Tomorrow Lab's Tree of Humanity invites people to contribute visions for a better future through science.

Imagine a digital tree made up of stories from people all over the world collaborating on growing their vision for a better future. Each story becomes a leaf on the tree as it expands. The shared goal that unites all the stories is that they are about science for the benefit of humanity–how science, which can often seem complicated and impersonal, affects you.

When the American Committee of the Weizmann Institute approached Science House Creative about working on Tomorrow Lab, we were instantly taken with the concept. Tomorrow Lab’s Tree of Humanity contains six main pillars: Fighting Cancer, Advancing Technology, Enriching Education, Improving Health and Medicine, Exploring the Physical World and Protecting Our Planet. Participants click on the pillar that matters to them to learn more about the topic or even record a short video, which then becomes a leaf on the tree that others can view and share.

The Tree of Humanity offers the opportunity for participants to create the future by communicating ideas to Tomorrow Lab and even directly support the scientists who can turn those wishes into reality. The Tree of Humanity is a powerful effort to bridge the gap between scientists and the people affected by their commitment and discoveries.

As visitors scroll down the Tree of Humanity they learn facts about Weizmann Institute's efforts to tackle massive challenges such as cancer, technology and education.

The Tree of Humanity is an evolving, collaborative concept that grows not only through shared video dedications but also as people use Twitter to discuss concepts integral to Weizmann Institute’s core areas. The Tomorrow Lab Twitter Clock keeps track of specific search terms, enabling you at the same time to see when the terms you’re passionate about start to gain traction.

While working on this project we have been struck every day by the powerful work of Weizmann researchers, who don’t do what they do for the praise, but rather for the benefit of humanity. Established in 1934 in Rehovot, Israel, the Weizmann Institute of Scienceis one of the foremost centers of multidisciplinary research and graduate study in the world. Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s vision to create a place of peace and scientific excellence to improve the quality of life of millions worldwide has been realized by over 2,700 scientists and researchers working with freedom to explore the unknown in an environment where curiosity and collaboration flourish in a 280 acre garden-like campus.

Tomorrow Lab's Twitter Clock will measure worldwide discussions about concepts central to the Tree of Humanity.

To support this vision or contribute your own, please visit Tomorrow Lab’s Tree of Humanity, open to the entire world, to create a better future, enhance science literacy and transform the lives of people worldwide. Science for the benefit of humanity can’t happen without you.

Rita J. King, Science House EVP for Business Development (and Futurist at NASA Langley’s think tank, the National Institute for Aerospace) appears on “Robot Wars,” the most recent episode of Faultlines, Al Jazeera‘s documentary series focusing on behind-the-scenes issues of our time hosted by investigative journalist Josh Rushing. King appears along with PW Singer, author of “Wired for War” and Spencer Ackerman from Wired’s “Danger Room” blog.

Rita discusses the less-understood issues of the increasing ubiquity of robots among humans and in the military industrial complex.

“The accelerated pace of development,” Rita says, “is such that it is inevitable that we are going to create machines capable of doing things that we cannot conceive of them doing.”

Rita J. King on Al Jazeera's "Faultlines"

Watch the entire episode of “Robot Wars” on Al Jazeera’s Faultlines.

Image credit: André Blas

“We are the children who have survived,” Ana Carolina says as the swings creak back and forth.

Tuesday, November 8:

After a red-eye from New York and a 2.5 hour ride from São Paulo to Campinas, Brazil, Joshua and I don’t have a chance to wash our faces before we get to work.

Dr. Ana Carolina de Mattos Zeri, a physicist and biochemist who directs a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance research lab, is waiting for us at the gated hotel to take us on a tour of the National Biosciences Laboratory and the Síncrotron, the only particle accelerator in Brazil and Latin America. Until Australia recently acquired one, it was the only machine of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

But that’s not all.

“We built it ourselves,” Dr. Zeri says. “On site.”

She shows us her lab, including a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer cordoned off with yellow rope for for safety, and explains how water molecules turn into magnets which can be disturbed with the right radio frequency and their equilibrium flipped.

“We can reconstruct protein structures based on frequency, related to conditions in space. What if all of reality is an electromagnetic field?” she asks.

Needless to say, it is at this moment that I know I have a friend for life in Dr. Zeri. I nod knowingly. She nods back. Josh, the director of Science House Foundation, mentions the belief of notable physicists that we may living in a hologram. I like the idea of living in an electromagnetic hologram.

As we move through the lab’s large, pristine rooms, she explains that robots and machines that have collapsed the time once required for extensive lab work. When she says this, she’s gesturing toward a machine called a Matrix Maker.

