Adler Planetarium Interpretation Bootcamp

Location: Adler Planetarium

Date: Saturday, May 10, 2014; 10:00 am-4:00 pm

I had been through two interview sessions as well as one volunteer orientation.  However, there was one more session that I had to attend in order to be eligible as an ‘After Hours Education Host’ at ‘Adler’.  That training was termed as “Interpretation Bootcamp” and since it was deemed quite mandatory, I had to give up my ticket for ‘American Beer Festival’.  Yeah, an afternoon of science for an afternoon of beer – sounds like a fair swap! 

Our materials for the day

I arrived in the morning and walked confidently into the staff area, now that I knew where I was going and had the access code.  In the conference room were 6 other volunteers, besides ‘Adler’ staff members, Michael and Rebecca, who would be training us.  We started with all of us assembling outside the conference room and introducing ourselves.  As an ice breaker - and since it is ‘Mother’s Day’ tomorrow - Michael asked us about our favorite “Mother memory”.  I said I had 2, one which was not so nice.  One summer afternoon my mum had fallen asleep on the floor to stay cool.  Her long hair was spread and I thought it would be fun to drive a wind-up car through it.  Yeah.  I don’t think she ever had long hair after that.  The other memory was of my birthday growing up.  Every year, for my birthday lunch, she would get the silver utensils out and served my meal in those – silver glass, plate, spoon, bowl, the works!  I miss those birthdays and those campy utensils every year.

Everyone had a nice story and now that we were introduced, it was time to step it up with a game called “A strong wind blows”.  In this game chairs were spread out with one less than the number of participants.  The one person without a chair would state something starting with “A strong wind blows…” and all those to whom the statement applies would have to get up and find a vacant chair.  If left without a chair, it was your turn to speak.  It was a lot of fun and when my turn came, I said “A strong wind blows for anyone who has looked up at the sky, and confidently told someone that an object is a planet when it was really a star”.  Almost everyone stood up for that, including Michael! 

We came inside and then broke into separate groups to talk about our most meaningful museum experiences – any museum.  I was with 2 other volunteers and after discussing for a few minutes, we were to introduce someone else’s memory.  I discussed my visit to a children’s museum many years ago, a place I still dream about.  There was a room where a single story was being told through a series of display windows with puppets.  It was left to the visitors to piece it together via this “show, don’t tell” philosophy and I mentioned that this was perhaps how my love of stories was cultivated. I introduced another volunteers story, which was a visit to the ‘Field Museum’ in the 5^th grade, where he saw the Egyptian exhibit and learned about other cultures and their practices, such as “mummification”.  As I introduced it, I said that personally I found it interesting that something as macabre as death was what got him interested in learning about foreign cultures.  Everyone’s story had something personal and Michael wrote down all the key words on the board.  We discussed how we needed to create similar experiences for our guests.  Michael even gave an example of a bad experience which had everything that we should avoid.

We then discussed Adler’s mission, which is “Inspire exploration and understanding of our Universe”.  It is also printed on our name tags and we repeated the phrase again and again so as to let it sink in.  Next, another staff member came in to facilitate a joint group activity, making a “Balloon Rocket” demo.  All of us worked together to blow a balloon; tie a string to a chair, with the other end tied to top of a door where a photo of the moon was taped.  Our job was to get our “rocket” to the moon by using some of the materials provided, such as straws and tapes.  It took us a few attempts and modification of the variables, but we eventually got it there, using two balloons, a tight rope and less steep angle of inclination.  It was a great team building exercise, but the lesson was also to see how the staff member had made us figure this out by providing minimal hints.  That’s exactly how we would be required to do it with our guests.  We were told that interpretation can be explained in an adage, “Not looking for a sage on a stage, but a guide on the side”!

After looking at some charts on visitor demographics, it was time for another game that was termed “S-C-O-E”.  Michael put charts on the wall with each of the 4 letters and key words under each.  Using those words we had to guess what “S-C-O-E” stood for and we eventually guessed that it was “Social, Cognitive, Objects and Emotions”, key elements of our job at the museum.  Like all of the games before, this was another fun way for everyone to get involved.  Next up was a break for lunch, but we continued our scientific discussions on topics such as interstellar space travel, the one way ticket to Mars and Michael and Rebecca were debating why Venus has an atmosphere. 

