Day in the Life

June 18, 2026 In Day in the Life, Special Projects

A Day in the Life of a Museum Educator: Event Day Edition

As a Fellow on the Youth Engagement team at the Museum of Science, one of my responsibilities is planning and hosting large-scale youth events. This past April, my team hosted our Explore: Environmental Science High School Science Series. The 150 high school students who attended rotated among three stations: a wind turbine design workshop, a scavenger hunt that visited our two environmental-themed exhibits, and interactive activities offered by local environmental organizations set up at tables throughout the Museum.

Here is a look into an (event) day in my life!

8:30: Educator arrival. My fellow members of the Youth Engagement team and I arrived at our respective Museum locations for the day to organize our materials and prepare for our interns. Our interns during the school year are juniors from Fenway High School, a longstanding Museum partner. The interns helped us create and host the event. The five interns I mentored during the event helped run one location of our wind turbine design workshop.

8:45-10:00: Set up & intern arrival. As the interns arrived, we started setting up the space. We arranged the tables, placed building materials at each station, and set up fans and testing stands. After we finished, I handed out copies of the facilitation activity guide for the interns to review before participants arrived.

10:00-10:30: Hosting wind turbine workshop group #1. Time to kick off the workshop! One of the interns and I introduced the approximately 25 students to our activity, and they began building and testing their wind turbines. The designs that generated the highest voltage were placed on our leaderboard, and at the end of the session, the winning group received a prize.

Before moving on, I need to give a shoutout to my interns and fellow educators. The wind turbine workshop was designed by a small group of interns led by Jocelyn, my alumni mentor and supreme FAO Schwarz Fellow who works on the Youth Engagement team with me. These interns spent weeks painting wind turbine stands, cutting out paper blades, and testing fans. The workshop ended up going incredibly well, and the participating students remained highly engaged and motivated throughout the activity. Success! Below are a few pictures of the workshop creation process.

10:30-11:20: Community group exploration time. Since we didn’t have a group scheduled to participate in our wind turbine workshop during this block of time, my interns and I took the opportunity to explore local community groups that were tabling throughout the Museum. These community groups were recruited by a second set of interns, mentored by my team member, Morgan, and me. These interns brainstormed environmental organizations they thought would be a good fit for the event and wrote personalized messages to invite them. In total, nine organizations attended, bringing with them a variety of engaging activities for the high school participants. It was a blast!  

11:20-12:00: Hosting wind turbine workshop group #2. The Fenway interns and I once again facilitated the wind turbine workshop for another school group during this time block. However, this time we had a very special addition to close out the event: Blooket! For those of you unfamiliar with Blooket, it is an interactive online trivia game, similar to Kahoot!. When faced with the question of how best to engage our high school participants, our interns unanimously agreed that an element of competition would do the trick. Thus, the Blooket was born. Our Blooket weaved together information gathered by students throughout the event, incorporating answers from the exhibit scavenger hunt, details from the wind turbine workshop, and facts about the community groups tabling in the Museum. It was the perfect way to close out an incredible event, with the winning Blooket groups claiming their prizes of robotic arms and Museum store gift certificates at the end.

12:00-12:30: Clean-up time!

Every event eventually ends with a clean-up. We spent this time restoring event spaces, reorganizing workshop supplies, and helping community groups pack up their activities.

What a (half) day! As many of you know, an educator’s job is never finished. After cleaning up the event, my team members and I grabbed a bite to eat and transitioned back into our typical Wednesday afternoon programming for the Fenway interns. Yes, the same interns who had just helped us facilitate the event! We led a series of professional development and team-building activities and ended the day with a 4-D movie in our very own Museum theater.

Learning how to put on an event of this scale has been one of my favorite opportunities provided by my FAO Schwarz Fellowship. The experience I have gained has strengthened my attention to detail and organizational skills, and I look forward to helping create many more events like this one during my second year at the Museum of Science!

Delaney Kenney

Delaney (she/her) is the FAO Schwarz Fellow at the Museum of Science in Boston.

