Exploratorium exhibit floor

In the United States, about one college student in 25 is visiting from another country. Almost 672,000 international students were enrolled in American colleges and universities in 2008-09, an all-time record. “While I don’t actively recruit from the international community, I’m delighted when prospective volunteers find us through our website.  They can make really great volunteers,” says Deirdre Araujo, manager of volunteer services at San Francisco’s Exploratorium.  “It’s broadening whenever you can work with someone from another culture, and whatever their skill-set, it can be a great addition to the experience for our visitors.  But you have to be very careful before you say yes to an international volunteer.  You need to make sure they have a good support system, or you might end up dealing with their problems.”

Volunteering turned out well for Laura Pacchioni, a student from Nice, France who needed to do an internship during a study-abroad program.  “I was in the states for two months, and I stayed at a friend’s house when I worked at Exploratorium,” she writes. Pacchioni created a guided tour of the gardens around the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, working with a forester. “I learned that the Natives chewed willow barks and twigs to relieve headaches – and it was later discovered that these are rich in salicylic acid, one of the main ingredients of aspirin,” she says.  “Something like that came up nearly every day. It was an amazing experience.”

Oriane Scholler, Exploratorium volunteer

On the other hand, the folks who manage science museum volunteers also have lots of horror stories to share concerning international volunteers. Some have shown up for work carrying all their luggage because they don’t have a place to stay any more. Others run out of money but can’t earn any legally because their tourist visas don’t allow them to hold paying jobs.  And one volunteer feared the secret police of her home country so much that she refused to wear a name tag, which attracted the attention of the museum’s security guard. You can imagine the rest.

“I ask a lot of questions before I say yes to any volunteer, and it’s no different when they come from other countries,” says Araujo.  “The best situations are when the volunteer is connected to a host organization that can vouch for them and step in if there’s a problem.”  Many of the Exploratorium’s international volunteers come from Bay Area language schools that provide students with a safety net.  “If they are on their own, you need to make sure right off the bat that they have a good, stable source of room and board,” she says.  “Make sure you know about their visas, and what they would do in an emergency.”  Many visitors ignore their tourist visa restrictions and assume they will find under-the-counter jobs – so Araujo makes her position on this issue clear. “I let them know that I will not serve as a reference, help them if they run out of money, or give them health care,” she says.  “And it’s important for any volunteer to give you a good reason to hire them. You need to know that there’s a good match for them in your institution.  The more they know about your operation coming in, the better it’s likely to be for both sides.”

Of course, none of these problems are likely to crop up if the volunteer is virtual.  “The Exploratorium has relationships with museums all over the world,” says Araujo.  “Recently we were contacted by a prospective volunteer in India who wanted to work with our hands-on make-and-take activity program called Physics of Toys.  We happened to have a regular volunteer who was planning a vacation in India.  They shared information online and planned to follow up with an in-person visit, and the guy was able to adapt those activities to his local audience.”

Lodi, California is a small city (population 61,000) located in a wine-growing region at the northern end of California’s San Joaquin Valley. It’s about 70 miles, one mountain range, and several social universes east of San Francisco.  The local economy is in rough shape. Foreclosed homes dot the subdivisions, and companies have been shedding jobs in manufacturing and agriculture.   But Lodi is also the proud home of a science museum that refuses to die, thanks to a little help from its friends by the bay.

The World of Wonders Science Museum opened in a 12,000 –square-foot building leased from the city in March 2009, in the midst of a full-blown economic crisis.  It is a grassroots effort that was started by the Lodi Rotary Club, supported by local government, and pushed by a scrappy board of directors.   “When we started raising money in 2005, times were good,” says viticulturalist Sally Snyde, who is also chair of the museum’s board.  “The community clearly wanted this to happen.”  The founding board raised over $650,000, enough to renovate the building and rent exhibits from the Exploratorium in San Francisco.  “We figured that once we opened the doors, we could find stable sources of revenue.  But the economy is so bad that we haven’t really had a chance to prove ourselves.”

Snyde had to postpone our interview once because she was hours away from deadline on a grant application.  She says with a laugh that she is “the President, Director, and CEO, and I don’t get paid a cent.”  The museum has two and a half paid positions, but what keeps it going, she says, is the board’s positive attitude. “Not long ago, it was the end of the month, we had bills to pay, and we had about $1,000 in the bank,” she says.  “One board member abruptly said we had to close our doors – it was a very tense meeting.  I told them that we had to stay open. I said that if we close now, we will never re-open. We will look like a furniture store closing its doors.  And I said that for us to stay open, everyone on the board had to go out and ask for help immediately.  And they did!” That weekend, the same person who said the museum had to close got a $7,000 commitment from a donor.

