Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago Internship
Thalia Estrada
Hey everyone! :) It is hard to believe that four weeks have easily gone by. I got to build wonderful relationships with the staff in the MSI educational team and I also got to know the overall museum—with its many exhibits— on a deeper level. This is what I did on my final week:
This is how the museum looks from the outside. It is absolutely stunning.
To begin with the week, I got to the museum early because the office does team huddles on Monday mornings. In these huddles, the educational team speaks with the vice president and education and chief learning and community officer, Dr. Jessica Chavez. A calendar is projected onto TV where the team then discusses their latest projects and keeps the education department up to date with any events that are coming up in the week. This is also a great time for the team to ask for assistance, or make everyone aware of any absences due to vacation or sick days.
I admire the way that MSI organizes their team. Everyone is working on their own individual tasks, yet everyone collaborates, works together, communicates, and encourages one another in an uplifting manner.
This is how scheduling/calendars work in the office. This is my calendar, where I have my check up meetings (so there isn’t anything discrete I shouldn’t show):
This is Microsoft TEAMS
This is some of the research I have been doing. I couldn’t fit everything!
I took this week as a chance to not only catch up on my research, but to also, sadly, wrap up all my information on the Hispanic/Latino community. This week, my prompt for researching was to find onsite prgrams that support the community and that are Latinx, STEM, for teens, cultural, and creative (for the “A” in STEAM). Along with that, I worked on a document for the museum to be able to understand the logistics of my research. I provided links to my sources, links to my EXCEL sheet, while also explaining the “why” of what all I did is set the way it is.
This is my cubicle space that I got to work on! I am going to miss it so much!
This information is going to be utilized by the museum int he coming months as a basis for the upcoming club “Girls In STEM.” Dulce—the commmunity engagement manager at MSI—had told me that this club is going to be made a high priority at the museum.That being said, having an actual Hispanic/Latinx student who is within the demographic, bringing researched websites, articles, and evidences to back up opinions about the actual Hispanic/Latinx community makes a lot of the difference.
Also, this is completely random but on my way to the offices, I ran across this one exhbit that show cased and honored black creators and architects. Look who is on the wall! (Looks familiar haha):
This Friday (today), Dulce invited me to partake on an offsite event with MSI, where we travelled to a park (near UChicago), and got to speak to students interested in STEM through their summer camps/schools.
Whenever the education team goes out to do offsite events, they have to wear these bright orange uniform shirts displayed the museums name:
These are pamphlets that are within the Curiosity Kits that give instructions for each of the six at-home activities.
We distributed STEM boxes called “Curiosity Kits.” Each kit costs about $25, comes with 6 STEM activities to do at home, and are simple enough to help younger kids get exposed to STEM. One of the activities included in the Curiosity Kits were water PH testers.
There were many other institutions and programs from all over Illinois at this event, but one thing that connected us was our love for STEM.
This is a photo of our tent set up at the offsite event
I LOVED speaking to the younger kids! I got to show them how to make name tags that light up with a small light bulb and battery circuit. A lot of small children stopped by our tent site, and we gave out all the boxes we initally came in with. It was funny because when I took a bathroom break, one of the small (very young) girls recognized me and said “You’re that one girl with the lightbulb and battery!”
This is what the set up for the name tag activity looked liked. Kids were also given the opportunity to color them in!
We also got to give out free 3D prints from MSI’s 3D workshop in the FAB LAB. In these FAB LABS, schools can schedule an appointment and come in in order to learn how to design, create, and bring to life designs.
3D small toys
On of MSI’s FAB LAB instructors told me that this is a replica of a meteorite that fell from space near Chicago in the 1930’s. This meteorite is older than the whole solar system, and it is the accurate shape of the actual meteorite. It reminded me of Washington Week with Smithsonian, where we got to touch the 3D printed bat because the actual artifact is too precious to be touched with humans natural oils.
I also was asked to be in an interview for a company called Argonne. I reognized this company, as it was one of the partners that MSI works with. I also was able to put to use the bussiness cards I received from Washington Week, as I handed it to them in the effort to try to network.
I said my sentimental goodbyes to everybody in the education team and hugged them. It felt like I was just getting to know everybody/getting used to the flow of things. Personally, the four weeks that went by did not feel like it was four weeks, but rather just one. The education team, along with Dulce, handed me a gift with the most cutest keychain! I handed them a card later on. I found the card to be funny:
Well, that was all this week for week 4, my final week of my internship. I love MSI <3
I am boundlessly grateful to have received the opportunity to be able to have an internship at one of the biggest institutions in the United States. I will always keep this experience with me in my heart, and I will never shut up of how awesome all the exhibits I got to see were. I can’t wait to see the incredible work the museum will put forward with the research I have done for Girls In STEM. I hope that more Hispanic/Latino representation continues to rise at this museum, and I am honored to have been chosen to work on a specific priority task like this one. Thank you Smithsonian, Dulce and Manny, and the MSI education team!
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