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January 20, 2026 In Day in the Life, Service, Special Projects

Early Alarms, Small Groups, Big Impact: A Day in the Life of a Fellow at Boston Collegiate

Getting started

Normally I would say that my day starts bright and early, except it is pitch black when I wake up at 6 am. I’m out the door by 6:40 and walk to the T station, and I commute about 45 minutes to get to school by 7:30 in the morning. Sometimes, I have the pleasure of running into my friends who I work with on the train, while other times, I read or catch up on a news podcast. It’s pretty cold in Boston during this time of year, so my 10 minute walk from the T to school gives me time to wake up in the fresh air as the sun rises over the cityscape before me.

As I enter the double doors of the school, Boston Collegiate Charter School, an administrator on door duty greets me. I then head to my desk in our shared instructional leadership team office and settle in. I eat my meal prepped breakfast while I catch up on emails, check my calendar, prepare for my classes for the day, and make any necessary copies. Then my day as an FAO Schwarz Fellow really begins.

Monday through Wednesday

My direct service work, half of my role as a Fellow, is teaching small-group literacy interventions to students, mostly high schoolers. Mondays are fairly light for me as I don’t teach any small pull-out groups. I have check-ins, other meetings, and professional development, but I spend most of Mondays working on my strategic project or Fellowship initiatives. My strategic project, the other half of what I do in the Fellowship, is documenting and disseminating best practices in education at our school in partnership with our school leadership or communications teams.

Tuesday through Friday, I teach a small-group literacy intervention during the second block of the day. I work with high schoolers in groups of three to six, working on content-specific science and social studies textbooks with a set, scripted curriculum. This targeted and structured literacy intervention (called REWARDS) works to help fill in any gaps these students have. I see each of my five high school small groups twice a week. Tuesday and Wednesday are fairly light with only one group meeting each day. After I teach my first block of the day, I have a break where I do some more prep, and then I walk over to our lower school campus, which is 15 minutes away. It’s a great way to step outside, get some Vitamin D, and break up my day.

I arrive at the lower school during 5th grade recess, and I am always greeted by shrieks and 10 year olds running up to me screaming “hi Ms. Hemley!” with big smiles, eager to show me their cool new earrings or tell me about how their hockey team won a tournament over the weekend. The energy is very different from our other campus as the kids are much younger, and you can see it in their bubbly cheeriness.

After engaging with the fifth graders,I head to my classroom and set up. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I teach an entire advisory class of nineteen 5th graders. I use the same literacy intervention as with the high schoolers, but at a lower level. Rather than sitting in a small room together around a table the way I do in the high school, at the lower school, I am up and presenting at the front of a big classroom. After our hour together, I pack up and put on my winter gear as I prepare to walk back to the upper campus. By the time I arrive, it is almost 1pm and so I have my lunch.

After lunch, I am free for the rest of the afternoon. This is when I will focus on my strategic project. Sometimes this entails writing or conducting research at my desk, but often, it means I am going from class to class to observe the different teachers and their best practices. Oftentimes I will observe the same teacher for a whole week, if not more. This is helpful to really get to know a teacher’s practice in-depth, and to follow a lesson all the way through its instruction.

Then, at 2:45, school is dismissed. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I have door duty at the high school. I hold the door and greet students as they leave the building. I take this as a great opportunity to mingle with students, learn their names, and work on building relationships outside of the classroom. By the time the last few students are trickling out, it’s 3pm, and I typically only have 30 minutes left of the day. With those 30 minutes, I will often finish up whatever it was I was working on before heading out for the day.

Thursday and Friday

The second half of the week looks a little different, however. Thursday and Friday are my back-to-back busy days. Like Tuesday and Wednesday, I start my morning with my first literacy group of the day. However, I then have two more right after that until a little after 11:20. From there, I run to the middle school side of the building where I supervise a 7th grade FOCUS block, a structured and self-directed enrichment time for middle school students. They either work on math or reading through an independent and asynchronous computer program, similar to what you might see on Khan Academy.

When FOCUS is over at around 12:15, I then quickly run back to my office to heat up my lunch and then run back to my small group classroom where I host a small lunch group with some of my students and their friends. It’s nothing structured, just a safe space for students who may feel overwhelmed by the large cafeteria while also providing some social time with an adult. After chatting with my students, the bell rings to signal that lunch is over at 12:51, and the students who I don’t teach filter out, while the students who I do teach filter in. At that point, I teach my last literacy block of the day until around 1:45. From there, I can finally head back to my desk and finish up any tasks or projects I have going on. If it’s a Thursday, I have a new teacher meeting from 3:30-4:30. Otherwise, on Fridays, (and some Thursdays), I’m out the door at 3:30.