Another lifeline has come from the Exploratorium. “The folks there have been great cheerleaders for us,” says Snyde.  “They encouraged us to make the leap, open the doors, and keep them open.” The Exploratorium’s ExNet program rents exhibits and trains local staff at eight science centers, including the World of Wonders. Kua Patten, Director of Exhibit Services, runs the program. He says it is important for the board of a new science center to adjust its roles and expectations after they open the doors – but the board always has to be clear about the purpose of the center and its role in supporting the center.  “It’s kind of like starting a winery,” he says.  “If you do all the work to plant the vines in January, you don’t close in the first year because the vines don’t produce grapes in October.  It takes three to five years of work for vines to produce. And new science centers also need time to establish themselves in a community. It may take two or three years after opening to reach financial stability. And anyway, you’ll never be doing it to make money. You’re in it to provide the best social, educational, and cultural services, along with great visitor experiences and customer service, and to do it as effectively as you can for the money you take in.”

The World of Wonders is currently open to the public on weekends. It is also open for field study trips during the week.  “The school field study trips keep us going, even though it is a minimal amount of revenue,” says Snyde.  “I think that if we can survive 2009, 2010 will be better.”  It helps a lot that she once worked in sales.  “Sales people can handle the word ‘no’ and just keep rolling along,” she says. It also helps that since the World of Wonders opened, her granddaughter’s science grades have improved.     

Robotics exhibit and experiment, St. Louis Science Center

It can take a long time for a science center to build relationships with scientists and engineers, but one member of the museum community is convinced that it’s worth the effort.  “You may not see tangible results for a long time,” says Christine Roman, PhD, associate director of emerging technologies for the Saint Louis Science Center (SLSC). “But eventually it can bear fruit in all kinds of ways.”

Roman’s long-term partnership with the Computer Science and Engineering department at Washington University has resulted in a win-win collaboration that could be a model for other science centers. In 2001, she and Professor Bill Smart designed a collaborative project in which SLSC visitors could drive a robot in a remote location. The underlying goal was to bring real scientific research to SLSC, involve visitors in the studies, and enhance the experience with related programming.

The early concept proceeded slowly from small studies to a full-scale deployment to refinement. In 2005, the collaborators set up a 5,000-square-foot maze with a research-grade iRobot, and put a control center in a gallery nearby.  The experiment was run by roboticists from Washington University and Idaho National Laboratories; the SLSC assembled participants and provided explanatory signage, educational media, and staff.  The roboticists “wanted to test human use of control screens with sensor feedback from the robot,” says Roman. “We invited robotics teams, mentors, and visitors to work together and drive the robot.  The researchers collected data on how the groups used the control screens.  About 400 people participated in one week. The researchers could not have acquired such a diverse group of subjects in any other way.”

Test Screen

The exhibit was a hit with visitors – and so far, the experiment’s results have yielded numerous conference presentations, published papers, and one doctoral dissertation for the researchers. “Early career scientists are highly focused on publishing, so they are eager to participate when a collaboration supports that need,” Roman says.

Roman and her collaborators have redesigned the experiment as a testable model that other science centers and research partners will employ. They’re currently seeking funding for additional studies. “Simply using visitors as test subjects is counter to every science center’s mission. We need to make sure we’re providing a valuable educational experience,” she says.   “If science center staff and scientists ensure that on-site research focuses on visitor learning, I think the results could be very rich for everyone.”

Most volunteers for science museums are older adults, according to a 2008 survey by the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC).  And because science centers have three times as many volunteers as they do paid staff, they are places where older adults are just as important as children.  But with nearly 40 million Americans aged 65 or older, it doesn’t make sense to think of “older Americans” as a single group, says a new report produced by ASTC with funding from the MetLife Foundation.  College-educated retirees are already an important source of volunteers.  But people in their 50s and older are also an underserved audience for science museums. And several museums use active older volunteers to bring science to home-bound audiences at senior centers and nursing homes.

