Episode 79: Michigan Science Center

Dr. Greer discusses how the Michigan Science Center puts you at the heart of science with

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Light Up the D, a focus on what's
happening in our community from the people who make it happen.
Here's your host, iHeartMedia Detroit Market President Colleen Grant.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning and welcome to another episode of Light Up
the D. I'm your host, Colleen Grant, Thanks for joining
us today. Our guest is doctor Christian Greer. Doctor Greer
serves as the President and CEO of the Michigan Science
Center also known as MYSIE in midtown Detroit. During Greer's
tenure at my side, he's created major strategic partnerships with Smithsonian, LEGO,

(00:37):
and NASA that had led to the organization being ranked
in the top three science museums in the country by
USA Today four years running.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
That is awesome and we can't wait to hear why.
As a result of the Michigan Science Center is known
for connecting with K twelve schools, families, and communities through
the most innovative STEM programs. Has over thirty years of
experience in STEM education and has been with the Michigan
Science Center for how many years, doctor Greer?

Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's been almost six years.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Almost six years, So please join me and welcoming doctor
Christian Greer from the Michigan Science Center. Welcome.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, it's good to be here on your show. Yeah,
glad to have you.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Such a special place, and clearly that's been identified by
USA today, as I mentioned, four years running the top
three science museums in the country. How does that happen?
What are you guys doing. What's the overview of why
it's so special?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, it is a special place, and you know, I
think science and wonder and discovery is also special, and
I guess people recognize that when it comes to young
people because they're always like touching things and looking around
and trying to explore their world as they're getting a
sense of what's around them. And we try to create

(01:53):
an environment that really feeds off of that, a place
where kids get a chance to use hands on minds
on types of approaches to learning, and that parents, caregivers
and teachers can help them through that. And we also
have things that they get to enjoy as well. So
that makes us special. If you go to our website,
you'll see right there on the cover on mydash side

(02:14):
dot org it'll say we put you at the center
of science. And I think that's the essence of what
We're really all about taking you your interests, your perspectives,
how you want to learn and explore the world around
you and identify phenomena and make sense of it. We
want to put you there at the center of it,
and that's what we're all about.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Can you give us some examples of ways that you
put you at the center of science?

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, I think defining you is really important, and it's
more than just your demographic for us, it's also the psychographics,
meaning how do you think about what's in your world,
what kinds of schemas or sort of like ways in
which you organize the knowledge that you have, And then
also how do you like to have fun exploring. We
kind of feel like it's very human to explore things

(02:58):
in tactle ways, friendly ways, and things that allow people
to ask deeper questions, and they do that by participating.
So that participation aspect is really how we learn who
you are. We don't always free suppose what your interests
might be. We throw a lot of things out there
and try to discover it, and that makes us unique

(03:20):
as a science center. It's all about hands on, minds
on activities and interactive experiences that allow you to learn
about how the world works.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Can you give us some examples of some of the
experiences and exhibits families that can expect when they arrive.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yes, well, right when you walk in, you walk into
our space gallery and right now space, astronomy, rocketry, those
kinds of things are really exciting to people. So hot
right now, yes, hot, right now. People are talking about
going to Mars, going to the Moon, trying new and
different kinds of experiences. And I think us and our
display is kind of unique. And people may not know this,

(03:58):
but we're a Smithsonian affiliate and if you've ever been
to one of the most popular museums in the country,
which is the Air and Space Museum on the Mall
in Washington, DC, we want to give people a taste
of that. And recently we started a new initiative called
our Hyperspace Initiative. So you may be familiar with the
term hyperspace, maybe you learned about it when you saw
your first Star Wars movie. In other words, is there

(04:21):
some dimension that we can go into to travel faster
than the speed of light or to get to other
parts of the universe and the galaxy that we don't
think we would be able to travel using conventional means.
So we use that as our inspiration. Because our new planetarium,
in which we received a big two point six million
dollars grant from the Bomber Group Foundation. Yes, thank you

(04:43):
to Bomber Group because it was our largest gift ever.
To redo our planetarium, we're trying to get an eight
K fully digital it's like ten projectors five point once
around sound with a nano seam dome. This means no
seams in the dome looks like it was just painted
all on. It will be able to take you to
different parts of the universe. And that's actually right when

