About
Are you looking for new ways to teach kids about math and science? Do you want activities that meet you where you live, whether your “classroom” is an active volcano, the shark tank at the local aquarium, or your own kitchen table?
You’ve come to the right place. SMILE is collecting the best educational materials on the web and creating learning activities, tools, and services – all designed especially for those who teach school-aged kids in non-classroom settings.
Come to SMILE for science and math activities that you and the kids in your life will love. But come, too, for the community. People like you will make SMILE a meeting place for educators excited about what they do and ready to talk about how they do it. And yes, SMILE does stand for something: the Science and Math Informal Learning Educators (SMILE) pathway. We’re the informal educators’ portal of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). But all you need to remember is HowToSmile.org.
We are a group of science museums dedicated to bringing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) out of the academic cloister and into the wider world. Our organizations are resource hubs for educational programs that involve people of all ages and backgrounds. Together we’re gathering the best STEM education materials from the web, and encouraging educators to both use and contribute to the growing collection. Darrell Porcello and Sherry Hsi (Lawrence Hall of Science), Erin Van Rheenen (Exploratorium), Preeti Gupta (New York Hall of Science), Keith Braafladt (Science Museum of Minnesota), Margaret Glass (ASTC), and Cheryl McCallum (Children's Museum of Houston) are heading up the project.