The rest of the afternoon

Although my job requires me to wake up at dawn, the benefit is that I am often done with work almost two hours before most people. That means I have the free time in the afternoon to do things and have hobbies. So often I will take the T straight to Harvard Square and hit the bouldering gym while it is still empty. By the time I leave around 6-6:30, many people have just arrived. I then head home and eat dinner, study for the LSAT, read some more, and get ready for bed before I hit the hay at 10pm so I am well rested to do it all over again the next day.

While a repetitive, early, and structured schedule is definitely an adjustment from college, it has been incredibly interesting to adapt to this new lifestyle. Not only am I getting used to it, but I am taking full advantage of all the free time it allows me to have in the afternoon. I was never able to have hobbies outside of school and my extracurriculars. Now, I am able to partake in activities just for fun!

Furthermore, while this day in the life provides a snapshot into what a typical day might include, the fun part of working at a school is that you can never really predict what a day will bring! Overall, the reward is worth the early alarm. I’m learning about work-life balance and I have the opportunity for structure and boundaries in a way I never had before in the chaotic business of college.

Shoshanna Hemley

Shoshanna (she/her) is the FAO Schwarz Fellow at Boston Collegiate Charter School in Boston, MA.

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November 17, 2025 In Day in the Life, Professional Development, Retreats

Highlights from the Fall 2025 Fellowship Retreat

With each change of the seasons comes another FAO Schwarz Fellowship Retreat! This year, our amazing group of fellows united in Boston—the city of brown brick, cannolis, and Anya-Shoshie-Delaney.

Here’s what the week looked like for us Fellows as we immersed ourselves in each other’s host organizations and learned about the important work that they do in their communities:

Tuesday: We started our retreat with a scavenger hunt at the Museum of Science. Overwhelmed by the spirit of competition, we took photos next to bionic dogs, attempted to mimic the flight patterns of birds, and touched real ice (despite the absurdly warm weather). The highlight of the day was meeting all of our new first year Fellows. Perhaps I’m biased, but FAO Fellows are a unique breed of kind, silly, and curious—qualities which are undeniably fun to be around.

Wednesday: After leaving our Airbnb in Jamaica Plain, we took the Red Line all the way to Dorchester to visit Boston Collegiate Charter School. We observed a few classes (where students discussed literature, engineered tools sans instructions, and planned research reports), learned how to navigate conflict in the workplace, and thought about how to show up more emphatically as a public servant. My favorite portion of our visit was the staff panel, during which we heard from teachers (some of whom were former students) who have taught at BCCS for decades. At a time when teacher retention is plummeting, it’s impressive to hear that BCCS must be doing many things right to keep staff coming back.

Thursday: It was time to visit my host organization, 826 Boston. Fellows explored Egleston Square, wrote and created their own books, and became published authors. It was no easy feat to wrangle 12 opinionated Fellows through a group-writing exercise, but in the end, we created a Choose Your Own Adventure story highlighting the betrayals hidden in a North End Acapella-esuqe Restaurant. Find a Fellow and ask to read it! Thursday was also our longest day yet, due to the Alumni Reunion Event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the FAO Schwarz Fellowship. It was lovely to see so many people invested in community-based work throughout a variety of sectors convening to share anecdotes, swap advice, and munch on Tony Cohen’s delicious brownies.

Friday: After furiously cleaning up our Airbnb and tiredly making our way back to Cambridge, we ended the retreat right where we began: The Museum of Science. Between running an interactive Learning Through Play activity with guests and eating delicious Thai takeout, Delaney found the time to get struck by lighting. It was electric!

I’m already counting down the days until we reunite in the second-best major metropolitan area in the Northeast: New York City. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m terrified that it will be my last one. Happy (almost) graduation!

Anya Henry

Anya (she/her) is the Publishing FAO Schwarz Fellow at 826 Boston.

