NISE Network Blog

Touched by an Asteroid: At-home Resources for NASA’s Latest Asteroid Mission

October 29, 2020

NISE Network

NASA celebrated a major accomplishment in October when the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touched an ancient asteroid known as Bennu–currently more than 200 million miles away from Earth! OSIRIS-REx’s interplanetary encounter with Bennu lasted just long enough for the spacecraft to...

Sustainability Cohort C Fellow Cape Fear Museum image

Partner Highlight: Finding Success in Virtual Sustainability Programming

October 7, 2020

Nich Weller, Arizona State University

Efforts to incorporate and promote sustainability in the age of COVID might look a bit different than they did last year, but that hasn’t slowed the progress and ideas of some dedicated museum professionals. In September, the third cohort of NISE Network's Sustainability Fellowship Program shared their progress implementing a sustainability project at their museums.

The Moon Adventure Game - An All New Interactive Experience

October 6, 2020

Christina Leavell

If you received the NISE Network’s 2020 Explore Science: Earth and Space toolkit Part A earlier this year, then you have recently been contacted about receiving Part B of this year’s toolkit in the coming months. These messages mention the inclusion of a “collaborative Moon game” with this toolkit, but just what is a collaborative Moon Game? The Moon Adventure Game is a hands-on collaborative experience for STEM learning in museums and planetariums.

Children's Creativity Museum Sustainability Challenges for Kids header

Partner Highlight: The Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco unveils an ongoing event series, Sustainability Challenges For Kids

October 4, 2020

Children's Creativity Museum

The Children’s Creativity Museum unveils an ongoing event series focused on making sustainability accessible for young children, Sustainability Challenges For Kids, which is a collection of activities to be done at home centered around the important concept of sustainability-making choices that help people, communities, and environments be healthy now and in the future.

Partner Highlight: Hawaii Science and Technology Museum Working Hard to Bring STEM and NISE to the Big Island of Hawaii in Challenging Times!

September 2, 2020

Christian Wong, Executive Director, Hawaii Science and Technology Museum

The Hawaii Science and Technology Museum wanted to share our current and upcoming activities with all of you. Needless to say this is going to be an incredibly challenging school year as we deal with the effects of COVID-19 and how it has affected our society, economy, and educational infrastructure. We feel a duty to continue to serve Hawaii Island as best we can through our various educational and research programs and partnerships.

Partner Highlight: Reopening the world’s largest children’s museum – examples of best practices from the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis

September 1, 2020

Christina Leavell, Science Museum of Minnesota

With 472,900 square feet of space and 120,000 artifacts, re-opening the world’s largest children’s museum during a pandemic may seem next to impossible. Nonetheless, the intrepid staff of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis did just that in July 2020. Currently, they are still going strong, and a quick look at their website can provide us all with some simple strategies to facilitate bringing audiences back through their doors.

Child using the Braille book, called "Getting a Feel for Eclipses," features graphics that teach users about the interaction and alignment of the sun with the moon and Earth

Honoring the 30th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

August 29, 2020

Ali Jackson, Sciencenter

This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). To honor 30 years of progress in access and inclusion, the NISE Network takes a moment to highlight efforts we've made to engage our audiences without discrimination, and look forward toward continuing this work together as a Network.

Partner Highlight: El Seminario Pandémico - Hosted by the Museum of Life and Science and Duke IGNITE 

August 5, 2020

Libby Dotson, Center for Global Women's Health Technologies, Duke University and Max Cawley, Museum of Life and Science

This Partner Highlight is written in both Spanish and English Está claro que la pandemia de 2020 causada por el nuevo coronavirus presenta un serio desafío para una comunicación científica efectiva: las comunidades de todo el mundo necesitan información científica...

Nano and COVID-19: NISE Net Activities that Help Shed Light on Nano Products Used to Help Fight the Pandemic

August 5, 2020

Frank Kusiak, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Hall of Science

If you’ve heard of any product that uses nanotechnology to help fight the novel coronavirus in some way, you might want some help explaining how it works to your visitors. Nanotechnology has helped in many ways when fighting COVID-19 from...

Partner re-opening experiences with guest service de-escalation training for COVID-19 safety protocols

August 4, 2020

Museum of Life and Science, Museum of Science, and Sciencenter

Now that many museums and science centers are beginning to reopen with new Covid-19 protocols in place, their front line staff are learning to identify and deal with visitor situations that may require staff involvement and/or de-escalation, such as with visitors who do not physically distance themselves from others or refuse to wear a mask.