05/25/2018

The Portable Science Museum

9:29 minutes

Science museums can be a fun and educational way to spend a day—but what if you don’t have a day? What if there’s no museum near you? Or what if you don’t think you like science enough to spend money on an entry fee?

[Did you know the word “robot” was coined by a Czech playwright in 1920?]

All of these are reasons one nonprofit is working to shrink the museum, and bring it to you—starting with the Smallest Mollusk Museum. It’s a vending machine-sized exhibit on the slimy tricks, strange brains, and ecological importance of snails, squids, octopuses, and their chitinous cousins.

Amanda Schochet, co-founder of the project and a former computational biologist, explains what goes into making a small museum that can still share big ideas.

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Segment Guests

Amanda Schochet

Amanda Shochet is co-founder of MICRO. She’s based in New York, New York.

Meet the Producer

About Christie Taylor

Christie Taylor was a producer for Science Friday. Her days involved diligent research, too many phone calls for an introvert, and asking scientists if they have any audio of that narwhal heartbeat.

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