Jack Bowman, a retired executive in Hickory, North Carolina, recruited a diverse group of people his age – a retired math teacher, a college chemistry professor, a nurse, an engineer, and four others with non-science backgrounds – and formed the Einstein Brigade for the Catawba Science Center.  The Brigade adapts programs the museum designed for school groups and takes them to places where seniors live and meet.  The adaptations are interesting.  For example, the Brigade doesn’t ask the audience to move around a room if a lot of them are using walkers or wheelchairs – they take exhibit stations to individuals and demonstrate them to individuals or pairs.  “Typically men will spend more time with animal pelts and bones, while women like the butterflies,” writes Bowman.  And he was surprised to find that older adults of both sexes were usually willing to handle snakes, despite the bad publicity that surrounds slithering things.

Gail Becker, who was director of the Louisville Science Center from 1991 until 2008, was having trouble finding qualified exhibit technicians until she started hiring older workers.  Older set designers, electricians, and carpenters brought her decades of experience, a strong work ethic, and the willingness to work for less in exchange for more flexibility and fun, she says.  As long as a skilled older person is comfortable working with younger colleagues, everyone can come out a winner.

The 56-page report “A Lifetime of Curiosity” was released in May 2009.  It includes statistics on the older population, tips on adapting exhibits to older viewers’ needs, and many case histories from museums that are tapping into this growing market.  It is available for $15, or $10 for ASTC members, plus $7.99 for shipping.  To order, visit the ASTC’s website, FAX your address and credit card number to (202) 783-7207, or mail a check to ASTC Publications, 1025 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 500, Washington DC 20005-6310.

Volunteer Tom Clouse helps COSI guests discover the wonders of air pressure.

In Columbus, Ohio, over one million Girl Scouts have shared the same experience: they have all attended sleepover parties inside the Center of Science and Industry. COSI has been running the parties since 1972, and this year’s theme is “grossology.”  Hundreds of girls in grades four through eight will bring their sleeping bags to COSI next January; they will spend the evening learning all about mucus and similar topics, so they can absorb scientific facts while also scrunching up their faces and groaning a lot.  Just before the lights go out, all the girls will gather in the museum’s lobby to dance and jump around while a DJ plays the latest hits by Shakira and Miley Cyrus.  “That is always something to see,” says Heather Popio, COSI’s director of volunteer resources.

In 2009, COSI is celebrating its tenth anniversary in a 320,000-square-foot facility designed by architect Arata Isozaki.  But the museum’s roots go back to the mid-1950s, when a group of local businessmen dreamed of giving Columbus a center to rival the great science museums of Chicago.  Now COSI is playing in the same league as the Field Museum, thanks to extensive help from the community.  The museum gets little government funding. This makes partnerships essential, says Popio.  Last year, 895 volunteers donated more than 40,000 hours inside the museum. But when outreach programs are included, those numbers grow to more than 9,800 volunteers putting in more than 106,000 hours.  “We’ll send a science show to a local school or community group, and their PTA or the neighborhood will send volunteers,” says Popio.

The museum’s most important sponsor might be Ohio State University, one of the largest campuses in the United States.  The University’s main gate is about two miles from the museum’s front entrance, but OSU is also inside the museum every day. The offices of its Center for Family Research are at COSI, and since 2006 the studios of WOSU television have also been here.  The newest OSU partnership has built several working laboratories inside the museum, with transparent walls that turn them into exhibit spaces. Visitors to these “labs in life” learn about the frontiers of exercise physiology and other areas by watching scientists test athletes and other subjects.  Popio says that the museum also has interns from almost every college within commuting distance.  “It’s a symbiotic relationship,” she says.  “We need to bring science to the public, and they need a venue.”

The intake process for volunteers at COSI involves an application, interview, and often a test to see whether the candidate is comfortable speaking to small groups.  About a year ago, the museum started offering volunteers a “career ladder” that gives them tasks of gradually increasing responsibility, ending with a paid position. “We adopted it in an attempt to hang on to more of our teenage volunteers, so we wouldn’t lose them to bagging groceries after their 16^th birthday,” says Popio. “They end up having a richer experience here, along with a stronger college application.”  Nearly 250 people are climbing the ladder. Seven of them have graduated to the COSI staff so far, with more on the way.

Popio stresses that every newcomer to COSI – paid, partner, or volunteer – goes through the exact same orientation process.  “Everyone who works here is part of the same team,” she says.  “That’s built into our culture.”  Clearly, it works. In 2008, COSI was named the best science center in the United States by Parents magazine.  And the Girl Scouts actually sleep, too, thanks to the volunteers who stay up all night to keep tabs on them.

BJ Siasoco:  “Surprise is the essence of science.”