After lunch we were paired again and I was with a volunteer, Rachel.  Each group was given a demographic to study, Ages 2-5; 5-10 and 10-88 years old.  We were then told to write down what we knew as key characteristics of our assigned age group, which was 5-10 for Rachel and me.  We wrote down things like “stubborn, excitable, socially, evolving, curious” etc.  We also said that 5-7 year old's would be clingier to parents whereas 7-10 would be more independent. We were then given a clipboard and asked to go upstairs and observe our target age group.  I was glad to have Rachel by my side because it would have been a lot creepier if I was tailing kids by myself!  We selected a family of 4 with 2 little girls, one who looked to be around 5-7 years old, and other was around 8-10 years old.  The behaved exactly as we had predicted, with the younger one being more curious, but following her parents, while the older one was wandering off by herself and exploring.  It was still a bit strange and I was glad to be done with this exercise.  The idea had been to observe our audience so as to engage with them accordingly.  We came back to exchange notes and see what the experts said about each of these age groups.  We had seen the younger girl dancing in the museum and I said that it would be great if we saw someone like that and asked, “How would you like to dance under the stars”, and then take them to the corridor with “origins of the universe” and which had projection of stars all around us.  Michael actually made a note of this idea. 

Next, we had a discussion on how to engage with audiences.  Michael talked about a “drive by”, where you mention something interesting to a guest and keep walking.  If they are interested, they will follow-up.  The idea is to make them comfortable and welcome.  He said that we do not need any fancy ice breaker besides “How’s your day going”.  We once again went outside the conference room to discuss posture, attitude and importance of a smile.  We then played an uncomfortable game where we were paired and had to alternate between two characters.  First one of us would speak and the other person would appear to be not interested, and then after a minute switch to a situation where the other person was interested.  Then we had to swap where the second person spoke and the first person showed disinterest followed by interest.  This was to prepare us for all eventualities. 

We came back inside to play another game “Yes-But” and “Yes-Yes”.  In the first case the other person is trying to end the conversation whereas in the second, we are building on conversation.  Michael and Rebecca did it first and then I paired with another volunteer and we played the game as two people trying to plan an evening on the town.  Next was a game where we were to be constantly interrupted by people trying to steer conversation away from the point and we had to carefully acknowledge them, but also bring the conversation back on track.  This would be a critical skill to have as we practiced for guests who may be disruptive as we tried to have a teaching moment with a bigger group.  Michael is a master at this and gave a demonstration using ‘Primanti’s Brothers’ sandwiches as an example – a topic which had come up when he had mentioned about his visit to Pittsburgh.  All of us then practiced this, being either the speaker or the person interrupting.

Who knew this could evoke so much thought!

We were then given a normal binder clip and asked to write down 15 questions regarding it.  I struggled to write 13 in the allocated time and then they asked us to read our first 3 questions. Almost everyone had questions like, “Who invented it” and “When was it invented” etc.  Then they asked us to read the last 3 questions and as expected, they were more interesting since people now had to think about them.  This was a brilliant game to demonstrate the point that while initially questions can be “close-ended” and get a one word response, later questions were more “open ended”, which should be our objective. 

For our final activity we were split in 2 groups and while the other group was given the balloon rocket, mine had UV light and some beads which display color under that light.  We had to come up with 3 provocative sentences, 3 questions and 3 call backs to something in the past.  This was another practice for when we would be on the floor.  My group came up with a few and even tested the beads under my sunglasses to check if that was indeed filtering the UV light…which thankfully it was.  We had questions and statements like, “Do you know why your parents insisted on sunscreen” or “Let’s check if your sunglasses work” and “Do you know how we can see distant stars despite all the dust in between”.  The other group also had some interesting points like, “Do you know that the moon is moving away from us”

We were done and Michael and Rebecca even staged a “graduation ceremony” for us, where Michael played music on computer while Rebecca gave us pin-up stars.  This had been the absolute best training session that I have ever been to and I said so in my feedback.  This was not just a set of slides on a computer, but practical demonstration of real-life situations.  My first shift for ‘Adler After Dark’ would be in less than a week.  Finally, after multiple interviews and trainings, I was ready to commence this phase of my volunteering career. And based on this training, it would be a lot of fun.