A handbook for starting and running a Community Science Workshop
2. Our Philosophy
3. A CSW’s Contents and Layout
4. CSW “Curriculum”: Projects, Activities, Exhiblets, Specimens
6. Leadership, Operation and Development of the CSW Organization
The CSW philosophy underlines everything we do. It encapsulates the uniqueness of the CSW model and shapes how we carry out our mission. It’s also been quite difficult to document and convey.
Our philosophy has been developed in an entirely organic manner, with the key roots put down by our late founder Dan Sudran, as he developed the original CSW from early experiences in his garage. We know he was heavily influenced by various people and institutions, including:
Dan never wrote a summary of his philosophy, but he did write several articles and essays in his later years that speak in simple terms of his ideas. While each CSW director has a slightly different take on CSW philosophy, this offers a basic overview. The following four points and subpoints were crystalized during an extended session at an all-CSW gathering in 2019. The goal was to clarify our philosophy as well as distinguish CSWs from other STEM/STEAM organizations.
Science as a social mission
Freedom to inquire and seek understanding
Unique stance on “STEAM” and “Making”
Distinct approach to helping students learn
We believe kids need a range of opportunities to grow up healthy including ample access to the following:
We see that well-resourced communities often offer these to kids, while many low-resource communities do not or cannot. Our mission is to offer CSWs and the accompanying opportunities to kids and families who typically do not have access.
We see there is a great deal to be gained from tinkering with tools, materials, exhiblets (phenomena on display), specimens, plants, and animals, such as the following:
All of the above can bring joy and fulfillment along with spiritual, psychosocial, and emotional benefits. We also believe that using tools to explore and create is a fundamental part of being human, and thus should be offered amply to all kids.
We see that schools are limited in what they can offer in the area of our mission due to various factors such as the following:
CSWs complement what schools offer and offer what schools can’t, particularly the following:
We observe that every great scientist, engineer, artist, architect, technician, or inventor had the opportunity to tinker freely with a diversity of tools and materials. It is absurd to think we can grow more greats without offering youth this same opportunity.
Furthermore, we believe that every kid needs to develop their inner genius, and grow and feed their inner spiritual selves. Many do not find support to do this in schools; many can and do find it at a CSW. If kids don’t get access to a rich environment and good support to develop their inner spiritual selves, they will likely be unsatisfied and unhappy, and may cause or experience problems. Youth depression and anxiety have been increasing nationwide since before the pandemic. CSWs can be part of the solution to this serious issue. As Dan Sudran said, “Being curious about the world and finding out things is a good prescription for a happy life.”
We believe that understanding through science is unique among other means of understanding for the following reasons, among others:
Finally, we see that adults and adult society have much to gain from today’s kids and their still-standing curiosity, their raw creativity, and their insistence that education be fun and relevant. Individually, we draw great inspiration from even the roughest and most challenging of our participants, who may have been given the clear message from school that they are not up to standard, but who are still full of potent vitality in their search for understanding.
Thus, as much as possible, a CSW prioritizes the relationship between the kid and nature. This is consistent with various core beliefs:
The learning opportunities and modes of learning encouraged at CSWs are distinct and often undervalued in formal education. These modes include the following:
We see some kids excel in this environment, yet are struggling in the school environment. Some of the greats in history also thrived in similar environments. While not our top priority, we do think that offering kids these forms of learning is seeding the field for future greats.
We note that some kids can get access to a portion of what CSWs offer in other contexts: clubs, neighbors, the occasional exceptional school teacher. But a CSW is an ideal place; a paragon entirely devoted to this mode of learning in a community setting.
CSWs offer an alternative to screen addiction. The convenience and allure of having information and entertainment, now so readily available at our fingertips, is often paradoxically at odds with experiential learning through observation and tinkering. But today many are are aware of the the downsides to life in a 2D ecosystem of a screen, no matter how rich the information available. CSWs can be an antidote to the growing deficit of the human need to physically interact with the world.
