S A N F R A N C I S C O M U S E U M

AT T H E P A L A C E

S T E M E D U C A T I O N+

TECHNOLOGY@

DISCOVERY DISRUPTORS

Philanthropic individuals and business organizations, historically, have made education a top priority of their mission to better their communities by “giving back.” Technology and venture capital entrepreneurs, in particular, have focused on enhancing childhood education. Having found their success by discovering something new–invention–or by revealing a new way of doing things–innovation–they place a high priority on the value of creative thinking.

In the 21st-century with new demands on the future, our schools have been charged with an increasingly complex task of providing kids a basic education and giving them the tools, time and place necessary to develop their creative powers.

The restored Palace of Fine Arts, Bernard Maybeck’s icon of innovation, will be that place. The San Francisco Museum At The Palace (SFMAP) will make the time and provide the tools to better prepare kids and adults in the San Francisco Bay Area and all over America through distance learning programs to become part of our ongoing story of invention and innovation. They can interact with the past, the present, and the future–all at the same time.

THE UNTOLD STORY

SFMAP, as a storytelling museum sharing the San Francisco and the Bay Area story with the City, the region, and the rest of the world, will tell the “I didn’t know that” San Francisco and regional innovation stories through existing and emerging technologies that have forever changed the way the world works–and the way we can now tell stories.

At SFMAP visitors will interact with San Francisco and Bay Area stories through social media, open content, mobile apps, Augmented Reality (AR), Near Field Communication (NFC), Wearable technology, Natural User Interfaces (NUI), Digital Printing, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality (VR), the Internet of Things and likely a robot or two. The Cloud’s the limit. SFMAP will offer 21st-century technologies. Museumgoers will supply the artistic imaginations and intellectual curiosity. Visitors will be encouraged to ask questions, share information, and contribute ideas.

SFMAP LEARNING CENTER

The SFMAP LEARNING CENTER, upstairs at the Palace, is the “away from school” learning place for San Francisco and Bay Area kids and their teachers.

In the Learning Center teachers have an opportunity to expand their curriculum in a place that doesn’t look or feel like school. Emphasizing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the Learning Center provides interactive and immersive experiences using materials that link to content themes in the museum or to aspects of San Francisco and the Bay Area stories outside the museum.

Dr. Bruce Alberts, professor of cell biology at UCSF, former President of the National Academy of Sciences, and one of the leading scientists in the country encouraging the expanded study of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in public schools, is the STEM advisor for the SFMAP youth education program.

The centerpiece of the Learning Center is a total environment: a large, water-filled model of San Francisco Bay complete with natural surroundings. Kids will be able to access a treasure chest filled with artifacts of people, animals, plant life, geological features, architectural elements, bridges, and transportation modes which they use to learn how the bay “works” and to stimulate discussions about its future. Wet aprons are in order. Splash!

Will Travis, longtime executive director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), will advise SFMAP on environmental education.

COOKING WITH CODE

Another feature of the Learning Center is “Cooking With Code”–a coding class for kids. Young coders can imagine that digitized information (data) is like ingredients in a recipe that they can use to create a new dish. A data set is merged with another data set to reveal something new.

The ingredients are gathered; arranged in the order they will be needed; processed in different ways; layered together in certain amounts; “cooked,” and the end result tested to ensure the desired result has been achieved–a new dish.

The United States is way behind other countries (Vietnam, Estonia) in coding literacy for kids. The United Kingdom is planning to launch a mandatory computing syllabus for all students ages 5-16. Here in the United States, no state currently requires students to take a computer science course to graduate. Common Core standards do not include computer science requirements.

In the SFMAP Learning Center, “Cooking With Code” will give San Francisco and Bay Area kids a way to talk to computers in the machine’s own language of zeroes and ones through a familiar idea–a recipe for their original gastronomic creation. Delicious!

QUAKE THEATER

Quake Theater is an immersive experience of San Francisco Bay Area earthquakes - past, present and, likely, future as the odds for the “big one” rise.

Visitors use contemporary technologies to make critical “life and death” decisions about what to do in disastrous situations like the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906.

HANDS ON! SFMAP GARAGE FOR KIDS

Here at SFMAP kids are the inventors and innovators in a “garage” created just for their hands-on activities and inspiration in their own maker space.

Employing all the technologies they have at their disposal in the museum, they use not only their hands but the critical thinking and decision-making required to successfully complete a task, a project or a game.

TOWER OF INNOVATION

The Tower of Innovation is an homage to the Panama Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) and its Tower of Jewels.

But it is much more. The Tower of Innovation, a soaring structure in the SFMAP atrium, literally sparkles with the jewels in San Francisco’s crown–the original thinkers who changed and continue to change the world. The iconic design of this central feature of SFMAP evokes our San Francisco and Bay Area past, present, and future.

The Tower of Innovation hosts a permanent – but constantly evolving–exhibit, City On The Edge, that tells these innovator’s stories to visitors from around the world–and around the neighborhoods. From the “Instant City” of the Gold Rush that began in 1848 to the “next big thing” just around the corner in the City on the Edge, the San Francisco Bay Area has always been, and continues to be, a center of creativity, risk-taking and adventure.

Through storytelling and story sharing, City On The Edge engages visitors in an enlightening creative process. When a visitor selects a tower jewel–a physical manifestation of the light of an idea “turning on”–it reveals the story of a San Francisco original thinker.

CROWN JEWEL GALLERY

Among multiple glittering San Francisco and Bay Area treasures, San Francisco Bay is the crown jewel. A crown jewel requires a perfect setting. At SFMAP, a gallery dedicated to the story of San Francisco Bay will have a room with a view–a big room and a big view. In the Crown Jewel gallery, visitors will be able to experience San Francisco Bay and its ongoing innovation story all at once.

San Francisco Bay is the mother of all innovators. It invents and reinvents itself according to the necessities of nature. San Francisco Bay has shaped our entire ever-changing human story. Visitors to Crown Jewel will meet hunters and shamans, fisherfolk and birders, soldiers and sailors, padres and prisoners, ranchers and traders, merchants and miners, high-flying society and lying-low ladies, nativists and imperialists, bridge builders and bridge burners, developers and environmentalists, ship builders and chip builders.

Just as the great bay has shaped human life, humans have changed the bay. The bay’s surface area has diminished by one third since the early days of Spanish exploration. And, today, alarming sea level rise threatens the communities surrounding the bay. In the Crown Jewel Gallery visitors explore ideas to accommodate human needs and to preserve the natural environment.

WE INVITE YOU TO FIND OUT MORE!

STORY GALLERY SPOTLIGHT

W W W . S A N F R A N C I S C O M U S E U M AT T H E P A L A C E . O R G

OTHER STORY GALLERIES INCLUDE:Eureka!, Instant City, Rebirth: The Panama Pacific International Exposition, The Big Story, Law And Disorder, Work(S), The Second Gold Rush, Culture And Counterculture, The Third Gold Rush, That’s Entertainment, San Francisco And The Movies, Politics Of (In)Tolerance, City Of Dreams, What’s New?

VISITOR PARTICIPATION:RAP: Resident Associate Program for Lifelong LearningSTORYLAB: Story sharing and Storytelling PlaceLOCAL PRODUCE: Community Gallery for locally produced and community sourced exhibits