Smithsonian Latino Center's Molina Family Latino Gallery to Open in 2021

The Smithsonian Latino Center's first gallery space, the Molina Family Latino Gallery, will be dedicated to celebrating the U.S. Latino experience. The gallery, when it opens in 2021 at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, will feature 4,500 square feet of bilingual stories for all audiences. Rotating exhibitions featuring multimedia activities, objects and first-person narratives will be complemented by participatory experiences and viewer-generated content.

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Planting for Pandas

Wild giant pandas in China are struggling because of highly fragmented habitats – due to urban development and deforestation – which makes it difficult for pandas to travel to find food and mates. A collaborative research team, including scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI), has established four bamboo restoration plots to connect fragmented panda habitat with the ambitious goal of accelerating the return of pandas to the area. Recently, scientists found evidence of giant pandas using these plots – promising news for this vulnerable species!

Five Stories from the Conversation Lab

What does it take to clean a pair of 80-year-old shoes? When they're as famous and beloved as the Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz, more than you might expect! In a process that took more than 200 hours, National Museum of American History objects conservator Dawn Wallace examined, cleaned, and stabilized Dorothy's Ruby Slippers, preparing them to go back on display in their own special gallery. As the Ruby Slippers step back into the spotlight, learn about their journey through the Conservation Lab!

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Learning Engineering Through Play

The Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) recently released Tami's Tower: Let's Think About Engineering, an educational engineering design game to help teach K-2 students how to design solutions to problems using basic engineering design principles. Tami's Tower aligns with national science standards and includes prompts that support metacognition, a sandbox mode to facilitate deeper learning and animated Smithsonian animals! The game is available for free at the Apple App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon Apps & Games Store.

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Finding America's Most Secretive Owls

Did you know that northern saw-whet owls are the smallest owls in eastern North America? Because of their secretive natures, for a long time scientists didn't even know they migrated. Enter Project Owlnet, an initiative working to lift the veil on owl movements and biology through banding owls to track their journeys and sharing data and analysis across the country. The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Md. recently completed its second year as a Project Owlnet station, and banded a total of 54 owls!

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Photographing Africa: A Woman's View

The work of 14 women photographers who photographed Africa from the 1930s through the 1970s will be digitized and catalogued as part of a National Museum of African Art project to highlight women's photography in Africa. The effort, part of the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative, will make collections of photos, negatives, slides, field notes and audio recordings accessible online.

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A Tale of Two Exhibits

This year, Smithsonian Libraries celebrated its 50th anniversary as a unified library system by opening not one, but two exhibits: Game Change: Elephants from Prey to Preservation and Magnificent Obsessions: Why We Collect. Join the Smithsonian Exhibits team on a behind-the-scenes tour of what it takes to design, edit and produce these two exciting exhibitions, including some unique challenges when it comes to featuring rare books and manuscripts.

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A Lunar Trivia

This December marked the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, the first human mission to the Moon! The mission's dramatic highlights included a live broadcast, and the now iconic Earthrise photo.

What day did the Apollo 8 blast off?