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October 24, 2025 In Day in the Life, Service, Social Impact

Butterfly Counts and the Power of Community Science

It’s a clear, sunny, and uncharacteristically mild Saturday Morning in late August and the meadows at the Discovery Center are abuzz in more ways than one. Tall stalks of Joe Pye Weed rustle gently in the breeze while little hands grip and swing butterfly nets – hoping to catch one of the countless pollinating insects that call these flowers home. Pencils and crayons scratch against journals and clip-board checklists – capturing the intricate details of each flower in its fullest bloom and keeping a running log of the different types of butterflies that visit them in search of their morning meal. The Butterfly Count has begun.

I was immediately struck by the way participants connected with their ecosystem when they had a knowledgeable and passionate guide like Damien. Over the past year, I discovered that I, too, could be that guide.

Every Summer, The Discovery Center hosts two Butterfly Counts. Guided by Damien, the Manager of Public Programs at the Discovery Center and I, visitors use butterfly nets, bug boxes, and magnifying glasses to explore our Native Meadows and get familiar with the native plants and insects that call them home. Next, each participant gets a checklist of commonly found species of butterflies and the group walks together from the meadows all the way along our ¾ mile nature trail, putting a tally mark next to each species of butterfly we see. At the end, we gather all the sheets and Damien submits our findings to the North American Butterfly Association (NABA).

What started as a way to provide alternative outdoor activities in the heat of the Summer when birding is suboptimal, has grown into a beloved tradition that empowers participants of all ages to not just discover and appreciate these insects, but directly contribute to a Community Science project that gathers data to improve our understanding of their populations and the health of our ecosystem. This data is especially crucial now when butterfly species abundance has declined 22% in the last 20 years.

Through Butterfly Counts, community members help us track different species and their respective abundances, thereby helping us better understand not only the overall health of our ecosystem at the Discovery Center, but the effectiveness of the ecosystem interventions we’ve already taken. This data not only helps guide our future onsite conservation efforts, but by submitting it to NABA, helps scientists across North America better understand and address the crisis of declining butterfly populations. While crucial, this ability to collect a large amount of data in a short amount of time is only part of what makes Community Science so powerful.

Community Science Projects don’t just collect data, they empower communities to take an active role in improving their local environments for plants, insects, animals, and people alike and increase their sense of belonging in and responsibility to their local green spaces. That’s why they play a key role in Audubon’s engagement strategy at the Discovery Center and beyond. Ever since the start of the Christmas Bird Count in 1900, Audubon has been a pioneer in connecting people to nature through Community Science programs.

Today, visitors to the Discovery Center can continue this tradition by going beyond Summer Butterfly Counts to contribute to these programs all year long. For example, monthly “What’s in the Reservoir” programs allow them to collect and test water samples from the Strawberry Mansion Reservoir to monitor and track micro and macro invertebrate abundance, overall water quality, and presence of waterfowl while learning more about the history and significance of the Reservoir as a community asset.

The Butterfly Count was the first public program I ever shadowed as an FAO Schwarz Fellow with Audubon Mid-Atlantic at the Discovery Center. I was immediately struck by the way participants connected with their ecosystem when they had a knowledgeable and passionate guide like Damien to provide tools to not just explore it, but recognize and document its interconnections in action. Over the past year, I discovered that I, too, could be that guide.

One of the most fulfilling parts of my role has been to focus some of my Strategic Project work on supporting, planning, and leading public education and Community Science programs at the Discovery Center. In particular, I started a monthly series of Nature Journaling Workshops where I encourage participants to use their journals to explore and document different features of our ecosystem that are unique to each particular season. I place special emphasis on identifying native plants, birds, and insects. Through this sustained practice, we can not only learn more about seasonal changes to the environment, but build a familiarity and relationship with it.

When the Butterfly Count came back around this year, Damien and I teamed up. I added a Nature Journaling session during the first half, with a focus on the Native Flowers that provide food and habitat for the butterflies, and he took the lead on the Count itself. As I went around pointing out especially lush Purple Coneflowers or helping little ones trap a Sleepy Duskywing in their bug box, I took a moment to appreciate how much my time with Audubon Mid-Atlantic has taught me not just in native plant and butterfly identification, but in sharing my passion and knowledge for these topics with others. I plan to continue building on these opportunities in the coming year by incorporating more outdoor exploration into my direct service of in-class lessons and helping to develop and lead more Nature Journaling and Community Science-focused public programs at the Discovery Center.