As mentioned above and outlined in the CSW History chapter, Dan was heavily influenced by the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Dan bought fully into the ideas of Frank Oppenheimer, expanded on many and took them the communities most in need. Various staff and departments of the Exploratorium supported the formation of the Mission Science Workshop and have continued to collaborate with MSW and other CSWs over the decades. For example, in 2023-24 the Exploratorium shop ran a grant-funded program in which simple, scrappy versions of Exploratorium exhibits were developed, documented and constructed. Both sides gained from this partnership.
CSWs can be viewed as community versions of the Exploratorium, with the ratio of exhibits to workshop space inverted. Oppenheimer famously insisted that the Exploratorium workshop not be hidden away, but rather exist together on the floor of the museum, to be viewed by visitors. Its a clear continuation of his insistence that all aspects of an exhibit must be observable, and all possible elements must be touchable. To hide something behind plexiglass or opaque panels is to deceive the viewer and to make artificial what is in reality part of nature. CSWs allow kids and families from many different communities access to this essential experience with the physical and natural world.
In addition to our philosophy that justifies the existence and guides the operations of CSWs, we have a distinct pedagogy—a way of presenting our space and our activities to participants. Some of the key elements include the following:
We believe this pedagogy is similar to that used in traditional community and family education, before the rise of modern schools. We believe that while it is special, it is not unique and can be found throughout history and in traditional cultures throughout the world today. We think it is a natural and rational form of teaching and learning, and has lost footing in the modern world where education is primarily thought to be something that happens in classrooms and institutions.
We work hard to lead with this pedagogy throughout all our programs. We believe being a teacher or informal education facilitator is an art and as such can be done well or poorly, having a large number of subtleties to master and hone. Here is another paradox: while CSWs offer something extremely simple—intriguing phenomena laid bare and access to an enormous number of projects and tinkering activities—facilitating kids within this unique environment is not at all easy, and can take plenty of unlearning, especially for those who have spent time at the head of a conventional classroom. At the very least, we shoot for having all staff cognizant at all times of their specific role as facilitators of learning in this special environment.
In addition to CSW staff being artisans of pedagogy, they’re also performance artists. Like it or not, many kids expect to be entertained these days, and some of the best teachers out there are essentially edu-tainment artists. It doesn’t hurt at all to have a few schticks up your sleeve when working with various groups of kids. This is another one of our fine balances: you as facilitator don’t want to be in the spotlight, you want the phenomenon or construction to be the primary focus. But as facilitator, you have a great deal of leeway with how you will communicate and relate to the participant. It will depend greatly on your own personality, that of the kids you are working with, as well as the specific scene: one-on-one, small group, structured class, free-for-all, etc. Some of us see it as jazz: there is a common note progression and rhythm, with a wide open field of possibility for combining and interpreting them to create beautiful music.
One specific area in which our pedagogy surfaces regularly is in the act of assisting kids to construct a project. As noted above, ideally the kid has the time and patience to tinker around and figure out how to do it themselves, with only occasional guidance suggestions and cheers from CSW staff. In fact, when no kids need help, it’s a great idea for staff to step aside and begin work on some parallel project, ready to support but not perturbing the natural learning process that is occurring. When there is a lack of time or patience, or when the kid is accustomed to someone else doing their work for them under the guise of help, CSW staff have tough choices to make.
“I need help!” is a common call, and it’s clear that many kids have been assured that asking for help is not bad and that adults are good for that. Unfortunately, in many cases we have noticed kids will ask for help too soon, before they have given it a good shot and before they are frustrated beyond level one. It’s difficult to gain skills and learn if you get a helicopter assist before you even start up the mountain.
Thus, some of us have developed a series of responses that put the reins back into the hands of the young scholars:
Ask them, ‘’What have you tried so far?” This not only gets them to think about what has gone wrong, but gives them a chance to articulate what’s going on, always a valuable skill. And it exposes them right away if they haven’t tried much at all.