(05:04):
you walk in and when you walk into the science
you go past our stores, so don't miss that on
your way out, but you walk towards the planetarium and
our rocket park, in which we have huge rockets, including
a Saturn five rocket on display. They are big and
kids love to go and see them. We also have
the Space Shuttle Endeavor and other kinds of cool things
that you get to see, So that's one of the

(05:25):
things that we want to show off.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Why do you think why do you think hands on
learning is so important for children when it comes to science.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Well, I think what's interesting is that science is a
really interesting subject because it's a discipline, probably more than
any other discipline. The language of science is through mathematics,
and if you've ever done any math in your life,
at least on paper and pen, you recognize how disciplined
you have to be, how things have to be in
certain orders and steps. But that's not the only way

(05:55):
that we communicate with math. There's also geometry and apology
and spatial types of things too, in which we do
math in our everyday lives. We just don't think about it.
You go to the store, you're trying to pick out
the best cantelope, or you're trying to get these tomatoes
or something, and you're smelling them, you're touching them, you're
trying to see how they look in the light, maybe

(06:17):
how heavy they are. All these things are basically science
process skills that you're using in the grocery store. You
just don't necessarily use that for everything you do, because
you wouldn't be able to get to work if everything
you did was all about science. One, you'd recognize that
driving on the driving to work is not scientific at all.
It's so emotional the way people drive. But I think

(06:38):
you would recognize that there were a lot of things
that you could figure out, and Einstein was quoted I
hope this is the right quote attributable to Einstein. But
it is this idea that the most incomprehensible thing about
the universe is that it's comprehensible that you can actually
discover these things on your own. And that's what we
want to equip people with Colleen. It gives them the

(06:59):
ability to be empowered to recognize that you can figure
it out for yourself. I love it.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Oh my gosh, every time I talk to you, we
talked last year, I'm like, science, I love it. It's
so fascinating.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
It is fascinating, And I think what's fascinating about is
that discoveries are happening all the time, and a lot
of times we don't know what to do with them all.
So someone will make a discovery about something and you're like,
we don't know what the application is yet. This is
what engineers. There's a lot of engineers in this town
right in this state, and we are probably have the
most per capita mechanical engineers in any place in the country.

(07:34):
Right They are applying scientific knowledge and principles using mathematics
and some of the technology and other things to solve
human problems. But a lot of those things that we
discover we don't have all the applications for, and so
we're trying to figure out what to do with these discoveries.
And math is even more interesting than that, because you've

(07:54):
got certain math that was figured out four hundred years
ago that we're still trying to figure out what to
do with what the scientific applications are. So it's just
an exciting field and people probably are more genius about
it than they think they are that they give themselves
credit for. And that's what we when we say we
put you at the center science, we want you to
have some of that genius too, not just for the scientists,
it's also for the everyday person that wants to figure

(08:16):
things out.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, how did you become so into science? You clearly
love it, You clearly want others to love it as
much as you do and show them, you know, how
amazing it is. How did you get started? Well?

Speaker 3 (08:28):
I was a curious kid, like most kids, you know,
just wondering what was out there. And when I was
growing up, space exploration was really big and there was
a lot of science fiction things going on. And I remember,
I'm old enough, believe it or not, to remember the
last flight of the Apollo program, which was the Apollo
Soyuz program, I believe, launched in nineteen seventy five, and

(08:50):
I remember being so young that I couldn't really understand
where they were going. I saw these three people in
a capsule and they said they were going up to
meet at the time or the Russians, and I'm thinking,
why did they have to go off the Earth to
you know, the big handshake in space that took place,
you know, to do that, like it didn't make sense
to me. But I was learning about what it meant

(09:13):
to be in space, and just being in orbit is
a fascinating thing. So those kinds of things fascinated me.
And growing up in Chicago way back when all the
museums were free at that time. Now they all cost
a lot of money to work to go there, and
they're worth it. Great museums in that town as well.
And you know, it was interesting because I remember wanting

(09:34):
to hang out at the Adler Planetarium. That the idea
of sitting back in your chair and looking up at
the sky and seeing this crazy machine in the room
that looks like a bug actually project these stars on
the nighttime sky that looked so real and so mysterious.
I just wanted to learn everything about it. So my
parents bought a membership for us and my siblings to