Sources:

Julie Kleaver

Julie (she/her) is the FAO Schwarz Fellow at Audubon Mid-Atlantic in Philadelphia.

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March 5, 2025 In Day in the Life, Service, Social Impact

A Day in the Life as an FAO Schwarz Fellow at the Museum of Science, Boston

During my time as the FAO Schwarz Fellow at the Museum of Science in Boston, I have learned that no two days are ever the same. It is something I quite enjoy about working within an informal education setting. There is an exhilarating energy of finding out if I will be facilitating my favorite hands-on activities or if the Museum will be hosting a dance battle competition (which has happened)! The overview that follows is just one of many combinations of what my day as the FAO Schwarz Fellow can look like at the Museum of Science.

Early morning (9:00 – 9:30):

Morning check-ins are crucial, on a personal and professional level. Just like breakfast is an important meal of the day, our team’s morning check-ins are just as important. Not just because it helps us know who is out for the day, but because it gives us time to connect as we chat about what we did after work the day before or express what we are excited about for the day!

Morning (9:30 – 12:30):

As part of my direct service, I am regularly scheduled to do live presentations and facilitate hands-on activities throughout the Museum to engage and educate visitors. On this specific day, I was on the schedule for the morning In-Gallery Learning shift which consists of conducting hands-on activities in three of our gallery spaces. We usually start the shift off with a check-in meeting with our weekly volunteers and a fun question of the week! (This week was: “What’s your favorite type of donut?”) From there I spent my first hour in our Hall of Human Life encouraging visitors to use their knowledge of the human body and how their joints work to put together a mystery skeleton. My second hour of the shift was in our Engineering Design Workshop where visitors were challenged to make a miniature trampoline that makes a golf ball bounce as high or as low as possible.

Midday (1:00 – 1:30):

Lunch, of course!

Afternoon (2:00 – 3:30):

Another part of my direct service is working with our partners at Fenway High School to host a cohort of Juniors who volunteer for an hour and a half every week at the Museum. This year, our students have been focused on exploring different careers within a museum setting. Additionally, they are involved in a volunteer project that is related to one of my special projects, High School Science Series (HSSS). This is a series of STEM related events throughout the school year that are free for high schools to attend. We are working with our Fenway High School volunteers to plan the Environmental Science HSSS in April 2025 so that there is youth influence and feedback involved in the process. This day the students worked to compile an extensive list of organizations that they thought would be a good fit and wanted to invite to the event in April.

Late Afternoon (4:00 – 5:00):

Throughout the day, I like to take advantage of any open time I have in my schedule to complete any urgent tasks, this was one of those times. This can range from replying to emails, updating my current live presentation shows, clerical work related to upcoming projects or events, and more.

Overall, my day was quite exhilarating! I feel grateful for days like these as they feel productive and impactful in several ways, whether that is in one-off experiences with visitors or with the youth that come in seeking exciting opportunities every week.

Jocelyn Poste

Jocelyn (she/her) is the Youth Programs, Community Engagement Department FAO Schwarz Fellow at the Museum of Science in Boston.

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October 2, 2024 In Day in the Life, Special Projects

As Told by a Nonprofit Data Wrangler

Data wrangling is the conventional term for the process of transforming raw data into a usable form. Suppose your database stored date records as “YYYY-MM-DD.” If your analysis focused on the calendar month, extracting “MM” (and maybe converting it to an actual name) might be part of your analytical workflow. Though not holistically representative, that’s an easy example of data wrangling.

Many data analysts—in the interest of showing off their competency and technical prowess—paint the process as elegant, smooth, and consistent. Of course, those are the qualities stakeholders desire for the end product. In fast-paced, evidence-based settings, insights and reporting should not only be actionable, usable, and sustainable, but they should also come in pretty packaging.

"...data wrangling can be a fairly indirect process that lands you somewhere you don’t expect. The same can be said of your early professional journey."

The spaghetti code amassed between their PostgreSQL, Pandas, and Matplotlib workflows be damned! Those data scientists can make a good visualization.