"The Matrix Maker" Image credit: Rita J. King

It’s time to meet the director of the National Biosciences Laboratory, Dr. Kleber Franchini.

He shows us a slide show with an overview of the lab and goals moving forward. One of the slides showed two steep inclines, one labeled Science and the other labeled Market, with a wide chasm between them. Part of the lab’s mission moving forward is to collapse this distance. At Science House, one of our major areas of focus is bridging that same divide.

By the end of the show I knew we’d be collaborating with Dr. Franchini and Dr. Zeri far into the future, and that Josh’s ideas about creating globally collaborative teams between the United States, Brazil, China and India, a mission he shares with Science House Foundation founder James Jorasch, has just leveled up tremendously.

“We need to take care of the future generations,” says Dr. Franchini, “if we treat them well, we’ll have better scientists and people.”

After our discussion, Dr. Zeri takes us to meet Dr. Tiago Sobreira, who has a PhD in bioinformatics and is a researcher LNBio, and Vivian Scatolin a communications analyst at the National Biosciences Laboratory to visit Project Quero-Quero, named for the fierce local bird of the same name.

Quero-Quero

In a sprawling tropical park in the middle of Campinas filled with peacocks we visited the NGO “Project Quero-Quero.” In Portuguese its names sounds like its call “kay-roh kay-roh”. It is known to be an unusually aggressive bird who will chase humans away if they approach too close to its nest.

Signs warned us to beware of ticks.

Our hosts, Katia Rached, President of “Anhumas Quero-Quero” (the umbrella organization that runs Quero-Quero and its sister NGO, Anhumas, which is also named for an aggressively protective bird) and Constantino Esper Neto, ex-President of Quero-Quero, welcome us to Quero-Quero’s current offices nestled in refurbished houses, formerly part of a massive coffee plantation now known as the Emílio José Salim Ecological Park. The park of rolling hills and wandering peacocks is not well-used by members of the community because it is also home to a community of Capybaras, a large water rat and a known carrier of ticks which carry several lethal diseases that can be transmitted to humans. Signs all over the property warn people to beware of ticks.

Left to Right from Top Row: Constantino Esper Neto, Tiago Sobreira, Joshua Fouts, Rita J. King, Celia. Bottom Row: Katia Rached, Dr. Ana Zeri

Constantino describes the mission of Quero-Quero: to provide new education opportunities to youth from the neighboring favelas, Jardins Paranapanema and São Fernando. Brazil’s ubiquitous slums can be found in and around every major city in the nation. Children who live in the favelas are typically exposed to drugs and crime. Constantino goes on to say that for the favela kids, “childhood is pretty much a euphemism.”

Upon our arrival, Constantino motions toward a cluster of houses, one with a robin’s egg blue window in one of the converted farmhouses covered with fresh murals. The window, he says, is a metaphor for dreams and opportunity. The children who come to Quero-Quero for work might acquire not just usable skills, but aspirations for a better life.

He wants the students to “feel encouraged to dream, to love and trust in the adults who believe in them as people…Then the transformations begin. In children and in space. In space and in children. Children who dream turn into teenagers with personal aspirations and projects, and those responsible and productive adults.”

Image credit: Rita J. King

We sit together in a small room and they serve golden coffee cake with cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top and coffee in tiny plastic cups, smaller than shot glasses. The conversation is passionate but I can’t understand the Portuguese.

Josh, however, speaks Portuguese, having lived in Brazil as a Rotary Foreign Exchange student at the age of sixteen and then again years later while working as the Acting Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer for the US Information Agency at the Department of State. His adolescent imagination was captured by Brazil, and when he graduated from high school in Washington State (where his parents ran Project Washoe), his predicted future was “lost in the jungles of Brazil, still smiling.” To be in Brazil with him after so many years of hearing about his love for and interest in the country is a powerfully memorable experience.

Some of the kids watch us as we say goodbye. Ana Carolina calls my name, pronounced HEE-tah, and waves me over to a small rolling hill, at the bottom of which the male peacock has extended his glorious blue and green feathers into a quivering courtship dome meant to shock and awe the small, plain female standing nearby. Kids and instructors, scientists and visitors, stand together and watch the miracle of nature unfold at Quero-Quero.

A peacock extended his feathers as we got ready to leave. Image credit: Rita J. King

Day Two: Wednesday, November 9. Creating the Teams of the Future

After a breakfast of Romeo and Juliet (guava paste and farm cheese), Dr. Zeri brings us to the National Biosciences Laboratory for Joshua’s talk, delivered in Portuguese with translation help from Dr. Zeri and Tiago Sobreira.

