Simone Crew (left) is now a freshman at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.

Today’s episode of QUEST-TV includes a 2-minute segment that marks our first collaboration with the San Francisco spoken word presenter Youth Speaks and The Redford Center, based in Provo, Utah. For the past four years, these organizations have been putting on a contest for young spoken word artists who perform poems about environmental themes. In our first installment of QUEST-TV’s Youth Speaks Green feature, 18-year-old San Francisco poet Simone Crew performs excerpts from her poem Yasmeena, which she originally performed at this contest. You can download a copy of the complete poem here.

Through Youth Speaks Green, we’ll explore how young people in the Bay Area view the challenges of becoming green. We’ll be looking beyond clean fuels, efficient vehicles and solar panel rebates and delving instead into the personal. Crew, who is now a freshman at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, wrote the poem when she was 16 and centered it on her experiences with an eight-year-old girl called Yasmeena, whom she had babysat. Through Yasmeena’s insistent questions, Crew began to feel the weight of the responsibility to conserve the natural world for her. In an engaging play of mirrors, we as the audience get to watch Crew observing Yasmeena, as Yasmeena makes sense of the world around her.

Crew will be performing a new environmentally-themed poem at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2010, as part of a Youth Speaks team.

In coming episodes, we hope to present you with the work of other talented young Bay Area poets in our Youth Speaks Green segments.

Watch the Youth Speaks Green television story online.

Photo Credit: Ask A ScientistI usually write about upcoming science events, but this time I'm flipping the script.

Let me tell you about my experience at last night's Ask a Scientist: How Computers Look at Art last night (December 3rd) at the Axis Café in San Francisco. Full disclosure – I run a science café, so consider me a fan. However, I was determined to just be one of the crowd last night.

KQED QUEST has covered science cafés before, including a history of the movement. On to my story… I arrived at Axis Café about 630 PM to an almost full house (~50 people). After ordering some food and a glass of wine at the bar, I hunkered down in a cozy chair. I people watched the youngish good looking crowd for a few minutes before overhearing a conversation in front of me. A couple of women mentioned it was there first time at a science café. To both, the format sounded cool, but both they couldn't convince friends to join them. We talked for a few minutes; mainly they said most were scared off because this seemed like a science class, definitely not for the average person. No matter how you frame it, science in café still sounds like a lecture to most. What followed was hardly a lecture.

David Stork grabbed a mic and launched into a discussion on the Vermeer painting "The Girl With the Pearl Earring." His research uses computer modeling to analyze light and shadows on paintings. After skipping the math, he showed the painting nearly perfectly displayed shadows if from one light source. This confirmed what many art historians wondered, there was a model for that famous painting who sat in Vermeer's studio. The speaker was definitely moving along pretty fast, but luckily there were lots of questions to slow him down.

Professor Stork continued on, showing how this technique could also identify fakes (i.e. the cover from a Star Magazine with Brad & Angelina). Most famously, this new technique has called into question the Hockney-Falco thesis on how renaissance artists drew their subjects (using a lens of sorts).

What's amazing is that I knew nothing, nada, zip, zilch about art history and computer modeling prior to 7 PM last night. I still don't know much, but enough to talk about it with my wife and friends. That's the brilliant thing about these informal science events, the information sticks with you. It was definitely a fun way to spend a couple hours on a Wednesday night. Maybe there's a new adage out there: Science + Conversation = Fun. A glass of wine doesn't hurt that equation either.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science." – Albert Einstein

Photo credit: Dr. Richard Mooi

It is not often that the public is able to see the components and care that go into creating a museum exhibit. However the California Academy of Sciences hosted a lecture on Tuesday, From the Depths: Creating a Science and Art Exhibit at the Academy, which delved into why the creation of an art exhibit at a science museum has been such a meaningful project for both painter Tiffany Bozic and Dr. Rich Mooi, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology at the Academy.

Both Bozic and Mooi grew up surrounded by the natural world and remain passionate about exploring it today. Bozic grew up on a farm in Arkansas where she was involved with animals every day. Throughout her career, she has drawn on the natural world to create a dialogue about a universal human condition, often expressing her ideas through animal imagery. Mooi began sketching early in life in the forested areas outside of his home in Ontario and has continued to paint and illustrate all his life. He views illustration as a tool to capture complex processes, like how minute currents travel along a sea urchin's spines — a process that cannot be adequately captured with photography or other media.

Fine art often raises questions and allows people to look inward, while science is tasked with solidifying answers and methods. But rather than focus on differences between the two fields, Bozic and Mooi are excited by the commonalities they share. During the lecture on creating the exhibit, each demonstrated how they are inspired by both science and art. Though photos don't do the actual paintings justice, here's a taste of what's on display: http://www.calacademy.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=13658.

In listening to the lecture and talking with Bozic and Mooi afterwards, both stressed how important and unusual the "dialogue" between art and science is. They are each fascinated by the beauty found in the natural world, though they work with it in unique ways: one opens it up to interpretation, while the other clarifies its ambiguities.

What they found working together on this art installation was a deep commonality. Bozic related how they were both just completely blown away by the vast number and diversity of specimens in the Academy's collections. It was like being a five year old again and exploring. Mooi added that both artists and scientists share a love and appreciation of objects. So much detail goes into working with specimens — both the artist and scientist must have a passionate drive to work with such intricacies. Both Bozic and Mooi feel their work is fueled by inspiration and awe.

They expect that many questions will arise among people viewing From the Depths. As visitors go through the art installation, they will also observe the process of what inspired the exhibit in the first place, and perhaps wonder about the relationship between science and art. It will open the visitor up to appreciating the beauty of nature, and the need to convey that beauty. Art and science are just two perspectives of conveying nature: one by questioning and the other by answering, but both open up new worlds.

Mooi ended our talk with a reminder of how much there is to observe and learn among the millions of real objects within the walls of the California Academy of Sciences. These real things in and of themselves are objects to be appreciated, and this art installation puts them in the limelight as things of beauty, similar to Bozic's paintings.

To join in on the process, come to the opening reception of From the Depths: Inspiring Science and Art on Thursday, November 15th from 5pm to 9pm. The exhibit will be open from November 15, 2007 to January 6, 2008 when the Academy's Howard Street location closes.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

latitude: 37.7819, longitude: -122.404