a thousand years have thought of a blood pressure cuff in use as a hug.

I just recently read an article about a study of whether the very young child, while playing, is deliberately using the scientific method without having a name for it.  (The article is here. ) They concluded that they are.  This does not surprise me in the slightest.  Kids are naturally curious – how else could you even start to communicate with the world?

That curiosity continues to thrive for most of us, if we let it through the busyness of life.  Those who spend their lives working on the most burning questions they have are the luckiest of us all – they have no chance to stop learning, because their job is to puzzle out how to experiment to collect/create data, then what it all means… and that is a never ending learning process.

I have heard – and experience bears out – that time seems to go more slowly when you do something new, and faster if it is something that is routine.  Perhaps it takes more of the brain and less concentration after the first time or few, so… OK, I have no idea.  No one really knows what happens with time perception in the human brain.  It is one of many unanswered questions left for the kids of now and the future to answer, if we don’t get there first.

This is my plea to everyone – please, please, encourage curiosity. Help our children develop the skills to figure out questions themselves, so they can then figure out answers without relying on others having the answers.  Help them think things through, instead of giving them answers they could get on their own. (Obviously, some things are not that clear, even if they are simple questions.)  Teach them to think critically, logically, and thoroughly.  And never, ever, ever make it a chore to satisfy curiosity, because that is the death of wonder, and wonder in the universe sustains the greatest scientists, writers, and religious leaders throughout their lives. We try to do that here through our camps, programs like Curious Kids, and really our very existence.  How do you help them?

 

For more information on our contribution click here.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite parts of summer was going to camp.  There were kids to meet, things to learn, and projects to keep me busy. Later I was fortunate enough to be hired as a counselor at the same camp I loved most as a child.  It was an amazing experience, watching kids learn abut the world, learn new skills, and have fun the whole time.  I got to talk a child through her fear of thunderstorms, and teach some adventurous types the tricks to picking out which tree they’d just been led to blindfolded.  I had a hard time choosing a major in college, because everything is so fascinating. The offering of summer camps by The Works reminds me of all of that because I wish I could be a kid again, going to one or more of the camps.  They have everything – art and beauty, science and the why behind it all, and new skills and knowledge every step of the way.

 

Last week’s Busy Bee camp – for 3-6 year olds – was amazing to watch.  Our Education Director Rori Preston was amazing – patient, funny, engaging, bringing real science down towards their level, while at the same time bringing their understanding and eagerness up to the level of science.  I watched her explain the four forces of flight to a group of sometimes-antsy children, and I watched them respond, and engage, and stay interested. They made parachute-men, balloon propelled ‘rockets’ that traveled along a string, and paper airplanes, and talked about which of the four forces of flight worked on their creations.  The next day they explored the phases of matter: solids, liquids, and gasses.  Among other things they made oobleck, a non-Newtonian substance that acts as a liquid when it’s poured but as a solid when a force is applied – such as walking on it. (Recipe: 2 cups cornstarch, 1 cup water.  Watch out; it’s fun, but it’s messy!)  As they left for the day, they looked like they’d had the time of their lives!

 

This week in the afternoons there was a chemistry camp for 7 and 8 year olds.  One day when I sat in and watched they looked at chemical reactions and different kinds of polymers.  They learned what to look for to call something a chemical reaction, and then practiced it in various activities, culminating in making slime to bring home.  In their three hour day at camp they discussed organized and disorganized, natural and artificial polymers.  I wish I had a camp like that when I was 7!

 

Today I went to the closing show for the Chemistry and Art camp for 7 and 8 year olds, which took place mornings this week.  The kids were all excited, and the art was displayed nicely with examples of all of the techniques they played with – water color with salt or rubbing alcohol or over crayon drawings, wax paintings and art that will never dry (water-based paint was mixed with mineral oil and sealed in a pouch).  When I had visited the camp earlier in the week, they had been sticking their paintings on backing, mounting them for the show. After many people had left the art show, I watched one of the volunteers being used as a playground – there is always a favorite one or two ‘counselors’ at a camp, and this one was so good-humored that I can understand why.  I asked one girl what her favorite part of camp was, but she couldn't tell me… she liked everything! There are three more camps this summer after these – I look forward to meeting the kids and watching them learn and grow and enjoy themselves.