Dr. Franchini is in attendance as Joshua speaks about cultural collaboration in science and mathematics and his work at Science House Foundation, entitled “Creating the Teams of the Future.” [A complete transcript of the speech is available here in Portuguese and English.] He tells three stories about how Brazilian culture is uniquely qualified to take a leadership role in our new era of ubiquitous digital culture and in transforming global educational system and science education.

Dr. Franchini introduces Joshua's speech, 'Creating the teams of the future.'

“Creating meaningful connections is in the very DNA of Brazilian culture,” he says to the audience. “And part of this explains why Brazil has played such an understated and yet influential role in the evolution of digital technology.”

Brazil is well positioned to take a lead in the new global culture and economy for many reasons. Joshua points out a deeper reason for specific success in the digital culture:

Brazil with its long history of carnival may also have a deeper understanding and may in some ways be better prepared to understand the digital revolution because Brazil had a long history of creating avatars well before digital technology allowed us to create them on our computers.

Transforming education policy, he says, requires a new approach to learning. He highlights findings from our the IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education and Work report, which describes how education needs to encourage collaborative problem solving.

“Brazil is a culture that fundamentally understands collaboration,” he says. “You can see it in the way Brazil plays soccer. For years countries could not understand how Brazilians were so good at soccer and how it is that Brazil continued to dominate the world sport. At least one reason is Brazilian soccer strategies. Brazil approached the team in a holistic, collaborative way. Many other countries believed in a less-integrated approach to soccer where each play had an individual role that was valued over the group role.”

I notice the look on Dr. Franchini’s face when the door opens at the back of the auditorium and the favela kids from Project Quero-Quero come in quietly, holding the equipment they will use later to interview us. They might want to become journalists in the future, they say. The trick, I tell them, is to learn to ask the right questions and to be fearless in the process. And write it all down, because right away, you start to forget.

"Ask the right questions and be fearless," Rita J. King with André Blas, tells the young journalists from the favelas.

We have dinner at a restaurant owned by a journalist named Rafael who will be attending my talk the next day. The restaurant serves outrageous bruschetta: prosciutto and ricotta, figs drizzled with hot honey, brie and strawberry jam. At the end of the meal, Rafael emerges to tell us he’s on a tight deadline with another article but is looking forward to being with us the next day. The moon is an electric dime above our outdoor table.

Day Three: Thursday, September 10

The morning begins with a zipper crisis that requires the full attention of both Josh and André Blas, who works with us on many projects, including life itself. He’s Brazilian, and he has visited New York many times, but it’s the first time we’ve seen him in Brazil. I bought the dress specifically for this talk because it’s iridescent green, Brazil’s color. I almost didn’t get the dress because the zipper, even before I tried it on, stuck slightly at the waist.

“We’re going to do this, Generalissima,” says André, stretching his fingers to go in for another round. He doesn’t look so sure. Five or six times, the team effort to zip the dress screeches to a halt in the same spot. Finally, finally, I hear the zipper slide all the way up and we all hug in the bathroom as a sudden army of ants makes a move on a napkin smeared with dulce de leche. As soon as the napkin is thrown in the trash, the ants disappear like they’d never been there at all.

The journalist, Rafael, waves hello from the middle of the auditorium as I enter to give my talk. Ana Carolina, who is also wearing green, will translate. She also stops me to ask questions sometimes, or adds her own thoughts, or spares the audience too much information when brevity will suffice.

Ana Carolina, also wearing green, translated.

I start off with an Ursula K. LeGuin quote, “The creative adult is the child who has survived.” I explain the Imagination Age, a time of fleeting decades between two longer periods, the fading industrial era and the coming intelligence age, when machines will be smarter than people.

The idea, I explain, was sparked by a little girl who told me that I was the only adult who made her feel like her imagination didn’t have to die when she grew up. At that time I dedicated myself to doing whatever I could to create an environment, a future, in which children could become imaginative adults. Since then the Imagination Age has been in development with diverse clients, collaborators and partners around the world. The Imagination Age has since gone from research and development into practice.

This happened when, earlier this year, I met James Jorasch, master inventor, improv comedian, memory expert and chess champion, at Science House. I was there to give a talk about creativity and imagination. At the end of the night I opened a page in a book to light cones, my favorite symbol.

Soon after we started to meet to discuss Science House and the Imagination Age, a period of cultural and economic development in which diverse, geographically dispersed people can create ideas and learn how to put the best of them into practice efficiently by using technology as a prism held up to the bright beam of the imagination. I immediately felt that Science House was the best example of the core principles of the Imagination Age, and I became the organization’s Executive Vice President for Business Development.