(09:56):
go to the planetarium. And what was interesting is that
they didn't have kids' classes back there. Now there's so
many things for your kids to do, as unbelievable parents
are struggling with trying to figure out what to do
with their kid over the summer because they had all
these options. But to make a long story short, they
told us, Okay, you can take the the because we
are members the adult classes, but you have to sit

(10:17):
in the back and be quiet. You can't say anything
all right. Now today people would be offended by that,
you know, like if my kid will sit back there
and be quiet. But back then that was totally acceptable,
should be acceptable today in some cases. But I think
what's interesting about it was I just sat there and
observed a lot of people that were a whole lot
smarter than me, asking questions, and I learned about those things,

(10:39):
and Lare and Behold had an opportunity to actually work
there as an intern while I was in college and
it changed my life. I had no thought that I
would ever be the president's CEO of a science center,
of all places. Some of my teachers would be like, well,
I don't know how you got the like, I don't
know about that. And then there are other people that
would say, well, you finally appli yourself, you know. So

(11:01):
I think it's so interesting what you can achieve if
you're curious, if you're passionate about something, and you know,
now I have a doctor and learning technologies, a major
in physics and astronomy, and all of this is are
things that are behind me now. But what powered me
through those tough classes like linear algebra, differential equations, optics,
and mechanics was the passion. And so we want to

(11:24):
make sure that your child, if they come to the
Science Center, gets to ignite that passion for learning, specifically
around science, technology, engineering, and math.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Well that's a real testament to doing what you love.
I mean, because you.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Are doing what you love absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
So, speaking of kids, why don't you tell us some
of the activities designed for younger kids, preschoolers, elementary students,
what you got.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yeah, Well, early learning is really important to us and
there's quite a few things that are going on that
are kind of converging right now. One is a couple
of years ago, we were invited a small group of
people around the country were invited to be a part
of the Lego Foundation's early learning initiative, which was called

(12:08):
Learning through Play and playful learning is not a new
concept to children's museums, of course, but the way that
they were using the Lego concept to facilitate it kind
of felt like it was. And there were only fourteen
museums across the country that we're asked to participate, and
we were one. So go for fourteen, Yeah, so go
for Michigan to be in. Now everyone wants to be

(12:30):
a part of this, and it's kind of an exclusive club,
but we were one of the higher performers and participants
in the network and we've gotten a lot out of it.
And one of the things that we've learned, Colleen, is
that learning through play is much more in depth than
we ever could have imagined. It's not just throwing the
Lego out your bricks on the table and letting kids
go at it, although that's part of it. It's also

(12:53):
observing what colors they choose, how they want to stack
things together. What are you really making? And sometimes kids
aren't really making anything. They don't know what they're doing
until they create it. They're more like artists. So how
is it that that art creative side could somehow be
connected to science. It is because in the human mind

(13:13):
we really don't separate those things. We separate them because
we're in civilization and there's an academy, and they're these
subject areas that you have to go through, and everyone,
every PhD researcher is not searching the trunk of the
tree or a branch, but that little leaf of knowledge
that maybe no one is explored yet. Okay, kids don't
care about that. They care about trying to make something,

(13:36):
trying to discover something, and in their minds they don't
even really know what it is yet don't they need
a space to be able to do that. So even
though your kids are on the floor and you're like,
get to your homework, you're playing. I think what this
playful learning network is teaching us as teachers and educators,
informal educators and maybe parents and others, is that you

(13:56):
get to catch this in especially in the age of
artificial intelligence, robotics. So much stuff that we do right
now is going to be done by a machine. So
I think the only thing that we can still hold
onto as human beings is are just raw creativity or
the need and desire, like you said, the passion Colleen earlier,

(14:16):
to be able to do something. Why would we want
to beat that out of our kids right now at
this timeframe. This is when they need to be exploring
and playing and trying things. Because the rest of the
stuff I'm exaggerating to some extent, but much of this
is going to be accomplished by using simple tools that
allow us to do lots of other things. So we
have created this environment and even opened a space that

(14:39):
was shut down in twenty twenty one. Remember when those
big rainstorms came through Detroit and a lot of buildings
were flooded. Well, my side was closed for almost four months, Colleen,
And it was one of the saddest moments because I
felt like we had done such a good job to
work our way out of the pandemic as a fledgling
five ONH one C three to begin with, and I

