This Week at the Academy of Natural Sciences 10/25

By Rob Hassler

This week at the Academy, we made final preparations for Mega-Bad Movie Night! Having worked through several MBMN before, I was well aware of what needed to get done during the few days prior to the event. In order to properly prepare for the event, all of the logistic's need to be checked and set up prior to the doors opening. Some of these requirements consist of looking over floor plans and where things like bars, trash cans, employee tables, etc., we will be set-up, as well making sure visitor services is aware of any specific issues that they should be aware of. Some of my personal tasks leading up to MBMN, are placing things throughout the museum according to the floor plan, and getting evaluations ready for people to fill out during the event.

Outside of MBMN, I have started to work with another member of the education department in regards to the live animal shows that are featured at the Academy. A major part of the live animal shows, are the presentations given along with showing animals to the attending school groups. These presentations usually consist of pictures or some sort of visual aid, and the idea is to enhance the program visually through the use of powerpoint. This week, I sat in on a meeting to discuss the potential plan for incorporating and building a new powerpoint to go along with the program. While the Academy's designer sat in on the meeting to understand how to build a template for the powerpoint, I was assigned the role of finding images that could be used.

My final project for the week consisted of me giving a presentation on an online survey program called Qualtrics. A few months ago, I was introduced by Jill to the program, and was assigned with the task of learning how to use the program so in the future, I could show the rest of the education dept. how to use it. Similar to survey monkey, another online survey option, Qualtrics allows you to easily build and distribute surveys. Having built a number of surveys for people within the education dept. to use, it was my job to give a presentation to the other members of the dept. so they could then build and distribute their own surveys. The presentation consisted of me building a survey online from scratch over a projector, allowing everyone to visually see the in's and out's of the program. Although the Academy currently uses paper surveys, the transition of switching to electronically distributed surveys has begun.

This Week at the Academy of Natural Sciences 10/18

By Rob Hassler

This week at the Academy of Natural Sciences, we began to prepare for next week's Mega-Bad Movie Night. MBMN is easily one of the Academy's most popular program, each event bringing in a number of diehard followers to the Academy to enjoy a night of bad movies, live animals, awesome commentary, and new exhibits. A number of things go into the preparation of a MBMN, and this week I focused on preparing some key elements that would be need for the night of the event.

Although MBMN is all about the bad movie being shown (Them! this month), it's also a great opportunity to showcase the Academy, as well as other upcoming events that the Academy hosts. This week, one of the projects I worked on was the creation of a presentation that would be shown to the audience prior to the screening of the film. With an adult audience, it is a perfect time to showcase and advertise other adult only events. The presentation was updated to include information pertaining the upcoming Science on Tap event, what's new at the Academy, and even special adult on events, such as the Academy's Cuisine from the Collections. 

Another assignment I worked on was the completion of the Adult Programs Prezi. Having created a Prezi for MBMN, the idea to create an overview presentation of the Adult Programs at the Academy was suggested. With the affiliation with Drexel, there is an opportunity, especially with adult programs, to be engaging on a more frequent basis with the students of Drexel. Although people are aware of the partnership between Drexel and the Academy, there is often disconnect with students, and what the Academy has to offer. With an increase in the popularity of the adult programs, the creation of this presentation is an easy way to have people understand what is offered in a brief and concise way.

Finally, I got to see the T. Rex animatronic on the parkway.

This week at the Academy of Natural Sciences, 9/30

By Rob Hassler

I have become the Prezi guru, and I'm not mad about it. After making a presentation for Mega-Bad Movie Night, we thought it would be a good idea to take that same model, having an overview program presentation and spicing it up a bit, and using it for an Adult Programs prezi as well. That being said, as I have been starting to fully get the hang of using the program, I began to make a more extensive presentation for the Adult Programs at the Academy. As Jill and I think more about community outreach, and utilizing the newly formed relationship between the Academy and Drexel, presentations like these will be a quick and easy way to show people what Adult Programs are all about, and what they have to offer.

Thinking about outreach, and new ways to engage people with Adult Programs and Mega-Bad Movie night, Jill and I had the chance to grab coffee with Claire Connelly from Philebrity. According to Claire, Philebrity's main focus is on bringing light to Philadelphia's music and literary seen, through events, publicity, etc. Having met with Jill before, Claire and Philebrity were interested in partnering with Mega-Bad Movie night in some way, shape, or form. It turns out Philebrity was interested in the opportunity to help market and promote Mega-Bad's, giving them more publicity as well. Perhaps the most interesting idea to come out of our conversation with Claire, was that the incorporation of literature/poetry could be an awesome and unique way to engage audiences on a previously unexplored level. Hyped up on coffee and excited about the potential possibility of working with Philebrity, both parties went their separate ways to think of ways in which the two organizations could collaborate.

The final, and most unexpected experience of the week came when Jill asked me to head over to the Mutter Museum with her to check out their new exhibition Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits.  Having never stepped foot inside the Mutter, I was extremely excited, and it didn't hurt that last semester we spent hours upon hours coming up with our own civil war exhibition ideas. Plain and simple, the exhibition was awesome. Although quite small, you could spend a good solid two hours scouring over the detail and historical instruments. The shining star of the exhibition however, is most likely the interactive Night Kitchen designed, in which you get to watch your "arm" slowly get amputated. In the upcoming Science on Tap, you'll get to learn all about it.

