Griffin Museum of Science and Industry – Irene Frias , Week 1

Hiii Everyone,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              To launch my practicum, I toured the museum with Savion and another intern. We were able to explore all the color coded stairs, so far the yellow stairs are my favorite. We were able to take a glance at the West Pavilion, where a closet named the North Pole hides (I was hoping for some penguins). After our tour, I went to the cafeteria for lunch. When I returned to my desk, my next task was receiving my ID. So, we took the yellow stairs down and I took my picture. After that, I helped Kenny find contact information for major sport leagues in Chicago. That concluded Monday.

  

Tuesdays are remote, so I worked from home. To start the work day, I had a call with Dulce, my supervisor. We went over tasks for the upcoming days. One of my tasks was creating a heat map of where the visitors involved in our programming are coming from. I spent the day researching platforms to create the map, unfortunately heat map software is hard to find at least for free. So, we pivoted to a symbol map, I was able to use Datawrappers for it. To input the data, it uses a spreadsheet. I created a new spreadsheet to organize all the data from different programs by addresses. There went Tuesday. 

 

I started Wednesday, with free drip coffee from the museum. It’s a fun trip up to the office, I feel like a secret agent using hidden elevators. The day was filled with researching schools to fill in

missing information on the spreadsheets. Once I was able to complete the addresses, I then converted them into latitude and longitude. To separate the data by programs in DataWrapper, I sorted them by colors, and tada!!!! A color coded map, WOO! 

By a blink of an eye, Thursday came. The day started with a meeting with Dulce, we reviewed the map and how to present it. Afterwards, I started on a new non-colorcoded map. Along with the map, I helped sort through posters from our previous branding to find ones that were able to be recycled to new branding. I also helped label packaging for our lego kits! 

Before the day would end, I was able to take time to explore the museum. I visited an exhibition called Steelmakers, it explored steel making from the perspective of the workers themselves. Next was, “The Blue Paradox” , an immersive exhibition on plastic pollution being one of the most pressing challenges. To end my journey, I explored the Henry Crown Space Center. 

From visiting these exhibitions, I left wanting to answer a question, “What does it mean to survive, and who gets to?” It’s in human nature to want to survive; how we go about it, and who bears the cost, varies greatly.

LOL then I had off Friday so I could prepare for the storytelling event.

I have had so much fun at MSI. I am so excited to work more with the education team, and explore the museum. Whether its Excel Sheets or outreach I look forward to being apart of it.

Thank you for reading!

- Irene