That night, Dr. Franchini hosts us at his home with his wife, a former surgeon who performed twelve hour reconstructive surgeries while pregnant with their three spectacular daughters. Ana Carolina plays the ukulele. We eat, we laugh, we look at family photo albums and the low gold moon over their crystal blue swimming pool out beyond the patio where they host us.

“With so many ideas out there,” Dr. Franchini asks me, “how do you know that the Imagination Age is the right one?”

“It includes all projects and people who understand that the way to cultural and economic development is through collaboration,” I say. “It focuses on science, engineering, math, technology and creativity.”

“You are a futurist,” he says. “How do you know that this idea has a greater probability of becoming the future?”

“All competing ideas are memes,” I say. “If you believe in the Imagination Age and you put it into practice, it will gain greater probability of becoming the future.”

Already, it feels more real to me, and that’s largely due to the support of Dr. Franchini and his marvelous staff at the National Biosciences Laboratory. I’m back in New York now with a treasure trove of gifts given to me by Ana Carolina. We have a pact, to take this vision that we share to the next level.

“If you believe in the Imagination Age and you put it into practice, it will gain greater probability of becoming the future.”

The MicroInterns head to The Hatchery. Image credit: George Haines

How many middle-schoolers do you know who would give up their free time on a school night to watch adults pitch business ideas? Probably not too many. I am lucky enough to know quite a few because I get to work with The MicroInterns. The MicroInterns are a special group of seventh and eighth graders at my school, Sts. Philip and James School, on Long Island.

The core of the program involves matching my students with startup companies in the New York Tech space. Our MicroInterns have worked with over a dozen startup companies performing various duties like beta testing features, brainstorming during a re-branding campaign, writing blog posts and leveraging social media to help promote brands.

Over the summer the MicroInterns spent two long days at New Work City (a co-working space) learning from some of the most respected people in the Silicon Alley tech scene. The workshops were sequenced to give students a vertical curriculum in workshops like: User Experience, Intro to Code, Web Design, Building a Business Plan, Perfecting a Pitch and Building Community Around Your Brand.

Since those workshops, the MicroInterns have been developing their companies each week. This is not something we can do alone because neither I nor my students have the expertise in these varied and complex fields. What we do have is the generous support of sponsors like Science House Capital, and hundreds of friends in our greater support network. I am consistently amazed that some of the brightest minds in the NYC tech ecosystem take time away from their already overwhelming schedules to meet with my kids, volunteer to lead workshops, loan us equiptment and skype with us on short notice.

Thanks to all the support we receive, our MicroInterns are able to deeply engage with the concepts entrepreneurs deal with on a daily basis, like problem-solving, design, pivoting, monetizing ideas, collaborating and critical thinking.

We recently took a trip 30 Rock to see an event called “Are You Serious?” hosted by The Hatchery, a “venture collaboration” forum. Five different entrepreneurs pitched their ideas to investors in front of an audience and had every detail of their idea scrutinized. The MicroInterns were furiously scribbling notes and shooting me knowing glances when a higher-level concept came into play during the critique. The MicroInterns proved to be so adept at fitting in to the environment that during the Q&A after the pitches, one of them asked a question and no one answering realized it had come from a 13 year-old student. At the end of the event, they asked if any of the students wanted to ask anything and the judges had to be informed that they already interacted with the MicroInterns.

We have many plans in the works for 2011-2012, including a workshop on UI for iPhone apps, and days interning at Lippe Taylor and TechStars. The MicroInterns have been invited to speak at numerous conferences around New York and Long Island and they have a tendency to bring the crowd to their feet on each occasion. Three of the MicroInterns share our school’s Community Manager job, not only using the old standards Twitter and Facebook, but also cutting edge platforms like SnappSchool, powered by Twilio.

We are living through an amazing time to be involved in education and I consider it an honor to be able to work with these exceptional students. The MicroInterns are great at recognizing the opportunity they have and they are quick to acknowledge help and show their appreciation. Sometimes all a kid needs to become exceptional is an opportunity and I would love to help more teachers develop their own programs to engage tomorrow’s problem-solvers.

To learn more about the MicroInterns, you can visit our page.

The MicroInterns say farewell to The Hatchery

Your mission: Step back in time, location, and scale to investigate what is otherwise impossible or too dangerous to experience. The American Museum of Natural History‘s world-renowned fossil collections and exhibitions hold the key to understanding prehistoric worlds. In this unique institute, students will collaboratively resurrect three prehistoric creatures by designing realistic computer models and the AMNH’s paleontological expertise. Students shown here with instructors including Nathan Bellomy and Rachel Bricklin.

by Rita J. King

For two weeks this summer at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), a group of young creators brought ancient animals from the Cretaceous period back to life in stunning detail in a vibrant three-dimensional environment called Blue Mars. Students competed for a slot in the challenging program to learn how to model and animate the ancient animals.

