56 Days... and Ant Farms

Some interesting forward-thinking playgrounds

I love it when people experiment with play and play spaces.  It's such a necessary piece of society.  But is it just me, or do some of these look like those kid-toy plastic ant farms?

I mean... just for the sake of comparison:






"Classic" Ant Farm

"Playground of Tomorrow"









And, moving on - the Event of the Day!

57 Days to 2012 CSF

And today's event of the day is...
*drumroll*

Urban Astronomy: Bringing the Stars to the Street

Friday, April 20 (in case of clouds: Saturday, April 21)
8-11pm
2 locations: Cambridge City Hall; Deguglielmo Plaza, Harvard Square in front of 27 Brattle Street

You may be in the middle of the city, but that doesn't mean you can't see the stars! This popular sidewalk astronomy program is now expanding to two locations with telescopes from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Join us at Cambridge City Hall or Harvard Square to get
fantastic views of Venus, Mars, Saturn, double stars, and distant star clusters. We will be hoping for clear skies on the evening of Friday, April 20; in the event of clouds the event will take place instead on Saturday, April 21. Check for weather cancellations or updates at www.bostonastronomy.net

We need volunteers for this one, so get on over to Get Involved: Volunteer and let us know that you're available to volunteer Friday evening, April 20th!

Also, some interesting science news our lovely K-12 Coordinator, Peg, stumbled across: Deep Sea Battery Comes to Light

58 days to the Cambridge Science Festival

Seems like a while away, yes, I know.  But the whole team is in the office today, a group working on sorting through 1,547 Curiosity Challenge entries.  That's right.  One thousand, five hundred forty-seven entries, with only 120 winners. 

We're happy to announce that some incredibly awesome MIT students have stepped up and agreed to answer some of the most intriguing Curiosity Challenge questions that come in!  So, keep an eye out for future posts answering some of these Curious Students' questions.

But that's not all today, folks.

We will highlight one event a day from here out to the festival!  That'll be 58 events... (perhaps we'll double up as we get closer to cram them all in).

And today's event is:

Another short one

I'm sorry for the short posts lately, folks.  But this just crossed my path and I had to share it quickly:

This is what a Scientist Looks like

And with perfect timing for this weekend...

Patriots Cheerleaders with STEM Careers! 

Math, Psychology, Dentistry, Environmental Engineering, and Nursing all represented by Patriots Cheerleaders.
Who says scientists are all white-haired men in bulky lab coats?