Foggy Bottom Association

* Flo­rence Leong, of Chen’s Water­gate shared some tid­bits regard­ing the Chi­nese New Year that started on Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 24 that is cel­e­brated for 15 days by more than 4 bil­lion Asians worldwide.

If any­one should greet you, “Gong Xi (pro­nounced Z Fatt Choy” this week, you are being wished pros­per­ity in the New Year which is the head­wa­ter of typ­i­cal Chi­nese tra­di­tions enjoyed.

Flo­rence said that another tra­di­tion is bring­ing Lion Dancers into your home which is some­thing arranged and paid for. Accord­ing to Wikipedia, the story goes that once upon a time a monk had a dream in which there were many sor­rows and evils plagu­ing the land. The monk prayed and asked the gods how he could pre­vent these evils from occur­ring. read more »

Says Koshland Sci­ence Museum staffmem­ber, Amy Shaw, “Even though the National Acad­emy of Sci­ences build­ing in FB is closed for ren­o­va­tions, we here at Koshland Sci­ence Museum def­i­nitely con­sider our­selves to be part of the larger Foggy Bot­tom community.”

Koshland Sci­ence Museum* pro­vides an engag­ing intel­lec­tual repast for those con­cerned about the many impos­ing soci­etal issues of dis­ease, water sup­ply, and cli­mate change and the impact of pol­icy deci­sions on our nat­ural world.

Thurs­day evening’s pro­gram, “Play­ing Pan­demic” caught FBN’s eye as a novel way to engage, learn, and under­stand the chal­lenges of pol­icy mak­ers and those on the ground fight­ing dis­ease. Fel­low gamers and peo­ple con­cerned about pub­lic health will come together to ”save the world from deadly infec­tious diseases”.

This event is linked to the museum’s cur­rent exhibit,” Infec­tious Dis­ease: Evolv­ing Chal­lenges to Human Health” and may inform one’s strategy-on the board game Pan­demic. Koshland game lead­ers will ask, “Will you develop a cure, and a means to deliver it to the world pop­u­la­tion? Can you develop this strat­egy before large per­cent­ages of the pub­lic die?”

In this game sce­nario, where one can par­tic­i­pate with friends to form a group or meet oth­ers, each strongly rec­om­mended. Tick­ets can be pur­chased online at http://koshland-pandemic.eventbrite.com, or by call­ing the Koshland Sci­ence Museum at (202) 334– 1201. Con­tact the Koshland Sci­ence Museum ksm@nas.edu with ques­tions about the event. They encour­age all par­tic­i­pants to review the museum’s ticket pol­icy and to arrive early to guar­an­tee admission.

This is also oppor­tune to tour the infec­tious dis­ease exhibit before it closes Feb­ru­ary 21 to make way for the new Life Lab that will open in March.

Koshland Sci­ence Museum pro­vides some rol­lick­ing good insights and per­spec­tives to the chal­lenges of our con­tem­po­rary civ­i­liza­tion. Go to the web­site to pre­view a list of cur­rent exhibits and those pro­vid­ing online “Webquests”— teach­ings online for stu­dents and teachers.