The project is a collaboration between The American Museum of Natural History, Science House and Immersiv.

This program fits into the AMNH’s larger goal of emphasizing the the role of technology in science. The Adventures in Science series (which the the Virtual Worlds Institute is a part of) lets students explore a range of topics and get hand-on experience with real scientists and scientific processes. The Virtual Worlds Institute covers a range of topics including taxonomy, field work, extinction events, and the use and meaning of fossil evidence.

Participants did interviews after the event about their groundbreaking collaborative work.

AMNH scientists and educators consulted on the development of the project to accurately simulate animated ancient sea creatures and ocean plant life from the Cretaceous period using the virtual world of Blue Mars – a next generation high-fidelity virtual world.

For this experience, students in the summer camp learned about paleozoology and how to digitally model, texture and animate their own sea animals in the virtual world. This project required a graphically sophisticated virtual environment – yet a soft learning curve so the participants could master how to apply the concepts of the ancient ocean.

“It is an important moment to reflect on the future of science education strategies in this country,” John Fillwalk, CEO/CCO of Immersiv, said. “Immersive and interactive technologies, where appropriate, can assist in augmenting traditional curricular experiences in science, or other disciplines, by not only extending the scope and depth of the subjects – but by engaging the student in a principle role within a larger learning community.”

Projects such as this become virtual field trips to the places students cannot travel in physical reality while creating a rich lab for experimentation. Learners actively participate with peers and instructors in a community of shared knowledge that is dynamically created during the process of collaborative, team-based exploration.

Campers got to teach multiple generations of their families about how they researched the animals and then resurrected them, complete with a virtual habitat.

“I never thought I’d have a chance to get work experience at my age,” John Sturchio, 13, said. “Now I know it’s possible.”

His mother, Helen Graves, was thrilled that his chance to work toward his own future came even as he was learning about previous extinctions.

“This helps him understand that life prevails,” said Helen.

Ruth Cohen, director of the Museum’s Center for Lifelong Learning, said that the kids co-led the camp.

Siva Ramakrishnan, Manager of Adventures in Science, Dept. of Education, American Museum of Natural History, said the Museum is running 20 camps this summer for grades 2-8.

“The kids come from different backgrounds,” Siva said. “Some of the students were drawn to this camp by the paleontological aspects of recreating the past and others were drawn by the idea of programming virtual worlds. It’s cool to watch them talk to each other as different parts of the curriculum come alive and get their brains excited.”

The curriculum for the camp matches the global education trend toward using competition, challenges and simulations to help young scientists, engineers, coders, mathematicians, designers and artists to explore the skills they will need for future work while meeting rigorous educational standards. Curriculum creation was a shared effort. Check it out for details of the camp’s design:

Monday, August 1: Modeling Ancient Ecosystems
·      Understanding fossil evidence
·      What is modeling?
·      The Blue Mars virtual environment
·      Geological time

Tuesday, August 2: Lobe-Finned Fish
·      What is a fish?
·      Evolution and taxonomy of lobe-finned fish
·      Coelacanths and other prehistoric fish
·      Introduction to Sculptris

Wednesday, August 3: Sharks!
·      Cartilaginous vs. bony fish
·      Cretoxyrhina and other prehistoric sharks
·      Creating textures in Sculptris
·      Introduction to Photoshop

Thursday, August 4: Marine Reptiles: Are They Still Here?
·      What is a reptile?
·      Evolution and taxonomy of reptiles
·      Mosasaurs and other prehistoric marine reptiles
·      Work on organism plan and model

Friday, August 5: Field Trip to Big Brook, New Jersey for Fossil Dig
·      Drop-off/Pick-up @ AMNH
·      Don’t forget sunscreen, field clothes, water, etc.

Monday, August 8: Late Cretaceous Seas
·      Recap of field trip
·      What is scientific communication?
·      Further research late Cretaceous seas
·      Submit project proposal and work on organisms

Tuesday, August 9: Adaptations and Organismal Interactions
·      Visit World’s Largest Dinosaurs and Frogs: A Chorus of Colors
·      Adaptations and organismal interactions
·      Finish organisms, import into Blue Mars

Wednesday, August 10: Extinction
·      Major extinction events
·      Why do some species go extinct while others survive?
·      Introduction to conservation biology
·      Place organisms in environment

Thursday, August 11: Scientific Communication
·      Further discuss scientific communication
·      What are different methods for sharing scientific research with the public?
·      Presentation skills and public speaking
·      Finish projects, practice presentations

Friday, August 12: Presentations
·      Final touches on projects and presentations
·      Presentations and party at 2:00 in Linder Theater – parents are invited!