As a junior data analyst over a year into the field, I take a lot of pride in producing accessible insights for dozens of different stakeholder groups. In the first half of my fellowship, this has ranged from facilitating market-wide data democratization workshops to running Social Work-focused data trainings to the ever-cliché PowerBI dashboard. Some of this data comes from my original consumer research with participants, but the bulk of it comes from a highly mature and curated system of data collection at Year Up United. If the first year was spent exploring, the second year has so far been spent taking action.

Thus, it becomes a game of making all that raw data usable for study. According to my coworkers, it’s a game I’m good at. “Avery’s the guy for all things data,” some say! I want to say that the game’s always easy, too. Yet, Truth would come out of her well to shame the consumer insights analyst.

Frequently in my work, Truth does not come out the data well on her own—given the usual conditions of organizational data storage, she can’t. Unconventional formatting, inconsistent styles of data entry, and deprecated categories don’t make data wrangling easier. Rather, data specialists come at Truth, buried somewhere in over a hundred relational tables of data, with mining explosives. And though some data professionals will tell you that Excel is archaic and limited, sometimes Truth doesn’t start upward vertical movement until you break out PivotTables.

Overwrought metaphors aside, the following is a 0 to 1 example of my own analytical workflow, going from an ad hoc stakeholder request to end-product visualization. Keep in mind that this can vary from project to project. This account is slightly fictionalized! The following data, though, is all real:

1.

I get a request to pull and process data from a stakeholder. This might be someone higher up in my department (in this case, the Director of Program), or it might be a stakeholder from another functional team (like the Director of Student Services, Site Director, or even a national Growth & Strategy Lead). Here, Wilfrid Velazquez wants to explore some data regarding “firings” for a debrief meeting. “Firings” are Year Up United’s historical term for attrition—a participant leaving the program, whether intentionally, willingly, or by regulatory necessity. For the purposes of this demonstration, we’ll wrangle only two selections of data into a singular visualization.

2.

I write a relevant SQL query to pull the data from a relevant relational database. In this case, I’m using SOQL (a proprietary dialect of SQL) to rapidly export a table from Salesforce, a CRM (customer relationship management) Platform. I’m specifically looking for participants who have left program—that is, count as attrition.

3.

I export the resulting array from this query into a usable format. (Note: I’ve removed confidential, identifying information important to my typical workflow.)

4.

I load the resulting file (in this case a CSV, a comma-separated value file) into a data manipulation tool. For many, this can be as simple as plopping it into Excel! That is a totally valid avenue of explanation. In this specific case, however, I’m using “pandas”, a data analysis library written in Python (a general purpose programming language) within the program VSCode. If you have the prerequisite knowledge, you can perform the same actions as in Excel with extreme efficiency and relative ease. And all these resources are free!

5.

Some exploratory data analysis is good for you. In this case, I’ve calculated the relative percentages of Attrition Reasons (referred to here as “Reasons for Status Change” and historically referred to as “Firings”). These numbers should add up to approximately 100: that is, a whole population.

6.

It’s become an organizational priority to investigate how our programming may impact different demographics– including age. This analysis sees how many participants of a particular age ultimately left the program. You can definitely see the higher numbers here, but it might be a little difficult to see what’s happening just from this.

7.

Woah! It looks like 19 years take the lead in attrition. It’s much easier to discern from this bar graph. In a Statistics course, we might describe this distribution as a bit “right-skewed”—attritions lean towards younger participants!

8.

That’s all good, but let’s see how this stacks up against the general population distribution of age. That is: maybe this is just proportional to how many 19 year olds were in this particular cohort? Let’s export another CSV using SQL, this time incorporating the entire population regardless of program status. The difference here is that I haven’t specified for “Status__c = ‘Fired’”, which would otherwise limit me to Attrition data. We’re no longer looking at a specific sample: we are looking at the true population.

9.

I’ve now loaded the CSV into my Python environment. You might be curious what those “NaN” values mean for the general population. In its literal most meaning, NaN means “Not a Number.” Contextually, it’s a “null” value: there’s absolutely nothing there. It’s an utter blank space where data could go. There isn’t any attrition data associated with that particular individual’s file because the individual completed the program in full!

10.

I’ll use the pandas library’s native support for Matplotlib, just as I had for the Attrition data. Huh, seems like there’s an entirely different distribution—with the exception of a singular (incorrectly entered) outlier calculated as 0 years old at enrollment!