Every year, hundreds of people gather in the atrium of a shopping mall in Ithaca, New York to watch children drop raw eggs on the floor. Last April, 187 contestants padded their eggs with balloons, feathers, marshmallows, sawdust, and sponges, hoping they might survive a 20-foot drop without breaking. Balloon animals, foam-rubber balls, feathery wings, and cardboard boxes filled with mystery cushioning were all launched from a balcony on the second floor: some floated gracefully, others landed with a splat, and each was followed by gasps and applause from the audience of about 400. The Sciencenter always gets a large turnout for its Egg Drop, which will be 25 years old in 2010. That’s because Ithaca is a quintessential college town. Around here, average folks would rather go to community science events than watch TV.

Tompkins County only has about 100,000 permanent residents. But it is also home to more than 30,000 college students, including more than 4,500 graduate students at Cornell University. “This community is unique for the number of volunteers it generates,” says BJ Siasoco, Museum Services Coordinator.  “It’s easy to find volunteers who want to get involved in science education here, if you know where to look.”

Siasoco started volunteering at the Sciencenter when he was a Cornell undergraduate (the University is only about a 20-minute walk from the museum).  Now children recognize him at the grocery store, and his in-box is loaded with contacts from scientists who are eager to share their work with the public.  That’s because the Sciencenter is a major public venue for families. Cornell scientists know that if they present at the Sciencenter, children in the grocery store will also recognize them.  More than 100,000 visitors a year come to this 30,000-square-foot museum. In fact, the building itself is the work of thousands of volunteers who showed up to haul bricks and paint walls over several weekends in 1992-93 and 2001. On cold, wet weekend mornings (which happen a lot in Upstate New York), the place is packed with excited children pulling their parents toward snake terrariums, a Touch Tank for marine animals, a Triceratops skull to climb on, a children’s lab called the Discovery Space, and a lot more.  The star attraction on a recent Saturday afternoon was Cornell mechanical engineering professor Mason Peck, who presented his research on how spacecraft might one day use gyroscopes to control and steer their flights. After he finished talking, Peck pulled out a wheeled contraption with gyroscope stabilizers and let children take turns using it to spin themselves on a rotating platform.

The Sciencenter depends on over 200 volunteers each year. About two dozen work regular shifts as interpreters on the exhibit floor, staffing the front desk, or putting things together behind the scenes.  When Siasoco needs to fill one of those slots – or when he just needs someone to staff a table at a community event, which also happens a lot — he posts a notice on a listserv that goes to about 300 addresses.  He says it’s easy to find willing volunteers, but it’s harder to know whether they are being used to their full potential  “I am always thinking about who’s working here, and whether they might have a hidden talent that I don’t know about,” he says.  Recently a chemistry grad student who volunteered turned out to have expertise in the same area the museum wanted to develop. Now she’s helping develop a new interactive program.

“She would never have thought to bring it up,” says Siasoco.  “I had to ask her to find out what she knew.  A big part of my job is to find out what our volunteers’ passions are.”  The same impulse fuels the entire museum, he says. “We’re always looking to put on a show that will leave people surprised at the results.  Surprise and wonder are the essence of science.”  

 Van de Graff Generator

More than 1.5 million people visited Boston’s Museum of Science last year.  The 179-year-old institution is a landmark of the city’s Back Bay, with a planetarium, an IMAX Dome Theater, a live animal center, as well as a staff of educators, scientists, and exhibit designers. It even has an indoor lightning show, thanks to a huge Van de Graff Generator in its Theater of Electricity.  But what makes the place really unique is their use of volunteers.  The Museum has about 700 regular volunteers complementing its paid staff of 450. “We have volunteers on the exhibit hall floors, presenting educational programs, as well as in departments as diverse as visitor services, human resources, publications, and advancement,” says Judith Sokol, manager of human resources.  “We also depend on volunteers to run special events.  It’s an extraordinarily rich environment for service, and anyone can fit in.”

The Museum’s volunteer program is organized around providing meaningful work for a diverse group of volunteers, as well as providing extensive training and support.  “The volunteer process begins with an initial interview to find out the individual’s interest and availability,” says Jeanmarie Santomassimo, the program manager.    Her department arranges an interview with a supervisor who has submitted a position description, to assure a fit for both the individual and the needs of the Museum.  Some volunteer supervisors offer twice-a-day training briefings that are tailored to the needs of a specific individual learning space. The supervisors also meet monthly with Santomassimo to discuss best volunteer practices.  The interview process, diversity of positions, continuous training, and opportunities to learn all help the Museum retain the volunteers it attracts.