(15:00):
had just arrived and welcome to the CEO land. You know,
you got to deal with the pandemic. So we go
through that and just a year later we had opened
within one hundred days. We were one of the fastest
to open organizations. We had a sponsorship from a Ramco
to reopen. No one had done that, and we were
just proud of all the things that we did. Except

(15:20):
the next year we came around and we had this
almost biblical flood that took place that shut us down
for four months and it was terrible and one of
the things that was damaged in our space was this
sort of small children's museum, almost like a children's museum
inside the Science Center called kids Town. Kidstown is a
wonderful space in which we have many galleries, ni many galleries.

(15:43):
We have many, many galleries, small ones, and these galleries
are basically, let's put it like this, we want to
give little kids the opportunity to do the same thing
big kids can do at the Science Center. And that's
what Kidstown is all about. It just real open. We
had Miss Usa who is from Michigan, and she came out.

(16:06):
She's an Army cadet I believe at the I think
she's still at West Point or maybe she's just recently graduated.
So she came and did some a stem story time
with us. Really exciting. We reopened the center and it's
been packed. It's packed, and we're trying not to charge
for We don't want it to be a you know,
we don't want to nickel and dime parents. So it's
right now it's part of the fee, but we may

(16:27):
have to sign up if we get so many people
that want to participate and bring their kids down there.
That's what it's all about. Wow, I love it.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
And there are special programs for kids with sensory sensitivities
or special needs. Can you tell us a little bit
about those.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yes, we're very much interested in understanding that learning can
be differentiated. You know, there's a lot of kids out
there that now recognize because we have terminology and better
I think understanding of how kids learn and really appreciate
appreciation for the fact that neurodiversity is a thing and

(17:01):
that kids can learn differently and it's us.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
I think about growing up and how there were so
many different people with challenges learning, and I just think
if we had just been a little more understanding of
the different ways people, how less hard it would have
been for so many people.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
I think so, and I think what's interesting about what
you're saying, Colleen, is it's so funny. You know. We
try to normalize so many things in society, and it's natural,
you know, like we want our kids to be normal,
you know. And but what does that mean when we
were also reading history books and other things about people
that buck the system or were revolutionaries or didn't fit.

(17:37):
Those are the ones that we talk about. We don't
talk about someone who was like, well, this guy was
in the Roman Empire and he just was kind of
like a basic dude. He didn't do anything, you know, like,
we don't talk about them. We talk about Caesar, we
talk about this, you know, Aristotle. We talk about people
that have developed things like George Washington Carver and what
he did with just pots and pants to learn so
much about agriculture and contribute to so many metas, sins

(18:00):
and things we do today. Okay, so what does all
this mean. It means it probably is a good idea
to dial into the differences rather than the similarities as
well when it comes to your kids, because those differences again,
in the age of artificial intelligence, robotics and some of
these other automated systems that would take place that will

(18:21):
allow them to be able to hack things that we
normally think maybe aren't even broken yet. I mean kids
like that that think differently. They break things you didn't
think were broken, and then give you something that you
didn't think you need it, but you love. Right, This
is what it's all about. Creating spaces like that. You
can do it in the home. One day. I want
to have a We want to do classes like this
for parents and caregivers, just to use informal education techniques

(18:45):
that could work. My kids went to a story school
at one point, and you know, the essence of Montessori,
in my mind, is really like learning with the child
and teaching them to be able to do things on
their own to create that independence. And that independence is
important because there's going to be so many things available

(19:05):
to them that you won't even know what they're doing.
I mean, if you're thinking, wow, I can barely teach
my kid the math that they're learning in school right now,
it's worse than that. Now it's not just the math,
it's the technology. They're using this all this stuff, so
they're going to have an intuitive understanding of the world
that we can't even maybe help them with. Isn't that
like a disempowering thing? As a parent, you're thinking like,

(19:27):
I don't even know how to help you with this stuff.
I don't know how to help you with your technology.
I don't know how to help you with your math.
So okay, what does this mean? We have to move
from being a sage on the stage the guide on
the side, which is really coaching the kids within their
own learning and their perspectives, to try to just help
them discover and discover with them rather than teaching them something.