11.

We’re getting more advanced now. I’ve super-imposed the age distribution of Attrition against the General Population. 19 year-olds are uniquely overrepresented here! I’ve normalized the y-axis—in Statistics, that means I’ve transformed the data in such a way that it’s easier to compare the values presented. The practice of steps 8 to 11 are commonly referred to as “exploratory visualization.” I’m not making any definite claims yet, beyond an observable instance of correlation.

12.

And now we export and save as a “.png” image file. It’s now time to send our end-product to our stakeholder to see if they think this topic is worth further investigation. In a social impact context, such phenomena might indicate a gap in service or the presence of something particular to this age group. As in all statistical investigation—no matter how simple—it’s important to remember that correlation is not causation. Higher attrition correlates with 19 year olds in this particular cohort: there might be any number of factors actually causing this. Still, it’s worth flagging for our stakeholder!

13.

Don’t forget to tell your stakeholder what exactly they’re looking at if you ever try this yourself! I don’t consider reports—even if they’re small, ad hoc things—to be one-and-done deals. Be ready to explain your process and what the body of data you’re working with actually is. Soft skills are part of data analytics—there’s always going to be someone with a follow-up question.

As you might gather from this 13-step process—whether data layperson or not—data wrangling and ad hoc reporting can be a fairly indirect process that lands you somewhere you don’t expect. The same can be said of your early professional journey, at any organization—whether for-profit or nonprofit, social impact-oriented or driven by sales. “Indirect” doesn’t have to mean bumpy, but many challenges are meant to be transformed into victories.

When I first came into my role at Year Up, I imagined myself as a predominantly qualitative researcher who could flex some mixed methods muscle. Now, I understand myself as an adept data analyst ready to tackle both qualitative and quantitative data to extract whatever story they might tell. As I reflect on my options following my two-year opportunity with the FAO Schwarz Fellowship, I find myself saying what I’ve said before: I don’t just get one “year up,” the fellowship has given me two.

Avery Trinidad

Avery Trinidad (he/him) is the Research & Insights FAO Schwarz Fellow at Year Up in New York City.

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March 6, 2024 In Day in the Life, Social Impact, Special Projects

Day in the Life: Teaching Artist

In my role as an FAO Fellow here at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, I get to enjoy lots of variety in my day-to-day experience. My direct service work in the fellowship is working with Claymobile, our mobile engagement community program. The majority of this work is centered around teaching ceramic classes in schools, but I also get to teach in community centers, libraries, and farms. I began in this role acting as a teaching assistant, which means that I worked with the lead teacher in setting up the materials necessary for the class and supported students in their creative process. More recently, I have begun lead teaching in classrooms; it has been a wonderful process starting from having no knowledge about ceramics, to learning how to assist, then to leading a residency. Last week, I had my first class lead teaching at Steel Elementary. I started my day at the studio packing all of the necessary materials and then driving to the school. On arrival, we bring all of the materials to the classroom and introduce ourselves to students.

Each day at work is different and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

As a lead teacher, one of the main components is teaching a demonstration of the ceramic project we will be completing. For this particular class, we made coil bowls which are made of small ceramic spirals using a plastic bowl as a mold. During my demonstration, I focused on the feeling of the clay as it was many student’s first experience with it. Teaching how to make a coil, how to smooth the inside of the bowl, and glazing are some of the main focuses for this project. After the demonstration, the rest of the class is spent moving around the classroom, checking in with students and answering any questions that arise. Many students shared ideas of projects they want to make in the future, what they might eat out of their bowls and share information about themselves and their families. The classroom teacher took pictures of each student with their finished bowls and we said goodbye, all in under two hours.