 Volunteer interpreter

Volunteers organize and run an annual July 4 celebration for the Museum’s members that draws upwards of 3,000 people a year, and funds raised at the event are redistributed through a grants program.  Another volunteer-centered social event is held in the fall, and the spring is marked by a volunteer recognition ceremony at the annual meeting.  The Museum also takes pains to make its volunteer corps reflect Boston’s diversity, says Santomassimo.  She works with local high schools and other institutions, such as the Perkins School for The Blind, to recruit newcomers.  Some inner-city schools participate in a program that sends students to the Museum for half a day to learn science, then moves them into volunteer positions.  They’re contributing to the Museum while they learn communication skills and a strong work ethic.

The Museum also gives volunteers a real stake in its operations.  All volunteers belong to the Volunteer Service League, which is served by its own Board of Directors.  The Board is for volunteers who want to take the next step in their Museum service.   Sokol is quick to add that people don’t need a scientific background to get involved in volunteering, though.  “We want to turn the world on to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” she says.  “Bring us an interested mind, and we’ll find a place for you.”  

Volunteers Yue Chen and Jin Wang work with liquid nitrogen in the Museum’s lab

“ A lot of the work of managing volunteers is repetitive,” says Leslie Fann, volunteer coordinator at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in Durham.  “There’s a lot of responding to e-mails and a lot of work with people who are excited but don’t know how to fit in. You have to be available to anyone who drops by.  It takes effort, but the possibilities are endless. The only limit on our growth is my time.”

Durhamites have always gone to bat for their Museum. It was founded by a group of volunteers in 1946; in the1950s, one supporter drove a flatbed truck to Alabama to pick up the Mercury Redstone rocket that stands at its front entrance.  Its location in the North Carolina Research Triangle is another big advantage, because the neighbors include major universities (like Duke and North Carolina State) and research-intensive corporations (like IBM and GlaxoSmithKline).  “You can’t throw a rock around here without hitting a scientist,” says Fann.  These resources and connections are why a county with just 262,000 people contains a thriving 84-acre science museum with 285 hands-on exhibits and an annual budget of more than $6.5 million.  Volunteers logged more than 14,000 hours of service last year, and they’re on track to donate 15,500 hours this year.  “That’s the equivalent of about eight full-time staff positions,” says Fann. “We absolutely depend on it.”

The range of volunteer work is unusually diverse.  On Engineers Day, IBM sends several dozen of its finest over to set up tables and lead fun learning activities.  “They’ll give people a handful of gumdrops and some toothpicks and tell them to build the tallest structure they can,” says Fann. A different kind of help comes from Durham’s school system, which sends 11-year-olds to clean and dust museum objects, including a lot of fascinating stuff donated by NASA.  “They’re called the fingerprint police,” says Fann.  “They work with the exhibits director, and they ask a lot of questions.”

Duke University’s fingerprints are all over the museum. Folks from the Fuqua Business School recently analyzed the gift shop’s operations, and the Nichols School of the Environment and Earth Sciences is a long-time partner in environmental education.  Personal involvement from faculty provides another important spark.  Chemist Ken Lyle got involved in 2007 to give lab demonstrations. “Last summer, Duke donated some liquid nitrogen and Dr. Lyle trained staff to work with it for presentations,” says Fann. “He came by with some students last week to do a program on the chemistry of combustion. And around Halloween they will do a program on the science of scary things – how to make bubbling potions and so on.  People love it.”

The Chemistry of Combustion

Visiting faculty and graduate students from North Carolina State University also attract volunteers, but for a different reason.  “They have the only veterinary school in the state, and admission is highly competitive,” says Fann.  “People volunteer for animal keeping jobs in our farmyard, wetland, and Carolina wildlife exhibits because they want a career in animal husbandry or veterinary science, and the more experience you have handling animals, the stronger your application will be.  The volunteers also know they’ll get a chance to interact with professionals in that field, and maybe make a connection.”

Fann typically trains new volunteers in customer service, but she adds that most of the training happens on the job.  “We’ll team them up with an experienced person for the first two or three sessions.  We encourage our docents to get visitors to use their powers of observation – to see, listen, and touch.  You can touch almost everything in the museum.  And I encourage the volunteers to ask questions and go anywhere they want to go.  I tell them nothing is off limits.”