(19:49):
And that's what I think is really important in today's
day and age for twenty twenty five and beyond.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, that's interesting you bring up the gap. I mean, well,
all we adults have felt that gap where the kid is.
You know, they know so much more and they have
so much and there's so much more intuitive about the
devices that they're using. It's like, how did you how
did you find that.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
You just do this, this, this, this, and this right,
You go up down, left right, press this two times
so fast. Yeah, and it's just like I don't even
know what they said, let alone how to do it,
but they know how to unlock aspects of this world
around us. That we don't, and they're picking up on clues.
You remember watching the Saturday Morning cartoons and going back
maybe watching your kids or watching them as you grow older,

(20:33):
and you're like, wow, that was kind of deep, Like
I didn't know these cartoons were just more than just
about cartoons. And what that means is there are all
sorts of messages in everything that we see, you know,
and a lot of those are at levels that we
can't pick up on. But these kids today are picking
up on this stuff. So we have to be aware
of them to make sure that they're moving the right
path and not straying onto things that we don't want

(20:54):
them to see, which is so easy to do online.
But I don't want and parents to think they should
be so afraid of that that they miss out on
the opportunities the universe that is in front of their
kids to explore and grow.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Well, let's let's talk about some of the interesting universe
things that you have in the Michigan Science Center for like,
for example, talk to me about the tyrannosaurce Meet the
Family exhibit.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Well, I have to thank Evergreen Exhibitions because thank you Green, Yeah,
thank you ever Green. They I have known these folks
for many years. When I worked prior to coming here
to Detroit, I worked at the Saint Louis Science Center
and we had a couple of their exhibits that were
down there, and they were just one of these companies
that were just easy to work with. And I can't
say it enough. You know, when it comes to things

(21:38):
that you have to do, especially when you're in a
leadership position, you're trying to move from idea to action,
create innovation, it's just great when you have partners like
iHeartMedia has been so great to work with for us.
You guys cover us, You care about these stories, I
mean really care about these stories. This allows us to
have this platform we want to continue to work. We've
got We're going to have more stuff to bring up,
so we could talk about this ky, but it's just

(22:00):
so important to just get the new latest exhibits in
and we hadn't done anything in dinosaurs in years, and
this was a wonderful opportunity to bring dinosaurs to Detroit.
And these dinosaurs specimens that we have, many of them
are cast, include one of the largest complete dinosaurs ever found.

(22:21):
His name is Scotti. Now Scotty was found by a
team of paleontologists from the Australian Museum, of which this
exhibit comes from Australia, and they were in Saskatchewan, Canada,
and they stumbled upon this perfectly you know, preserved specimen
from many millions of years ago, sixty five or sixty

(22:43):
six million years ago that you dig all the stuff
that's under your feet, you know, And so they stumbled
upon this because through erosion and things like that, you
get closer and closer to what's there. And they found
it and they celebrated with a bottle of scott so
he got his nickname Scotty. But Scotty is a little

(23:03):
different than some of the other t rexes that you
might see. Because the Field Museum, as I mentioned my hometown,
which is right across the street from Shed where I
also worked, and down the street from Adler where I
also worked, I'm a museum guy, and they have Sue,
and Sue is a beautifully preserved t rex specimen. But
Sue is in a predatory pose, you know, those little

(23:26):
arms are looking like they're gonna come and grab you
with the big teeth. But Scotty is kind of up
on his hind legs so it's interesting to see how
both of these are preserved and how they look. But
the tyrannosaurs is just to get you there. It's more
the Tyrannosaurus rex is to have something of interest to
talk about on a show like this and get people
to come downside there, because the real story is about

(23:48):
the t rex's cousins. And so we go through the
family tree of the t rexes and show how one
of these cousins is the progenitor of the birds that
are in our environment today. Wow. And so one of
the birds are descendants of one of the t rex's cousins.
So we have some specimens in there that are kind

(24:09):
of like part dinosaur part They may have had feathers,
or perhaps some of these had feathers when they came
out of the egg, and then they drop them as
they get older. Like scientists are still debating on some
of these issues and trying to figure out, you know,
what was really happening here, What color were they, what
kind of sounds do they make? How fast are they run.
The more specimens we get to complete the fossil record,

