Causes: Arts & Culture, Museums

Mission: Serve the public as a community-based institution and educational resource that is dedicated to advancing public interest, knowledge and understanding of science, industry and technology.

Programs: Mosi plays a vital role in reaching out to more than 100,000 students each year with steam experiences that inspire interest in stem and steam careers. Accessibility for people of all ages and backgrounds is part of our core ideology. Mosi believes that today's students are our future leaders and we all have a stake in building an education system that fosters the skills we need our leaders to have. To that end, mosi has grown its outreach programming, establishing new partnerships with school districts and funders. Our goal is to ensure our region offers opportunities for children, no matter where they live, to have a fair chance to reach their potential and become successful. Education: because of the importance of steam fields in undertaking challenges such as climate change, energy production, and disease, mosi education works to prepare the leaders of tomorrow through a diverse range of programmatic experiences for all interests and ages. Programs inspire, engage, and encourage innovation and new ideas through experimentation, discovery, and exploration. By offering a variety of program formats that include field trips, workshops, labs, shows, simulations, camps, outreach experiences, field expeditions, birthday parties, overnights, team-building workshops, professional development, mentoring, and training, we expand the steam knowledge and interest of the community through our work with youth, homeschoolers, teachers and students, families, members, teens, corporations, organizations, scouts and adults. Mosi's tireless commitment to enhancing the educational experience of students in the tampa bay region positively impacted nearly 92,000 youth visiting mosi either in school groups, homeschool groups and over 23,500 students through outreach programming in this fiscal year. By partnering with steam education leaders in the community, these group visits enriched formal curriculum and provided inquiry-based learning experiences that engaged students of all learning styles. Approximately 57,000 of these students and teachers experienced chemistry, dissection and forensic labs, science theater shows, planetarium and space programs, technology workshops, and outdoor environmental programs. The steam programming continues over the summer where more than 5,000 youth participated in mosi summer science camps including 40 youth who attended on summer camp scholarships. In addition, 37 high-functioning young people with autism spectrum disorder (asd) successfully participated in mosi's integrated, sensory-friendly steam camps, many multiple times. Examples of ways we increased accessibility and enhanced the guest experience include free access for active military and their families from memorial day through labor day, with 5,000 of our military members taking advantage of this program and serving 16,000 students through the mosi in motion mobile stem programming, bringing science programming to rural schools and schools located a far distance from mosi. Students were able to engage in science inquiry with authentic science equipment and technology to explore their world and stimulate interest in science. This program is currently engaged in a five-county area. In addition, mosi presented the 16th annual national hispanic scientist of the year awarded to a prominent hispanic scientist in october of 2016. Dr. Adriana ocampo, presented and interacted with over 1,100 middle school students representing a predominantly large hispanic population. Mosi continues to participate in the museums for all program for low-income, and often under-served families, offering admission to mosi for just $3 per person. Families show proof of income need (by showing an electronic benefits transfer card and photo id), and up to five guests are eligible for the discount. The program - a partnership with the association of children's museums and the institution for museum and library services - encourages low-income families to visit museums and provides participating museums the templates to encourage this process. Additionally, in partnership with the local school district, mosi hosted the high school brain bowl (900 students), middle school math competition (800 students) and several days of science olympic competitions for 10,000 elementary students and their families. In addition, mosi sponsored a table at the hillsborough county school district parent university in february 2017, which was sponsored by the alliance for public schools, and hosted an educator training in steam for afterschool educators. Mosi, in addition to hosting the math and science competitions, added an additional robotics competition. Free museum memberships were also provided to school district employees throughout the state to provide access to the steam resources of mosi.

exhibits and program enhancements - mosi's idea zone is a "makerspace and prototyping lab where students, families, and adults can learn to design, build and play with ideas made real in a collaborative space. This hands-on area promotes the "maker" culture of innovation through steam-based projects. Idea zone hosted a variety of special events for families including santa's workshop that taught children toy-making skills and allowed them to make and take gifts for families and friends. Idea zone also hosted themed educational events including cardboard zoo, engineering challenges, and space inventors. Facilitated by educators, artists, technologists and engineers, idea zone puts its visitors in control of new technologies such as laser cutters, 3d printers and open-source microcontrollers. Idea zone served more than 123,000 guests participating in a variety of daily workshops during their visit to mosi. The "a" in steam is highlighted in the idea zone exhibit space, which hosts camps specifically designed around conceptual art and engineering. Mosi continues to enhance the idea zone through the development of school-level, after-school, scout, and summer camp programs using the latest technologies while integrating steam skills via media production - creating new designs using 3d printers, video, music animation, video games, web applications and learning about the process of artistic production and aesthetics used by professionals.

imax theater - mosi brings the wonder and "wow! " of the world to its visitors with immersive documentary films in our five-story imax dome theatre. A movie was included with each general admission and topics ranged from butterflies to black holes. In addition, mosi's imax dome theatre presented "rogue one, a star wars story" as a hollywood blockbuster.

guest relations and memberships - mosi accomplished its mission of being an inspirational resource for the community and a leader in steam education. By fostering a love of science and creativity, mosi is building a stronger future for the people of the tampa bay area and the world we all share. Mosi hosted the vice president of the united states, joe biden, at a "get out & vote" rally to encourage people to take part in the election process. Mosi hosted governor rick scott's "business roundtable" on february 24, 2017. This event brought together 125 community leaders for discussions on tourism in florida. Over a hundred full-time and part-time staff served hundreds of thousands of guests during the year. The mosi team hosted the "give change to make change" gala, which raised funds for low-income children to attend mosi camps. In addition, more than 1,000 mosi volunteers contributed their time, talent, and energy to help staff deliver our mission-based programming and enhance our visitor experience.