Take the project from the kid, examine it, and hand it right back with encouragement and advice on how to continue. This can be especially effective if it’s a bit messed up, if they’ve veered off the road to success quite a ways back. For while we strive not to do any part of the project for the kids, that doesn’t necessarily apply to helping them out of a hole. To take apart a minor disaster and put it back on a more hopeful road can be quite a boost. Thus we’ll gladly untape, rip apart badly glued joints, realign parts, get the cut going straight, or the nail unbent before handing a project back. This tips the scale from futility back to hope.
Try a well-timed joke. Depending on how well we know the kid, and how hard it looks like they are trying, we may say, “Do you want me to just make the whole thing for you?” And then, on receiving the hopeful affirmative response, we say, “Twenty-five dollars.” This always gets a laugh, but it’s more realistic than it first appears, because in real life if you don’t know how to fix something that needs fixed, you’ll have to pay someone else to do it. Sometimes we may even bring up the idea that 3,000 years ago everyone knew more or less how to fix anything in their day to day lives, 100 years ago most people knew how to fix many things, and still today many people in traditional societies have this knowledge. The point is that to make something work is a special, valuable skill, and is revered in all societies (in ours by paying good money).
Enlist help from other kids. When available, we will put another kid on helping the kid requesting help with the clear directive: “Don’t do it for them!” When we come across one kid “helping” another kid by doing the whole project for them, we may begin a similar charade: “How much are they paying you to do that? Nothing?! Wow (head shaking), that’s worth good money.” We may go so far as to step in and get the project back to its rightful owner where the learning may still happen.
We see that learning happens well when someone struggles to make something work. Struggle must be balanced with success; giving up is a reasonable response in many circumstances. As facilitators, we can try our best to strike that balance—to get some good struggle happening toward success.
If a kid does a slick, quick job on a project, that likely means they’ve had the learning experience in the past, and you should look for ways to give them bigger challenges in which they can struggle. Anything less is short-changing them. With volunteers and interns, we will often make the seemingly irrational move of putting the one with the least skills and experience on a given task: “Ok, who among you has no idea how to fix this? Ok, you’re in charge; go for it!” We may allow a more experienced kid to act as assistant.
The amount of time available for a kid to work on a project turns out to be a powerful determinant on the pedagogy that can be employed. A standard 50-minute class period allows for a mere taste, a desperate sampling of given phenomena, a review of the observations and preliminary conclusions, a fleeting experience that will almost surely fade from the memory if not followed up by more experiences. The teacher in this situation must be extra sparing with their tongue, lest the students’ minds be clogged with vocabulary or hollow explanation before the authentic experience can occur and take root. And while eye-popping “wow” moments are both enjoyable and moving, only certain phenomena lend themselves to this presentation; many others require extended observation and continued vigilance to appreciate. Thus, many CSWs have pleaded with educational institutions for 90 minutes minimum in order to give a fighting chance for genuine learning to occur. Most CSW drop-in programs are open for at least three hours.
It’s often possible to extend the time a student is engaged with a given topic beyond their time with you. If a student is able to take a phenomenon with them, continue observing and toying with it, share it with friends and family, shift and consider it from other angles, and make connections to other phenomena over the course of weeks, months or years, the learning results will be superior.
Of course, we are not operating in a vacuum. Students have deeply embedded expectations on what will happen during a “class period,” and even when students get to come to a CSW on a regular basis, it may take some time to open their minds to the fundamental difference in how they can learn in this setting.
Linked closely to our pedagogy is the manner in which we maintain order in our spaces, from school-day class visits to out-of-school time drop-in programs to mobile unit programs. Overall our technique is shaped by our philosophy. That is, we do as much as possible to allow participants all the freedom they need to pursue learning on their own terms; to explore, create and express, while surrounded by the rich mulch of phenomena. How much structure and regulation we create depends to a great extent on the program, the group of participants, the projects being pursued, and the external limits imposed by institutions or nature.