(24:31):
they kind of fill in the blanks, just like you're
looking up your ancestry and trying to understand more about
your family tree. Somebody tells a story why I knew
I had someone that was in the military, but I
don't know who it was or what brands they were in.
And then you research this and you start to put
it together. Well, this is what paleontologists do. And this
exhibit is so much fun because you walk in, you
immediately see dinosaurs. It was sponsored by Fort Philanthropy, which

(24:55):
actually than you, Yeah, thank you, Ford Philanthropy, because we
extended the It has been extended. It was only supposed
to be here for three months last year. Last fall,
we're out of cycle for our grant funding, and Ford
has made a special provision for us because they have
supported us for a number of years, so they know
they can trust us, and we trust them to really

(25:16):
extend this and to allow more people to see it.
So it's going to be available through Memorial Day. We
want people to come down and check it out. And
you know the coolest thing about it is not just
the t REX, but that it's free with admission. So
I should be charging. Other CEOs are like, why don't
you charge it for that? But we recognize that the
people in the Detroit community are very economically minded. Gosh,

(25:38):
you know, with inflation, there's a lot of costs that
are going up. I know how much groceries are. We're
trying to survive as a five oh one C three.
So if you want to be a donor, please donate.
You want to be a member, please be a member.
Give us. If you work for a corporation and they
have a match, you know, give us some money and
let them match. We have several board members that do that.
But we want to try to make this affordable because

(25:59):
science is for all. Science is something that we want
people to have access to, and many of our funders
fund us because they want people to have access. Title
want schools free and reduced lunch. Kids of need lots
of different things that people just don't even feel. We
even have a bus fund. You know, if you're a
school district K twelve and you qualify, we'll pay for
your bus to come out to see the science are

(26:20):
because kids just need this exposure for the future of
humanity and the future of our country, not just for
them to have fun. I know it looks like they're
having fun, but they're actually learning. And trust me, as
a person who's gone through school and study this. The
play aspect of it is how you come up with
new ideas. So that's what we're all about, and that's
why Taranosaurs is such a great exhibit for us.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, and it's so important to have special programs for
underrepresented students or communities. And You've said multiple times in
our conversation, I'm trying to keep this free. I'm trying
to make this free. And when I was young, it
was free, and you know, just so great. So truly,
if you're listening and you're in a position to help out,
like please give doctor, because let's keep it free. We

(27:01):
have to do that. I love that for all of
our communities. It's just important that they have access to this.
Let's talk about how you have relationships with schools showing
a real world applications of science and technology there.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Now, schools are an interesting thing because we have first
of all, teachers just don't get enough credit. And I'm
gonna throw this out there because i come from a
family of educators teachers. Yeah, I mean, my great grandfather
and grandmother were also educator's one room schoolhouse in rural Tennessee.
And education is something that's been very valuable in my family.
As a matter of fact, I'm probably one of the

(27:36):
dumbest people in my family leaders as presidenco sensor. Both
of my sisters are like ivy leaguers from Penn and
Cornell and everything. And I remember going to school with
them and it was like, you're not as smart as
your older sister. And then when my younger sister, she'd
hear about, you're so much smarter than your brother. You know.
So this has like always been a challenge for me.
But I have to say, what my claim to fame

(27:59):
is really about. This is I learned in a different
way than what school taught me. Now I have now
a lot of experience in formal education because I kind
of figured the secret out for how I learn in
formal environments. Now I can take a test like nobody's business.
But like when I was in you know, high school,
it just wasn't it wasn't clicking. But the reason why

(28:19):
I bring this up is that there's there's really like
three different modes of education. There's formal education where you
have like a standard curriculum and a test and everybody
kind of gets judged by the same metric. You have
non formal which is somewhere between that where you might
have a project that you have to do that you
get graded on, but you get to do it in

(28:40):
your own way. Informal education, which is what museums typically are,
there's no grading, no test at all. So that's why
our sort of metric is participation. As you mentioned earlier,
you asked the perfect questions, why do you have this
hands on why is there interactivity? It's because this is
actually how we grade by how much your participt. We
have an exhibit called Gamers Village. It is an exhibit

(29:03):
that was funded by GM to get us started as
a prototype. GM was giving us the opportunity to try
some things out about games and learning, which is a
whole other aspect of what we do with the science there.
But adding gaming to this and watching kids do games,
they're actually solving problems and they are taking tests along
the way. Every time they get to that next level,
it's like they've graduated. They've graduated from fifth grade to