PS. Special thanks to Games for Change for recommending us!

We walked the red carpet to attend the first ever Botskers award ceremony in celebration of the most creative, thoughtful and funniest robot videos. We spent the whole next day working in groups on our own robot videos.

Special thanks to Sean Pryor, who illustrated the event as it unfolded and helped us envision the robot future we can imagine, even if only in part.

Science House EVP for Business Development Rita J. King with Executive Director of Science House Foundation, Joshua S. Fouts at “Facts and Fiction: Discussing Science in Imaginary Worlds” hosted by Science House and the Hybrid Reality Institute.

“As a kid I was bothered by the economics of science fiction,” said former dungeon master James Jorasch, the founder of Science House, as we went around the room to say a few words about ourselves and our interest in science fiction. “I mean, sure, it’s possible, but the cost of interplanetary travel is just crazy.”

“I was ten years old when I went to one of Arthur C. Clarke’s book signings,” said Executive Director of Science House Foundation Joshua Fouts. “His stories influenced the direction of science and became predictive of scientific discovery. For example, he was right that one of the moons of Jupiter was covered in ice before telescopes were capable of detecting it.”

During the break midway through the event, Science House Director of Operations Megan Kingery served snickerdoodles dusted with cosmic violet sugar. Science fiction, she said, plays a large role in her family life. She even has a Triforce tattoo on each ankle.

“The Triforce represents a number of things to me,” Megan said. “In the game, the three triangles represent wisdom, courage, and power with the idea being that a true hero needs to be all these things, and they have to be in balance. For me it also represents something you need to go on a long journey to attain.”

Patrick DiJusto, author of The Science of Battlestar Galactica, was one of the evening’s special guests along with Jeff Newelt, pictured above, Jeff’s collaborator graphic designer Michele Reznik, and Paul Hoffman, shown below in a drawing by his son, Alex, an artist and live action role-player. Why yes, that is me sitting next to him.

Paul Hoffman is the author of Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight which depicts the story of a Brazilian Santos-Dumont, born in 1873, who was raised in the forest surrounded by trees and science fiction books. During this time the young Alberto developed the idea that the things he read about were actually true. When he caught a glimpse of life beyond the forest he realized that flying machines for humans were an imaginary fiction.

Rather than pining away in the shocking face of disillusionment, Alberto decided that he would take it upon himself and fly around the Eiffel Tower. At the time, the triumphant Gustav Eiffel was bivouacking sky-high above the city in his ultimate tower-top penthouse. Eiffel’s guests for the spectacle included none less than Jules Verne and HG Wells, who entertained themselves by making bets on Alberto’s attempt to fly.

The scientific community, Paul said, was convinced that human flight was impossible. The religious crowd was in agreement. The largest group of humans who had ever gathered for any reason on the planet up to that point got together to watch what would happen when Alberto finally took flight. Spellbound, they watched imagination become real.

Forgotten Footnotes

Despite the ability to increase the audience for important ideas, stories, theories and facts, scientists face criticism among colleagues after writing bestselling books for a popular audience.

A lot of complex factors contribute to this problem, not the least of which being that taking the time to write a pop culture book takes scientists away from lab work. The green-eyed monster creates animosity among peers who often toil for years without widespread recognition. But regardless of why it happens, the end result is undeniable: scientists are punished for reaching a wide public audience, and the chasm between science and the public grows as a result.

Leslie Brody (just back from a safari in Tanzania with husband Daniel Moore, also in attendance) cited Madeleine L’Engle as an example of a writer who triggers the creation of worlds in a reader’s mind. (I am such a fan of L’Engle that as an adult I wrote her a letter while she was working as the librarian at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. It was from L’Engle that I first learned about mitochondria).

As an educator, Leslie prefers to present her students with proof of academic rigor in the instructional materials she chooses. “You can publish a pop culture book,” she says, “without citing research.”

Patrick diJusto pointed out this distinction might sometimes just be an optical illusion. Just because a popular book lacks footnotes doesn’t mean it wasn’t rigorously researched, he noted.

“I handed in a manuscript that was footnoted like a David Foster Wallace novel,” diJusto said. Only eleven of the references were kept.

In creative works like Battlestar Galactica, he went on, “When the needs of drama go against science, science loses.”

Not here. Science never loses at Science House.

It’s not about dumbing science messages down, said Alan Alda at the World Science Festival, but rather about creating clarity and using vivid, everyday words for communication. Photo from the World Science Festival’s official site.

by Rita J. King

For over a decade, Alda has hosted Scientific American Frontiers. After interviewing over 700 scientists, he rejects the myth of the lone mad scientist in a lab coat. Scientists want to communicate their passion and work with the public, he contends–but they need to learn how.

