We like to do things at scale, cheaply, fast and for the long term. So when we started working with a lot of schools in Los Angeles, I figured it would make sense to automate the process of finding lifelong partners. We worked with Factual (a data company) to automatically collect data on school demographics, […]
We had our first Little Engineers and Parents session and explored a variation of the Ramps and Pathways activity. Our goals were to help the parents learn and transfer some principles of good facilitation as well as observe how the children interacted with the materials. Challenges: The biggest challenge was not very surprising – working […]
I have been doing a few half-hour science sessions at a Montessori school. Some of the topics we covered were: buoyancy and designing boats of aluminum foil using a microscope flight pulleys light electricity One of my objectives in doing these sessions was to see if I could do open-ended engineering design projects with a […]
An engineering design problemWe are a science education nonprofit and work with engineers and scientists to convey complex physics-based concepts to children through open-ended engineering design problems. We dove into the nascent field of science education apps because of the overwhelming evidence that mobile devices are going to become mainstream educational devices (see Horizon Report). […]
After three years of applying for the National Science Foundation (NSF) Informal Science Education grant, we finally were awarded the grant to work with the same group of Family Science Participants for five years. We are now in year two of the project called, “Be a Scientist”. There are some really cool aspects of this […]
Everyone asks me why did I choose the name Iridescent! So here is the answer 🙂 Iridescent means something rainbow colored, lustrous, beautiful! I believe that when you understand a particular concept, you begin to see its manifestations everywhere. So for instance, if you learn how to observe light and shadows, you suddenly begin to […]
It all started with a bus in May 2009! Paul Yarin and I were talking about having a mobile science bus that would go to parks, open up from the side, set out chairs and show cool science movies to people and then invite them to tinker and make cool things. Then we decided that […]
I have now been a mother for almost 8 months and have voraciously consumed all advice on“doing it all”. Here are some pieces of advice that particularly resonated with me: From Lucy Hood (CEO of Jamba! until 2007 and Executive Director of the Institute for Communication Technology Management, USC Marshall School of Business): While in […]