This is the last week to see the two exhibits presently in our art galleries, so I figured I should check them out before we change exhibits.  In our Main Gallery we have a collection of sepia-toned pictures of the Columbus Symphony from 1970-1980.  In the other gallery we have a set of student watercolors.

I went to the exhibit of photographs first.  Usually, photos don’t do much for me.  However, I play in a civic philharmonic, and I found many of the photographs brought me back to our concerts.  There is a picture of a conductor in the middle of a piece, arms raised, a passionate expression on his face – and I was back in the orchestra, playing my heart out, watching the conductor, lifted by the brass and percussion, soaring on melody, supporting it all with my one small instrument.  In the middle of all of that, if you have a good conductor, you would give anything to make him (or her) proud, make it work, make the performance perfect.   The exhibit is an interesting blend of one media conveying a different media, the making of music captured in a silent picture.

In the Central Gallery, the variety of painting styles and subjects is impressive.  There are mountain vistas, seaside scenes, portraits, animals, pottery images, building silhouettes and abstract art.  There were abstracts that looked like bacteria under a microscope, or a tree backed by orange cloud, or an oncoming storm.  The vase paintings took different watercolors, cut out vase shapes, and set them against a different background.  The feel of each painting is very different from the next – some feel like paintings of a Latin-American backyard scene, while others are as amorphous as the sea. Yet others were of landscapes, in what I consider a ‘traditional’ water color feel.  This is worth seeing before it is taken down – a world of diversity, made in the same medium, yet all with different messages and stories.  Just like humanity.

More information on our current exhibits can be found here:

http://www.attheworks.org/ExploreTheWorks/ArtGalleries/MainArtGalleryCurrentExhibit.aspx

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time reading – so much time reading that my mom had to drag me away from books to go take a walk, do chores, or go for a swim.  I see my cousin sitting around, bored because he can’t play video games and not interested in anything else, and it makes me sad.  I know not everyone loves reading like I do, but there are so many adventures and worlds out there to enter just by opening a book! How could you not want to read?

The Works now has monthly recommendations of books for adults and kids.  This month, the theme is space travel and astronauts, in honor of the last of the Shuttle missions, in progress as I type this.  For children, the book is Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void.  It takes readers behind the scenes to see the life of an astronaut and the space program.

For adults, Almost Astronuts:13 Women Who Dared to Dream tells the story of  the first women to try to become astronauts, facing tremendous resistance from all quarters.

For more information on these books, go to our webpage:

http://www.attheworks.org/ClassesCampsAndPrograms/LiteratureLinks/BookOfTheMonthLiteratureLinks.aspx

I hope you will join us in celebrating our nation’s history of space travel, and the end of our shuttle program, with these wonderful books.

When I first sat down to write this post, I had a hard time putting my thoughts together coherently.  Eventually I set aside what I had written and asked myself what I want people to take away from this post.  My answer?  Glassblowing is beautiful.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the glassblowing demonstration in our Glass Studio.  What stood out the most about the process is how beautiful the glass is in any state.  Some particularly vivid and beautiful memories:

When the glass comes out of the furnace in a gather on the end of the pipe it is a brilliant orange color, turning red as it cools, becoming a honey-yellow bubble blown just before the artist takes a second gather. 

As the gather is shaped and centered in water soaked cherry wood blocks a thin plume of smoke gradually starts.  In later shaping, a pad of wet newspaper is used to manhandle the glass into shape – the smoke is thicker, darker, and more immediate, with orange ashes flying off as well in a stark contrast to the smoke.

A small gather is taken on to a small rod called a punty and rolled in red and white colored glass powder.  The now-colored glass was looped around the vase-to-be in squiggly lines, creating a stark contrast of glowing red lines on a darker, cooler background.