He didn’t know much about science at the beginning but was “extremely curious in a freewheeling, completely improvised way.” Mostly, he would listen and ask questions, trying to get at the heart of the issue: How can scientists communicate with each other when words often mean different things within different fields, much less with the public at a time of rampant anti-intellectualism?

Clarity, vividness and personal anecdotes create a connection with the audience.

Years ago, Alda found himself in Chile, screaming in pain. The medic who showed up took the actor away in a boxy ambulance like the ones from M*A*S*H (Alda was the show’s star for from 1972-1983). After the vehicle finally started, it bumped along an unpaved road. When he finally met his surgeon, Alda was informed that part of his intestines had died and he’d be gone within a couple of hours too unless the dead part of were removed and the two “good ends” of his remaining intestines sewn back together.

“It was a critical moment,” Alda recalled, “and I needed a straight word, comprehensively.”

He happened to know, from having performed many such operations while playing a doctor on TV, that the medical term for the surgery was anastomosis. But most people would have had no idea and they wouldn’t have understood what was coming if the surgeon had used that clinical word.

An “illuminating, everyday vocabulary” is a necessity. To help scientists achieve this, Alda went on a mission to “help scientists stay in intimate mode.”

The Human Spark

Improv lessons, Alda explained, can help scientists learn to communicate in a way that fully communicates the basics of a complex idea or field. In the popular imagination, improv is widely misinterpreted as nothing more than entertainment, a funny and sometimes awkward engagement that puts performers on the spot with pressure to create uninhibited physical humor.

It’s much more than that, and the benefits for communication are significant.

Improv brings ideas from the subconscious up to the surface to unlock a deeper level in socialization. Humans can read one another through gestures and tone, but the capacity to remain highly attuned to one another requires training, not just for sharing but more importantly, for listening, and ultimately, for becoming transformed.

Alda contends that improv should be a major part of science education so that future scientists are able to articulate their work with clarity and vivid language in written and oral presentations. This is a necessity not only for attracting a wider audience and diminishing anti-intellectualism, but also when it comes to creating policy. Congress needs to be able to understand what scientists are talking about when they provide guidance that can affect the future of the planet and the species that share it.

“The public is on a blind date with science,” Alda said. The public wants to know more, but doesn’t quite get it. Science needs to attract the public. The three stages of love, he said, are lust, infatuation and commitment. In this case lust translates to a spark of passionate interest in the material, not necessarily because of the content at first but rather because of the way in which it’s communicated through body language and tone of voice.

“If we think that giving the facts and expecting people to absorb it and care is enough, maybe we’re on the wrong track. The intimate connection gets lost,” Alda said.

The infatuation stage as it relates to the blind date between the public and science begins as soon as the public is captivated by what science has to offer. As more information is shared through mutual passion and curiosity, symbiotic listening and connection, the third stage, commitment, gets underway.

“Science is a human activity,” Alda said. “A great detective story. Scientists are figuring out clues, and what they learn won’t just solve one murder in a small town…but how the universe works.”

Improvised Transformation

“Listening happens when you improvise,” Alda said. “Watching and listening to the other person, you let that in and it transforms you.”

Stony Brook University picked up on Alda’s improv experiment and began introducing the skill at the Center for Communicating Science, the first such center of its kind in the nation that develops innovative ways to help scientists tell their stories better.

Since this is one of the reasons why I joined Science House as Executive Vice President of Business Development, I was delighted to learn about The Center for Communicating Science’s five main focus areas:

–distill your message
–hone your presentation skills
–connect with your audience
–give a compelling interview
–maximize new media

The techniques work, which was evident when Alda showed a series of before and after videos of Stony Brook scientists and researchers talking about their work. Before the improv sessions, jargon and a dry tone were used to convey work that sounded too specialized and dull to really ignite a spark of interest in a listener–even those listeners who might be directly affected by the very areas of research being conducted tirelessly to improve their own lives.

Some of the scientists took the stage at the Paley Center for Media during the World Science Festival to demonstrate several of the techniques. The group passed an increasingly heavy imaginary object to one another while Alda explained that it’s not enough just for the mind to conjure an idea. The group has to come to an agreement that this collective imagination can create a new reality.

“We learn through experience,” Alda said. “If the individual permits it, the environment will teach us anything that we need to know. Physical, intuitive and intellectual immersion is required in this environment. It’s an act of imagination, a way to watch one another’s behavior and go from individual imagination to an of collective imagination. They don’t know what the space is except by discovering it together.”