One final thing. The Academy of Natural Sciences had a temporary exhibit in their library on rare and extinct birds from their very own collection. Jill recommended I check it out, and it was definitely worth it. The birds were incredible, and the collection even featured two carolina parakeets that Audobon himself collected. Check them out below:

This week at the Academy Of Natural Sciences 9/23

Rob Hassler

If you remember from last week, the upcoming Mega-Bad Movie Night will be featuring the 1954 sci-fi hit Them! In preparation for the film, we had decided to take a look at a simple powerpoint presentation that gave an overview of what a MBMN entails, and what will be happening in the upcoming months, etc. It was my task, to take this powerpoint and spice it up a bit. In order to do so, last week I had begun to use the program Prezi for the first time in my professional experience. Putting together half of the presentation, this gave Jill the ability to look over the flow of the presentation, and the information I had included. After receiving her feedback, I was able to this week complete the full presentation. What's awesome about Prezi, is that you are doing everything directly connected to the internet, and have the ability to go in and change things at your discretion. Therefore, the template I created for MBMN, can then be updated and changed in a simple and easy process depending on what movies we are screening, and what information we would like to include.

Perhaps one of the best aspects of the MBMN program, is physically having to watch the movies to see if they are appropriate, have enough scientific information to be worth screening, and if it is in fact "bad" enough to fit the criteria. This being said, Jill has done her best to have screenings for Academy staff of any potential and promising movies that may be chosen for a MBMN. This week's film screening, was of Jurassic Park III. 

It is pretty awesome that part of a job can consist of watching movies, but the screening of Jurassic Park III is not meant purely for enjoyment, at least on the part of Jill and I. As we screen the films, it is important to look for anything that may be used as commentary, or could benefit the members of the Academy that will be on stage during the actual event. As much as the movie and event is about making people laugh, Jill has always wanted an emphasis on the scientific aspect of the films. Therefore, Jill spends most of the time watching the screenings writing down notes, and trying to find evidence in the films that could be used to prove what is fact and what is fiction, all while incorporating comedy of course.

One final aspect of preparing for a MBMN, is looking up all types of goofs or instances in the movie that people might have proven wrong. For Them! and now Jurassic Park III, this has become a task of mine. For example, "When Grant asks Billy how he would classify the Spinosaurus, Billy says, "It's a super-predator," and immediately suggests Suchomimus. Grant says, "Think bigger," and Billy suggests Baryonyx. In reality, Baryonyx was only about 2/3 the size of Suchomimus, which in turn was only about 2/3 the size of Spinosaurus - not nearly big enough to be a super predator. Regardless of that fact, Billy still got his dinosaur sizes badly out of order."

My first time back at the Academy of Natural Sciences post the Philly Geek Awards focused not on researching an endless amount of creative individuals and how they deserve recognition, but having a new role amongst the entire education department. Over the summer, I was specifically focused on both the Awards and adult programs at the Academy. Now, I have taken on a department wide role of helping with things such as video editing, presentation design, public relations, and some continued research.

For my first week on the job as an education dept. intern rather than just adult programs intern, I gained an understanding of the scope of tasks I would be working on throughout the fall. There were three main tasks that were at the forefront of my list, those being the creation of a Prezi for Mega-Bad Movie Night, looking at the organization Philebrity and scheduling a potential meeting in relation to Mega-Bad Movie Night, and finally, working with Jill to help plan out the appearance of Drexel's "Ant" expert Sean O'Donnell at the next Mega-Bad Movie night which features Them! 

In order to have an overview of "Mega-Bad Movie Night" that could be shown quickly and easily, Jill created a simple powerpoint that would be presented to those who were unfamiliar with the popular program. Having never worked with Prezi before, but knowing the capabilities of the program, I thought it would be a great opportunity to essentially create a more interactive marketing piece Mega-Bad. Basically, Prezi is similar to a powerpoint, except it can create visually interesting movements and effects within the presentation, not to mention one has the ability to simply drop a finished powerpoint presentation into Prezi and work from there. I began to work on a Prezi specifically for Them! and the rest of the program, and will continue to develop presentations throughout the department upon request.

My second task, was working with Jill to research and schedule an appointment with the Philly gossip website Philebrity. Pretty much always in the "know" about what's going on in the city, Philebrity has the potential to be an interesting partner, or affiliation in some way with Mega-Bad Movie Night. Next week, Jill and I will be having a meeting with someone from the website to learn about their ideas regarding working with Mega-Bad, and any potential opportunities that might seem relevant.

Finally, for October's upcoming movie Them! which is a 1954 sci-fi flick about mutant ants, we were able to have Sean O'Donnell sign on to bring army ants to the event and have people watch via live stream what they are doing in action. Considering Sean has been on the Discovery Channel and knows all things about ants, this was an awesome opportunity to add a really cool element to Mega-Bad. On Friday, Sean came over to the Academy to look at the potential camera set-up for how visitors would view the ants as they moved around their setting. I have included a picture below!