(29:25):
sixth grade in the game. And what's interesting is their
final exam is fighting the big boss, the big dragon
that comes out at the end, and then they learn
how to defeat that even after weeks of playing and
then they go to the next level. It's such a
great feeling in a game when you can level up
like that. So that was actually one of the titles
of their exhibits called Gamers Village Now, but originally it
was called level Up. And so the idea that GM

(29:49):
allowed us to play around with and we still want
to contribute to this is to learn how we can
get people to level up their science knowledge in an
informal way. So in this case, it's not so much
about the tests you take or the curriculum or that
sort of thing. It's more about the experiences you have.
So it's almost like, you know, people some say you
should do you live to work or work to live.

(30:10):
I had a boss of mind at Shad Aquarium. She's
been all over the world, Like she knew when there
was that tsunami and bandit Acchaz she had been there.
Like she was like, oh, yeah, I've been there. They
got a great restaurant on the beach there. I'm so
sorry for what happened. She had experienced this. Her measure
of success was in the experiences that she had, and
I think kids need an opportunity to do that. So

(30:31):
what we fit in where we fit in as a
science center to K twelve, we get to add those
experiences to the knowledge bank that teachers in formal education
are using. So it's almost like that when that vacation
is the field trip, that's what the field trip is
all about. We're gonna we've learned this stuff sort of theoretically,

(30:53):
we've applied it and done problems and exercises, and now
we're going to actually go out into the field and
put it through the tests, and then do your observations
match the theory? And where don't they and are there
exceptions to the rule. These are the things that kids
get to see. Now. We do have a cheat sheet.
It's called NGSS where the National Science standards that exist,

(31:14):
and there are various levels of adoption in different school districts.
I understand, but it's basically saying, these are things that
a fifth grader need to learn. So if you remember
that show, are you smarter than a fifth grader? And
I was like, well, of course I am. I go
on there and I'm like question number one, I don't
remember this flag. I know there's three world flags that

(31:34):
have red and white together, and one of them's upside
down and you know, like ones polling one's Indonesia. So
it's like you're trying to figure out all this stuff
and you realize how much you forget. One of the
reasons why we forget all of this sort of knowledge
is that it's not being applied. So I took an
algebra class, I'm learning about how to do the quadratic

(31:55):
formula or whatever, and where do I apply that? You know?
I think what we want to do is to give
them an opportunity to apply it in a real world
circumstances or something close to that, where they get to
not only just learn about friction, but see how it
resists motion, not learn about force, but understand how force
can be used to accelerate things. All these kinds of

(32:17):
things are really important, and we just tie it, Colleen
to the curriculum. So we've that's our chee cheet. We
look through and we say, okay, kids are supposed to
know this, they're supposed to understand polygons. Let's do something
around that and throw it out there. Don't hold us
to everything in the curriculum that's in schools because we're
not tied to that. But we try to sing along
with it. You know, it's like it's like a baseline

(32:39):
and we're like, okay, like jazz, I know where you're
going with this related to math and science, a little
music and math. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna flow
with this. So we try to be part of that
jazz for teachers.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
My gosh, that's so great, What a great analogy. And
you are the field trip.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yes, we are the field trip. We want to be
the ultimate field trip absolutely, so.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
We're can people go to learn more, buy tickets, stay
updated on everything happening at the Michigan Science.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Side Well, we have a LinkedIn page, we have a
Facebook page, but the best place to go probably is
our website at mydash side dot org. That's mi I
sci dot org. And you can learn all about the
field trip programs that we do, summer camps that we
have coming up this summer that will be very popular.
We also have some scholarships. We just recently got a

(33:26):
funder to help us with some scholarships for camp. We
have programs for teens call our Explainers program, So if
your team is interested in science communication, they can come
do this. It's based on a program that have started
at NYSAI in New York in Queens many many years ago.
It's kind of an industry standard program and we have
all kinds of things that people can do. We also,

(33:47):
i think one of the most unique things that we
have so many theaters. Like when you drive in Midtown
and go down John R past the Science there right
across from Dia, you see the science there. It doesn't
look that big, but we have we have a four
floors from the Imax level at the very bottom and
then all the way up to the top where we
have tyrannosaurs. But we also have multiple theaters. Not everybody

(34:09):
has a huge two hundred and thirty plus seat Imax
Dome theater where we showed Oppenheimer, And as a matter
of fact, Christopher Nolan decided that we're one of the few.
I hate to say it, like this is one of
the things we're not very technology save on, which is
updating our Imax theater. So if someone wants to go
and put their name on the Imax theater, I'd be
happy to update that to some new technology as well.