Storytelling at Science House

When the audience was asked to volunteer for the improv session at the World Science Festival I knew without looking that Science House Founder James Jorasch, in the row behind me, was raising his hand.

In 2003, while running the Stanford, Connecticut Toastmasters Club, James signed up for an improv class and enjoyed it.

“I immediately tried to apply improv to Toastmasters,” he said. “People who were nervous about public speaking became comfortable enough to relax, laugh and speak.”

Toastmasters has 10,000 clubs all over the world. Participants give speeches to practice various aspects of eye contact, inspiring others and speaking clearly. In return, they get the kind of candid feedback that just doesn’t happen normally, which brings the opportunity for genuine transformation.

Knowing how to tell a story or set the stage benefits the scientists who come to Science House looking to shape a business. Science House Director of Operations Megan Kingery also has a background in theatre production and media training.

“We set aside time to assist scientists and entrepreneurs working within the sciences to help develop their pitches to potential funders,” Megan said. “What this really means though, is that we help scientists tell a clear story. For us, the goal is to see more research and technology ‘translated’ into business, but it has applications for scientists working with the press, with their entrepreneurs, or within education.”

On a practical level, this means that whenever a scientist comes to Science House to pitch their startup, Megan reviews their slides ahead of time and offers specific feedback on presentations to amplify clarity.

“Not every scientist takes us up on this offer, and some feel nervous about leaving out ‘too much science.’ Scientists are constantly in the position of backing up their research with vast sets of data, but that can be overwhelming to an outsider. We help scientists find what is at the heart of their research and help them tell a clear story. It’s important to realize that poor communication skills is not limited to the sciences. In any industry, it’s important to have a clear, focused story that can communicate an idea.”

Executive Director of Science House Foundation Joshua Fouts, with David Kanter and George Haines.

by Rita J King

“Tomorrow is the Rapture and I can’t think of a place I’d rather be,” said Ted Scovell, director of Science Outreach at Rockefeller University, who works with Science House to collaboratively curate a series of science education outreach salons. “And I don’t know if that’s pathetic, but it’s true.”

The Rapture never did come, but just in case, guests settled in with Rapture Pie by Science House Director of Operations Megan Kingery to discuss respective science outreach efforts and some of the obstacles:

–the disparity between scientific exploration in private schools while public schools lose ground to slow transformation and slashed budgets

–the complexity of grant-writing language

–the necessity for educators to teach core concepts and become technologically proficient at the same time

–reaching the wider public

–isolated efforts requiring organization to create a sea change

–the dangers of mechanized thinking and decorative learning

Ellen Jorgensen of Genspace at Science House.

Cheap, Easy Recognition
Educator Dan Menelly teaches a philosophical curriculum to students from 119 countries at the United Nations School and serves as an Albert Einstein Fellow at the National Science Foundation, working to shape emerging STEM policy.

Since much of education policy is created by people with kids in private schools, the policies that result tend to be “just good enough for the neighbor’s kid.”

“Teaching should be approached creatively,” Menelly said, “and risks taken in your teaching. The sands are shifting.”

As more schools shift to online models or virtual components of education, Menelly noted that the “dirty little secret” is the mainstreaming of mediocre technology largely because it’s unclear what the best options are for education.

“Teachers can get cheap, easy recognition for badly engineered, decorative learning,” Menelly said.

Collaborative Learning
Science House founder James Jorasch said that one of the goals of Science House is to help kids understand how to form global, entrepreneurial teams with science as a neutral platform to bring people together.

“Innovation is a social experience. We’re all in the soup together now,” he said.

All night I found myself reminiscing about one of the most powerful educational experiences in my own life, in a class about Native American tribes and rituals. We used a textbook to learn about the Mohicans, the Cayuga tribe and the Algonquin Indians, and I did well on my exams after memorizing facts that I’ve long since forgotten.

One tribe, however, remains forever vivid in my memory. The details and nuances of the Kwakiutl potlatch ritual imprinted because, for a brief time, I became a virtual member of the tribe, assigned to actually throw a potlatch along with the rest of my team.

We met on nights and weekends to compare recipes in preparation for the feast we had to cook for the rest of the class. We painted masks and practiced our dances. We read about the symbolism of destroying copper and other goods. We experienced the potlatch, or at least the semblance of one created from what we had learned together.

This is what I love about virtual environments for education, and it’s also why I recommend toggling between the physical world and its digital counterpart in the classroom. In the downtime between experiments, immersions and collaborative educational experiences, students should shift between different dimensions of the same reality we all share to gain the skills they need to participate in the emerging global culture and economy.