After a Claymobile class, I’ll switch over to my special project work which is teaching in our new after-school program. The after-school program started last year, and we are now working with four schools in the area. After unpacking and taking lunch, I’ll set up our studio with the tools and demonstrations necessary for our class. Then, I walk to the school that we work with that day to pick up students at dismissal. After all of the students arrive, we walk to the studio together. Once we arrive, we have snacks and homework help which is necessary time for students to relax and connect with each other. Then we switch to studio time. Teaching in the after-school program can be similar to the style of Claymobile teaching, but as it is a smaller group who have had practice in multiple making techniques, it runs more independently. Some days we offer a full demonstration, others are free-making days where students choose what they want to make, but most days fall somewhere in between. This is a long-term program for students, so the curriculum is built particularly for the students from each school. Connecting with students on a weekly basis is one of my favorite parts of my job, and being able to provide a fun and safe space for students to make art and chat with friends. Working within the after-school program lends itself to a stable consistent schedule which is nice for me and Claymobile gives my schedule some flexibility and fun. Each day at work is different and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Kayla Johnson

Kayla (she/they) is the After-School Program Coordinator & FAO Schwarz Fellow at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia.

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Natalia works with children and their families at an event at the Museum of the City of New York

September 19, 2023 In Day in the Life, Service, Special Projects

A Day in the Life of a Fellow at MCNY

9:00-9:15 – Grounding

I start my mornings by checking my email, responding to any messages, and planning my schedule for the day. I find this routine really grounding because I know exactly what I need to do and when to do it throughout the day.

9:15-9:45 – Field Trip Prep Time

Most, if not every morning, I will be leading field trips for K-12 audiences as part of my direct service work. After I’ve grounded myself in my goals for the day, I will take time to prepare materials that students will engage with throughout the experience. Our field trip materials include a wide range of historical objects, iPads with videos, and arts and crafts materials.
I will also review the information about the group to best tailor the experience to their needs. Sometimes the teacher let us know ahead of time that the students are studying a specific topic related to the gallery, so I will make sure to include that topic as a discussion point in the tour.
I will often teach more than one field trip in a day during the academic year, so I will prep materials for my second field trip at this time if needed so that I am not rushing later on.

10:00 – 1:00 – Field Trips

Depending on the time of year, I will teach one or two field trips a day. Each trip is an entirely different experience. Some of the variables that make each field trip unique include the student’s prior knowledge and interests, their grade level and previous museum experience, the gallery we are visiting, the time of day they visit, or even the weather. Developing my arsenal of teaching strategies has taken lots of practice, experimentation, and collaboration with other facilitators on the Education team.

12:45 – 1:00 – Clean Up!

Once all of my field trips for the day are done, I will put away materials that I took out for the day. I will also make note if we are running low on supplies and replenish them so that they’re prepared for the other museum educators who may need them.

1:00 – 2:00 – Lunch

When the weather is nice, I will eat lunch in Central Park! The Museum is across the street from the Conservatory Gardens, so I will often sit on a bench in that area. Now, having worked at the Museum for a year, it’s been really fascinating to see and learn how the gardeners change the landscape over the seasons.

2:00 – 5:00 PM – Special Project Work Time

In the afternoons I have dedicated time to work on my special projects. These projects change throughout the year depending on the upcoming programs and gallery rotations. Much of the special project work I do is collaborative, and I really appreciate the opportunities to work and learn from my colleagues!
Field Trip co-development – One of the special projects I have been working on is co-developing a field trip for our upcoming exhibit People, Place and Influence: The Collection at 100. Part of this work includes selecting objects that students will interact with, identifying the types of engagements we will have students participate in, and selecting the main concepts we want students to take away from the field trip.
FAO Foundation work – I will also work on projects for the FAO Foundation. The projects I have worked on this year include creating a graduation book to celebrate the second-year fellows upon the completion of their fellowship, preparing to present for prospective students, planning for the upcoming New York City retreat, and more.

Natalia Wang

Natalia (she/they) is the FAO Schwarz Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York.

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Day in the Life

Delaney Kenney

Getting started

Monday through Wednesday

Thursday and Friday

The rest of the afternoon

Shoshanna Hemley

Anya Henry

Julie Kleaver

Early morning (9:00 – 9:30):

Morning (9:30 – 12:30):

Midday (1:00 – 1:30):

Afternoon (2:00 – 3:30):

Late Afternoon (4:00 – 5:00):

Jocelyn Poste

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Avery Trinidad

Kayla Johnson

Kayla Johnson

9:00-9:15 – Grounding

9:15-9:45 – Field Trip Prep Time

10:00 – 1:00 – Field Trips

12:45 – 1:00 – Clean Up!

1:00 – 2:00 – Lunch

2:00 – 5:00 PM – Special Project Work Time

Natalia Wang

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