A screenshot of the new website that will document our journey into the Amazon.

Today begins a new chapter for Science House Foundation: A quest into the heart of the Amazon jungle in Brazil to find ways to help us better understand the impact of and spread awareness of climate change and to connect and introduce a community with deep ties to the environment to the global network of scientists, teachers and students who share a love for science. Over the next few weeks, I (Joshua Fouts), and my collaborators, Dr. Ana Zeri, one of Brazil’s leading biophysicists and André Blas, a critically acclaimed Brazilian anthropologist and filmmaker, will learn, listen, live, document and collaborate on story of how a tribe of indigenous Brazilians called the Ashaninka and parallel community of rubber tappers (called “seringueiros”) can teach us about the impact of climate change on their environment. It is an untold story of an intimate relationship with the environment. The community we will be living with is so integrated into the environment that they can tell if a certain species of butterfly or frog is less common in the region.

We enter into this voyage also aware that this community and their traditional knowledge of the forest is highly desired and thus threatened by corporations who seek to exploit it. The challenge of our quest will not only be listen and learn but to protect and respect their ideas. Science House Foundation founder James Jorasch, an inventor, is an expert on Intellectual Property rights and patents (he is named on over 500 patents worldwide). Thus our sensitivity to this issue is re-doubled.

Our hope is to create an educational infrastructure so that the children of the Ashaninka and the seringueiros can integrate modern science with that of their own traditional knowledge. We will bring with us microscopes from our MicroGlobalScope program and connect them with the students in that program who now represent over 20 different countries.

This quest comes thanks to a grant from Maggie Kaplan, founder of Invoking the Pause. I met Maggie last fall over lunch at the 2011 Bioneers Conference. I spoke at length with Maggie about a Science House Foundation program called PlanetCheckUp, a citizen science journalism program in which we provide environmental testing kits to K-12 science teachers and students to help students better understand their shifting environment and report on it.

Shortly after meeting Maggie, Rita J. King and I were invited to Brazil by Dr. Ana Zeri, a biophysicist who runs a major open research lab at LNBio, Brazil’s National BioSciences Laboratory. During our time there, Rita spoke about Science House Creative, which provides full-service creative consulting. I spoke about the mission and passions of Science House Foundation. Rita wrote an eloquent essay about it on the Science House website.

While in Brazil Ana took us to an NGO called Anhumas/QueroQuero, which provides educational programming to the children of the slums of Brazil (called favelas). Many of these children are illiterate and do not see a value in learning to read or write. In collaboration with Dr. Zeri and Dr. Kleber Franchini, who runs LNBio, we provided Anhumas/QueroQuero with a MicroGlobalScope grant. Ana began to volunteer one day per week teaching science, biology and microscopy to the children of the favelas. Ana introduced a new variable when urged the kids to write down the story of their science discoveries. Within weeks, this science education effort turned into a gateway for literacy. We will be releasing a short video in coming weeks that tells this story.

Points of Science / Pontos de Ciência

When Brazilian Rockstar Gilberto Gil became Brazil’s Minister of Culture, he launched an effort called “Pontos de Cultura” (Points of Culture). Pontos de Cultura were intended to be cultural hotspots in communities throughout Brazil (and the world) that would allow young Brazilian artists and musicians a chance to create and share their work as part of a global digital community. Gil, who is ever an innovator, understood the value of embracing new technologies.

As we considered the transformative possibilities of using science education to collaborative connect children worldwide, which is the mission of Science House Foundation, I thought, why not create “Pontos de Ciência,” not just in Brazil but around the world? Our goal is to create Points of Science around the world. Centers, schools, communities, classrooms, homes in which students come together across cultures to collaborate on a shared love for science. Science is a collaborative culture.

Invoking the Pause

Our trip to Brazil begins today. Collaborator André Blas is presently in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, telling part of what will be our larger story. We all convene in Manaus, the capital of the Amazon.

Thank you, Maggie Kaplan and Invoking the Pause, for seeing the value of our idea and passion.

We invite all of you to follow along in our journey, which will be documented in SoundCloud audio journal, video, still images and text.

Inside the MicroGlobalScope kit, which is sent to our grantees, now in over 20 countries around the world.

The MicroGlobalScope program seeks to spark the imaginations of 10-12 year olds worldwide about the excitement of science and cultural collaboration. Founded in 2010 by Science House Foundation founder, James Jorasch, the program provides a complete microscopy kit (shown above) to qualified schools and science teachers. MicroGlobalScope operates in more than 20 countries. Participating teachers share student discoveries on a collaborative website. In this way, students learn that science is not only exciting, but collaborative.

Participating schools receive the following in their MicroGlobalScope kit:

• Celestron LCD Deluxe Digital Microscope
• Zarbeco MiScope<
• Canon Powershot camera
• 4G Memory Card
• Plastic Pipettes
• Glass slides
• Plastic Cover Slips
• Plastic Petri dishes

Teachers also receive a collection of microscopy books such as “Guide to Microlife” by Kenneth G. Rainis, and “The Usborne Complete Book of the Microscope: Internet Linked” by Kirsteen Rogers.

Learn more about the MicroGlobalScope program or apply for your school here.

Watch the story of our New York City grantee at the Henry Street School for International Studies.

On an ongoing basis, Science House Foundation will share videos about some of our MicroGlobalScope grantees and collaborators located in over 20 countries around the world. Today, it is our pleasure to bring you a video filmed and edited by Brazilian documentarian André Blas about a Science House Foundation MicroGlobalScope grantee in New York City.

Melissa Scott is a middle school science teacher at the Henry Street School for International Studies in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Melissa has a diverse population of students, some of whom are recent immigrants to the US from China and other places. Many don’t speak English, but the philosophy of the school is that every student deserves an education regardless of his or her starting point. This notion tends to drive the school’s test scores down, which hurts them when it comes to funding related to test performance. Oddly, the school is situated in a building that is shared with other schools. The difference is clear just from walking down the halls. The students at Henry Street School for International Studies don’t have lockers and must carry their books around all day while their peers in the other school have a place to store their things. This relative disadvantage is felt by the students, many of whom already have difficulty reading and writing and staying motivated to become interested in learning. Melissa’s students dove in with their imaginations sparked as soon as their microscopy kit arrived.

Making scientific discoveries and sharing them with each other and students around the world inspired some of the students to document their findings to record their observations. Students in Brazil have also started to create art and write stories about their discoveries, which made us realize that this method of experiential science learning has a wonderful extrinsic benefit of catalyzing a desire to read and write.

We are thrilled to share her story (and the story of her amazing scientists in training, who call themselves the Nerd Crew) with you.

You can learn more about the MicroGlobalScope program here.