Toronto Mini Maker Faire 2011

An exhilarating run for the Treehouse Group culminated this month with the Toronto Mini Maker Faire at the Evergreen Brick Works.

Check out this beautiful video by Ryan Varga called simply Makers

Makers: Mini Maker Faire Toronto from Ryan Varga on Vimeo.

Robert James Wilson

My Dad was awesome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Darwin vs. Darwin

2009 was both the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth (200th) and his release of On the Origin of Species (150th).  I recently stumbled across a documentary entitled The Voyage that Shook the World, an aptly named film that purports to “examine the ideas of Darwin in light of today’s knowledge.”

The documentary was of high production quality: soothing British narration, period re-enactments, travels to the Galapagos Islands etc. There was something not quite right about the documentary, though, as they kept quoting “facts” that clearly weren’t factual.

The film was almost over before they drop the bombshell: evolution is a lie and creationism is the only valid explanation for the natural world. The film is a propaganda piece produced by Creation Ministries International (www.creation.com), a young-Earth creationist sect seeking to expose the bias and evil of the “evolutionists.”

Contrast this with the secular-themed film Creation starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelley. It’s a biopic of Darwin and his struggles with faith and science. I haven’t seen it, but it received luke-warm reviews here and in the UK, and it hasn’t even found a distributor in the US yet because of fears of offending the American bible-belt. And take a look at that poster. Combined with the name of the film (take an

other look at the creationists’ URL above), it appears the producers are trying their best to appeal to a religious crowd.

In tandem, The Voyage That Shook the World did everything in its power to suck people in by using sec

ular wrapping around its creationist DVD. The marketing campaigns of these two films speak volumes about our collective insecurities surrounding Darwin’s “big idea” and our society’s discomfort with evolution in general (still! 150 years later!).

Rock Mars With Wero Creative

Last summer I was involved with more Mars work (but notice the small “r” and “s”). I wrote some curriculum links for a new project by Wero Creative that uses graphic novels to get kids into science and technology.

The Rock Mars project is a story about Alex and Zazi, two friends who help astronauts with their trip to colonize Mars in the year 2030. The graphic novel is entirely deliverable on-line, and has a number of web-based challenges the kids must complete in order to move forward in their mission.

The project is currently being field tested by teachers in the York Region District School Board; preliminary results look good!

Off to MaRS

I’m off to MaRS! In February I started working at MaRS along with the fine folks at Social Innovation Generation working on some education files. I’m also going to be working with the new MaRS Education Initiative setting up school programs and events. Look for more events hosted by both The Treehouse Group and MaRS in the upcoming months.

Our first planned series is going to be Treehouse Talks, a series of eclectic talks held on the first Friday of every month. The rules: 15 minutes, no Powerpoint, no boundaries. The first one is on March 5: check out www.treehousetalks.com for details.