During our foundational open-door programs, there is little structure imposed at all. When kids (and parents) are aware that they will get support for their plan and that no artificial restrictions are in place, the CSW becomes a rich community learning space. When someone begins to test boundaries, often a simple conversation with them will bring them back to a good spot. Rules are kept to an absolute minimum, only created when demonstrably unavoidable.
We have seen this work untold times even with kids who are legendary terrors at school. Even at a middle-school-based program where students are well-known to be professionals at subverting the teacher’s classroom plans, we have had great success in setting up a healthy studio environment by simply asking each kid upon entry, “What do you want to do today?” The difference between a group of kids that have all elected to be present, here and now, and to follow their own curiosity, versus a group that were required by authority to be present is can often be the difference between scholars and troublemakers.
Thus, the question for CSW facilitators is this: What is the minimum amount of control or authority we can exert to maintain order and safety in the space? Every demand or expectation should be justified. It may take some extra time, effort and compassion to work with some kids who are deeply programmed from years in highly authoritative institutions to test all boundaries. This is entirely understandable: finding out how much you can get away with can be far more interesting than whatever the authority is trying to get one to do! Essentially, we want to provide the opportunity for kids to realize that an amazing life awaits them if they can conduct themselves in a reasonable manner. We’ve seen this happy transformation many a time.
Sometimes this becomes an ongoing battle with the institution you’re working with. You may need to develop militant strategies in such a conflict. Required to put up a list of rules? Cover it with posters and kid’s projects. Required to allow kids to do their homework during your sacred tinker time? Allow for ample study breaks, say, the majority of the session. Required to demand plans ahead of a desired project when what the kid really needs is quality time tinkering with the materials? A nonbinding, abstract sketch will do. Keep your eyes on the prize, that is: an unrestricted studio environment rich with creative, collaborative energy towards the projects shining in the dreams of the participants.
When working with full classes under the authority of an educational or youth-serving institution, we often must begin compromising from the beginning. We may be shocked for example when students ask us if they may use the bathroom. Do we really want our kids to accept an authority that requires them to ask permission to carry out basic bodily functions? Of course there are safety and accountability issues, but there is a big difference between letting your adult supervisor know you’re going to the restroom and asking them for permission.
A basic tenant of our pedagogy is the lack of an expectation to listen and follow directions. It may be the case that following our directions will result in a working project, but we never want to overlook the undeniable facts that 1) some kids may not be interested or compelled to do what we are presenting; and 2) some kids will find a different, perhaps superior way of doing it. If kids in these two categories can proceed without excessively disrupting others, there is no reason not to let them. The ones in the second category may well come up with the best idea you’ve seen all year.
Kids are told to listen and follow directions nearly every day for 13 years of their pre-college education. We should never forget that listening and following directions is only useful for learning some of the time. If that’s all you can do, you will only be valuable as a foot soldier or factory worker. Knowing when to stop following directions is seriously important—ask Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King Jr., or Nelson Mandela!
Furthermore, life often gives no directions and you have to figure it out yourself. Let’s give the kids some practice with that! Finally, it is inarguable that the truly great scientists, artists, engineers, inventors, architects, even the best technicians, accomplish what they do not by following directions but by breaking new trails. The least we can do is give kids the opportunity to hone that skill as well.
There is no need to hide your plans from the students. Some of us let the students know from the beginning they need to be respectful of others and quiet when directions are given, but will not need to listen nor follow these directions, but will rather be free to create what they want with the materials at hand. This taste of freedom can be transformative.
The following are segments of a standard class visit to a CSW.
Exploring the Workshop space. There is nearly always at least 15 minutes given to bouncing around the room of wonder: exhiblets, specimens, animals, plants, project models and whatever else is hanging around. During this time students are largely free, and only need structure if it becomes evident that they are endangering themselves, other students, or the CSW materials. Usually a very brief preparatory introduction is given (maybe before entering), emphasizing that everything may be touched, but with gentleness and care. We try to avoid threats, but it is sometimes necessary to outline the consequences of being too rough with something or someone.