I was awed by the fact that it only takes a puff of air to create a bubble – the heat of the glass makes the air expand to a much larger volume than it filled in the lungs.

The piece was spun on the blowpipe around in a vertical circle, making the vase grow from a sphere about the size of a grapefruit into a longer cylinder, almost a bottle shape – harnessing gravity to create beauty.

At the very end of the process, the again orange-hot vase was spun very rapidly to flatten out like a plate, then cooled upside-down into ripples created by too much area trying to take the same space under the influence of gravity. 

As the vase was put it in the annealing oven to cool overnight it was beautiful in dark colors, but it would come out later looking very different again in white and green and red.

What I find even more beautiful is that every facet of this art can be explained with physics and chemistry – but that for now the explanation is imperfect, and not all variation can yet be accounted for.  Talking to Larry (glassblower, artist, and Glass Studio manager) after the demonstration, he described how the composition of the glass has to be very close to all other glass in the same project for it to work together and cool at the same rate.  He mentioned that the chemists at the companies that make the colored glass might insist that two glass types might work together, but it’s the end result, his result, that counts. 

NOTE: Because the Glass Studio gets so hot during the summer – over 120˚F – the studio closes for one month, starting Sunday, to perform maintenance and inventory.  It will open again on 8/9, with a demonstration at 1pm.

 

My name is Hanna Chakoian, and I will be your Social Media Intern for the next 6 weeks.  My responsibilities include keeping up our Twitter presence, Facebook page, YouTube account, and, of course, this blog. I had never heard of The Works before I applied to be an intern, so as I explore I will blog about what I learn about this wonderful educational resource and hands-on learning destination for kids and adults.  I’ll update the blog once or twice a week to keep you up on the latest science, art, history and other fun activities happening at The Works this summer.  If there is anything in particular you want me to check out and post about, please let me know, through The Works Facebook or Twitter pages!

I think we all know how tired we are of the white stuff. As we watch it drift down and pile upon our roofs and cars, we inwardly groan and ask when will this be over? As we look at the snow and mud and ice thinking that this is our winter of discontent, we wish it was spring, with warm air and blue skies. When I do, I think of the butterfly, breaking out of its cocoon, becoming something new and beautiful. This is also what I want to see. The world shaking off its cocoon of ice and springing forth, new and beautiful. Kathy Anderson and Tony Reynolds are going to give us a glimpse of the beauty of nature and creation this March at The Works Gallery. Appropriately they are calling their show Metamorphosis. 

 

Metamorphosis features the acrylic, oil and watercolor landscape paintings of Anderson. Each work is a colorful impressionistic renditions of the world she sees around her, both at home in Ohio and wherever she travels. The beautiful woodturnings of Tony Reynolds are also featured in this exhibit. His woodturnings are various shapes, sizes and designs all demonstrating his extraordinary craftsmanship.

 

So even if the world is still wrapped in ice, at least The Works will be displaying beauty and shaking of the gray  days of winter to share beauty and warmth with us.

 

Metamorphosis" Art Gallery Exhibit Opening Reception

 Friday, March 11, 2011 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Cost: Free admission

If you're like me, you spent a day or two last month watching young Ralphie chafing as people repeatedly say to him, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" and while the movie is great fun and a classic movie, sadly there are many children who have lost their vision through unsafe activities and careless accidents. The largest percentage of vision loss in children is due to accidental trauma to the eye. Learning about vision and eye safety is the heart of the next exhibit at the Works gallery. "Wise About Eyes" is an exhibit that teaches children about how to protect their vision and keep their eyes safe. Made possible by Prevent Blindness Ohio and the Ohio Department of Health, it is comprised of multiple kiosks educating children on the importance of sight, the inner workings of the eye and how we see, why people need glasses, what a world without site would be like, and how to take care of our eyes.

Like I said at the beginning, I love to watch young Ralphie beg for his air rifle, but I am going to see this exhibit several times, to keep eye safety in mind and hopefully it will help to inspire our children to be Wise about their eyes.

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