(34:31):
But we have a fifteen to seventy projection system in
which Christopher Nolan, the director and producer said, Hey, I
really want to show this on this old school technology,
and so he did the Oppenheimer film on that technology,
and we were one of the only domes in the
country that showed it. We were completely sold out five
weeks straight before we even had our first showing.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
People were so excited for that. So a blockbuster, right.
But we have that theater and it's kind of finachy
and sometimes when it's not working, we actually have laser shows.
So we cut some holes in the dome, which is
almost sacrilege, but we did that, and we put a
five channel laser system in there. And now we have
laser Beyonce and laser Beatles and laser Motown and you know,

(35:13):
you can do all these like cool things you can do.
Of course the pink Floyd's and all that for those
that are old school. And then we have the Planetarium Theater,
which is going to be under construction. We're going to
have a huge system that's going to be very similar
to the system that's going in this new sports venue
by Cosm that's going to be downtown. We're going to
have a similar system to that. Wow. So it's going

(35:35):
to be just as advanced, but a different format we're
used in projection rather than Elite flexible LEDs. So this
kind of thing is really exciting for us to have
these theaters and have these places. You go to our website,
you see all the stuff that's on there, Come join us,
join our Facebook page, like just promote the science there.
Because the USA Today ranked us as top three and
it wasn't for nothing. It was because of our fans.

(35:57):
We have a lot of people like you, Colleen and
the folks at iHeartMedia that really support us. It's great
to have people promote it. Because we're a five o'
one C three nonprofit organization. Our directors do not get
a shares or anything like that. They're volunteers our board
of directors. These are people that want to make this work.
Parents that come there, they want to go to New

(36:18):
Kids Town downstairs. They spend ninety nine dollars, just ninety
nine dollars, and you can you and six kids can
come not just once but all year round. As a
matter of fact, it's not a really good business decision.
So if there are any business people out there. But
I did a program at Northwestern Kellogg and I was
telling about this program. There was like, dude, it's that's
not business. I was like, yes, it is. It's nonprofit.

(36:39):
So we have to get subdized subsidized sort of programs,
and that happens through donations. So be a donor, be
a participant. Bring your kids down, come see something cool,
give me a call, we'll hang out, we'll talk. We'll
partner with other organizations in the city. We work with
Arts and Scraps. We've worked with Mosaic Youth Theater. We're
part of the Midtown group with DIA and actually at

(37:03):
the Historical Society. They are the first in the Cultural
District to be certified as an autism education center and
so they're going to help us do something like this too.
So the hats go out to them and as well as,
you know, support for the other organizations like the Charles H.
Wright and the Scaup Club, Like we're all there together.

(37:25):
We have a great partnership with Library Lego. We're all
over the state of Michigan. We've been to ninety percent
of the counties in the state of Michigan and we're
trying to get to the rest of it. Some of
these places don't have any science education at all. We're
in the up every year, we're in Traverse City, we're
all all over the place, so we want to continue
to do this. We want to do it for you.

(37:45):
We love being here and we love holding up. Hey.
We got the science grit here at the size there,
and that's our portion and that's what we want to do. Kinley.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Oh, doctor Greer. I love your enthusiasm for what you do,
and gosh, we're so lucky to have you leading the
way at the Michigan Side and Center. We really are.
Thank you for everything you're doing.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Thank you. It's great to be on your show. We
have to do this again.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
I could talk to you for hours. Your enthusiasm is
just so contagious. So our guest today has been doctor
Christian Greer, CEO, President and CEO of the Michigan Science Center.
Get there, Get there, folks. It's a wonderful, wonderful organization
that we have in town here. Thank you for joining
us today, doctor Greer.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
This has been Light Up the D a community affairs
program from iHeartMedia Detroit. If your organization would like to
get on the program, email Colleen Grant at iHeartMedia dot com.
Here are all episodes on this station's podcast page.