Project or Activity Introduction. Before or after the exploration session, we usually have everyone take a seat while we give a small presentation on the project or activity of the day, the concept and how to carry it out. Most often time is limited, and the actual making of the project or doing of the activity is most valuable, so the lecturette and outside information is kept to a bare minimum. Sometimes teachers are given additional information to go over or review back in the classroom.
Project or Activity Time. The remainder of the time is spent in blissful project construction or exploration of the activity. CSW staff become facilitators, cheerleaders, fellow explorers, and chaos calmers. A brief closure is always valuable, but often the completion of the project is more valuable still, and the teacher can be coached about a way to wrap up or continue with the concepts on the way out the door with their class.
While we do put safety first at CSWs, we believe safety is over emphasized in many youth programs today to the ironic detriment of healthy child development. We believe it is critical to view small injuries much differently from large ones and accept the small ones as inevitable and even positive ingredients in a serious education. We see this as the standard situation in the well-accepted areas of sports and outdoor education. A tally of major injuries (almost 0) across all CSWs in the last 34 years shows that sports are much more dangerous. Shout it out: “The Science Workshop is safer than soccer!” We also note that in many professions a rational and realistic view of safety is required; one in which the job gets done, so it seems unwise to attempt to shield kids completely from the risks of working with tools and a variety of materials.
Each CSW has a safety protocol and conducts routine safety training for staff. Tools that will cause severe injury such as circular saws and grinders are kept out of reach. Most injuries in CSW history have arisen from simple tools such as box cutters and hot glue guns, in general when used carelessly or without requisite supervision. Establishing a general atmosphere of careful exploration contributes as much towards minimizing injury than as specific rules. The person using a tool has a great responsibility to use it in a way that doesn’t damage materials or people, including themselves. It pays to vocalize this responsibility and make participants well aware of it.
Hot glue is a much-used fastener in most CSWs, so it is important to consider how burns will be dealt with. Most of us have moved to low-temperature glue guns which work fine, if not quite as well as the high temp versions. Still, they will give a nasty burn on a kid’s hand. The biggest, ugliest blisters we have seen resulted from skin being smashed into a pool of hot glue (lots of heat there to be dissipated) or the pumping of molten glue directly onto non-calloused skin. Both of these situations are often the result of chaos at the glue-gun counter, so that is a good reason for imposing more order there when traffic is high.
In addition to wanting to avoid agony and trauma in our participants, we want to avoid locking horns with authorities and parents who don’t believe kids should have access to anything more hazardous than a butter knife. It’s hard to make the case that little Lupita is benefitting from the oozing welt on her forearm, so it’s best to avoid the largest of welts.
Many of us give a brief hot glue safety spiel before each class that will be using the glue guns. The primary components of the spiel are 1) the tip is the hot spot; and 2) if you get some glue on you, rub it off as fast as you can. Many kids are fascinated and exhilarated by the idea of using something “dangerous,” and many are eager to see for themselves just how hot the glue really is. We routinely use glue guns with kids as low as kindergarten, though for the youngest we will have a staff person right there with them to be sure their uncoordinated fingers get moving in the right manner.
Glue burns are especially interesting for a number of reasons. First, burns tend to hurt more than cuts or scrapes, in part because all the cells in that area are damaged, as opposed to just one line. Burns often cause a blister, an interesting skin reaction in itself. The blister has a life cycle which is interesting to observe, ending with the dead layer peeling off. Sometimes burns leave scars, but many burns on finger tips leave the fingerprint pattern intact after the blister has gone. This is great biology science for kids to learn!
Finally, some of us believe that it’s important to have ample signage about danger: Safety Glasses Required, Tie Back Long Hair, HOT GLUE HERE, etc. This serves the purposes of letting the occasional reading kid know of the dangers, backing up what we tell them verbally, as well as showing concerned authorities that we are being mindful of dangers. We all think it’s a rare kid who reads such signage, and a small fraction of readers would be moved to action, but there are few drawbacks to having the signs, and pacifying the authorities is a good enough reason in itself.