GSLIS Fellow Meadow Jones Promotes Informal Science Education at Orpheum Children’s Science Museum

Meadow Jones, a GSLIS Fellow in Community Informatics who is working toward her Master's degree, is also on staff at the Orpheum Children's Science Museum in downtown Champaign. Interested in informal science education and the role of museums in supporting and enhancing science education, over this past summer, Meadow organized a series of events at the museum that featured a mystery mural. Meadow's work was highlighted in a News-Gazette article on August 26, 2009, "Dino Detective Day: Orpheum plans unveiling of mystery mural; Saturday events to star creation of paleo-illustrator." The mural in the museum courtyard resulted from a collaboration with artist Todd Marshall of PaleoSpectrum.

"The goal of the Dino Detective Days...is to facilitate scientific thinking through innovative and creative programming," reports Meadow. "Through the event, children learn how original hypotheses might need to be continually revised based on the discovery of new and possibly contradictory, information. New information is especially important in the study of how dinosaurs looked and lived."

Three cheers to Meadow for her work in the museum world and at GSLIS!
More: Champaign-Urbana Community, K-6 STEM Outreach, K-12 STEM Outreach, Orpheum