Not At Home

is it forces you to not rest on your laurels basically of, well, I've got this cool microscope in the lab. I can show to people." You have to then be a lot more intentional about how it is you're trying to design experiments or design activities. And also just know that you are in someone else's domain basically now and you have to be sensitive to what it is that they're interested in, because it's just not going to make a lot of sense if you come to an event and you bring something that's way out of left field and they're like, "What is this? Why are you doing this?" Unless you're doing it because they ask for it because they think it's interesting because the kids showed interest. So at least it shakes you a little bit and it reminds you that you got to be a little more intentional than you may have initially thought if you were just bringing somebody to your lab.

I think, the big thing is meeting people where they're at, and understanding that, and respecting that. Where they're coming from, and where their passions, and grounding is. That was pretty awesome.

this idea that science is coming to you wherever you are. It's meeting you where you are, rather than you going into a "Science space," that you may not feel, is open to you, or accessible to you. But rather, it's coming to you, and meeting you exactly where you are. I think that's powerful.

one of the things that's happening in the museum field, is how do we actually connect? And how do we become more socially just places? And one of the things that I think, really leads in this situated in engagement stuff, is that what we're finding from the national network perspective of talking to people, is that it's not going to happen at our places where people are comfortable. Like Rick points out, it's families with kids, and it's older adults who feel comfortable, who feel like they have ownership of those places. And the Comic Con, and the parade environments, those two that we're really looking at, has a totally different ownership, of who those places belong to. And how you can participate in that belonging.

In order to enter these other communities, and engage with them authentically, you're having to push yourself outside of your space, your comfort zone. When we communicate, we often control so much. Everything from, we get to decide whether there's live surveys, and polling, to how the AV system works, and Q&A. And we decide for the audience all these experiences. And here we're having to play in someone else's structure, and as Paul was saying, they're kind of in control of of what they are receptive to. And so, I think it pushes practitioners to just think differently about what they're doing, in ways that they otherwise won't ever in their normal career.