"Libraries are our new community tech labs," says Keith Braafladt, Director of Learning Technologies at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
And more and more, he says, librarians find themselves doing inquiry science.
Enter SMILE, with its online science, math, and technology activities created for those who teach school-aged kids in non-classroom settings.
It's a good match, says Braafladt, who in August co-led an "Information Literacy Programming" workshop in Grand Marais, Minnesota, where 16 school and public librarians got a crash course in SMILE.
"They immediately started filtering," laughs Braafladt, speaking of the refined search parameters available at howtosmile. "After all, they're librarians."
"And they loved the multimedia," says Braafladt, "like our new video of the Water Pressure Blaster."
Photo: Librarians at play in Grand Marais, courtesy of Keith Braafladt.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is also one of the founding partners of SMILE.