People often refer to the Smithsonian Institution as the “nation’s attic,” but the people who work at the Smithsonian see it quite differently.  To them, the Smithsonian is more like an enormous free school for people of all ages, and most of its teachers are volunteers.  More than seven million people a year visit the National Museum of Natural History, which has a permanent collection of more than 126 million objects and over 535,000 square feet of public space. That’s as big as a large shopping mall. More than 450 full-time employees work at the museum, and more than 450 volunteers help the staff deliver the high quality programming the public expects.

“It’s a magnificent place that has earned its reputation, and the volunteers are a huge part of that success,” says Bill Watson, the museum’s Chief of Onsite Learning.  “Our volunteers who work with visitors are acutely aware that they are on the front lines of communicating the Smithsonian’s work to the public.”

Since the spring of 2008, Watson has been helping to revitalize the museum education office. One of his main tasks is encouraging the small groups of volunteers who work in separate parts of the museum to think of themselves as members of a single group with a shared identity.  This is not a simple task, because volunteers who assist with programming are spread far and wide throughout diverse places like the Insect Zoo, Discovery Room, Butterfly Pavilion, 19 permanent and temporary exhibitions, and the Naturalist Center,  which is located more than 30 miles away from the main building on Washington, DC’s National Mall. “Just finding out who the volunteers are and where they work has been a big job,” says Watson.  “As I continue to get to know them, I realize more and more that the volunteers share a real passion for the Museum and for natural history. They teach each other, which means that peer feedback is built into the system.”

The museum recently recruited 120 volunteers to staff the Sant Ocean Hall, an elaborate 23,000-square-foot exhibition that opened in September 2008.  Approximately one-quarter of them came through a partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Regardless of their background, each volunteer went through more than 35 hours of training.  “It has been a tremendous advantage to have ocean scientists as volunteers on the floor, talking to visitors,” says Watson.  “But we also have volunteers from teaching backgrounds, and the mix is especially helpful.”  Scientists speak with authority, but teachers know how to communicate – and Ocean Hall volunteers who are scientists have learned a lot about communication from their teacher colleagues.

The Sant Ocean Hall has also provided opportunities for the more than 200 scientists and researchers who work at the museum to interact with the public. Through a program called “The Scientist Is In,” scientists bring some of the specimens they work with and some of the tools they use onto the museum floor. A different scientist participates every Wednesday for two hours. “We are really at an advantage here because our scientists work at a museum, which gives many of them a natural passion and flair for working with the public,” says Watson. One of the brightest spots of the program is the collaboration between museum scientists and volunteers. “The scientists rely on the volunteers to help them manage the crowds and convey their messages in different ways. It’s really a great opportunity for learning from each other.”

The Sant Ocean Hall is part of a larger Smithsonian Ocean Initiative which will soon expand to the internet. The Museum’s Ocean Portal will use state-of-the-art web and interactive technologies to create a community of citizens who understand their connection to the ocean and want to share their passion.  Watson says the Ocean Portal will challenge the education department because it will blur the distinction between audiences and teachers.  In the future, it’s possible that the museum will invite trusted Portal visitors to moderate and lead online discussions, as volunteers do in other web-based communities such as  Wikipedia.

“We are a lean department in a big place, so we need to think of our volunteers as staff and rely on them that way,” he says.  That means placing emphasis on training and performance evaluations; it also means putting out a volunteers’ newsletter, and re-starting a program that gives recognition for years of service. In the near future, museum volunteers will wear color-coded badges to show how many years they have served.  A green badge will mean that the person is a relative newcomer; a dark blue badge will mean they have served for eight years or more.  “Some of our volunteers have been here for thirty years,” says Watson.  “The color of the badge might not mean much to a museum visitor, but it gives the staff and other volunteers an instant idea of the experience level of the person they’re talking to.”

Watson says the National Museum of Natural History is eager to share ideas about its corps of volunteers: “We are a public institution, so we have a responsibility to try things out and make them available to other museums.  I’d love to hear from other museum educators about things they have done with their volunteers. We could implement good ideas we hear about. Because we’re part of the Smithsonian Institution, we are in an especially good position to spread the word.”

Volunteers make informal science possible.  Virtually all not-for-profit science education organizations depend on unpaid help, from institutions as large as the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History to the smallest online advice-sharing websites.   But volunteers don’t just happen – they have to be recruited, trained, supervised, and rewarded.  This blog is a place to read about and share advice on the care and feeding of volunteers in informal science learning. Success stories and failures are both welcome.  It is a project of Volunteers Try Science (VolTS), an initiative of the New York Hall of Science with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.