Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH CELEBRATION

September 15, 2024 | 10 AM - 4 PM

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month at KID Museum!

Join us at KID as we celebrate the innovation, creativity, and knowledge of Hispanic and Latinx makers, artists, musicians, and scientists! It will be a day of hands-on activities, art, storytelling, music, and fun for all ages.

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Event Details

Meet a Maker: Isha Renta

1 PM - 4 PM

Join Bomba instructor, author, and meteorologist Isha Renta for a read-aloud of her new bilingual book about Bomba, Puerto Rican music, and dance: Sofía y su Tambor de Bomba. Learn Bomba concepts, try new instruments, and get ready to learn movements that communicate with the drum!

Rhythmic Cardboard Creations

10 AM - 4 PM

Learn about percussion instruments from different countries in Latin America, explore making sounds using different types of materials, and build a drum!

Meet a Maker: Zines with Artist Verónica Meléndez

10 AM - 4 PM

Discover the magic of visual storytelling as you learn to illustrate, design, and craft your own zines, or mini magazines, with artist and La Horchata founder Veronica Melendez. Prepare to be inspired by Veronica’s art, which celebrates Central American culture and community.

Gabriel Guzmán with Cuentos y Fandangos

11 AM - 1 PM

Explore the rich traditions of Mexican folk music with Gabriel Guzmán, the musician, author, and educator behind the book De un Fandango! Join us as Gabriel and cuenta cuentos Dulce Govea bring the world of sones and fandangos to life through stories, songs, rhythm, games, and music.

Urban Heat Islands: Virtual Reality Adventure with NOAA

10 AM - 4 PM

Why do summers feel hotter in some areas of the city than in others? Join climate change experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to play in a virtual reality adventure over Washington, DC. Discover which neighborhoods are warmer or cooler and what makes this happen! NOAA enriches life through science–from studying the surface of the sun to exploring the ocean depths to ensuring the public stays informed about our evolving environment.

Learn more about NOAA at their website.

What Viruses Are Made Of with Dr. Sofia Romero, Microbiologist and Post Doctoral Fellow at NIH

10 AM - 4 PM

Viruses are tiny invaders made of building blocks called molecules. Viruses use different molecules to create their structure. Use colorful beads to represent the building blocks of human viruses and make color coded bracelets!

Celebrating Hispanic and Latinx #HistoryMakers

Laylah Silva Bulman

Director of Minecraft Education: LatinExplorers

Even if you don't play video games, you've probably heard of Minecraft, one of the best-selling video games in history. With such an enormous audience playing their game, the team at Minecraft soon decided to create a special educational edition of the game, and, under the direction of Latinx game developer Laylah Silva Bulman, an all-Latinx team of developers created the first-ever Latino-themed Minecraft game. LatinExplorers: A Hispanic Heritage Journey was released during Hispanic Heritage Month 2022 in collaboration with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. It was designed to educate players on the power of the Hispanic community, and challenge players to complete "stories" focused on climate, community, or culture while meeting digital versions of real-life Latino leaders.

Laylah Silva Bulman
Director of Minecraft Education: LatinExplorers

Dr. Margaret Dominguez

NASA Optical Engineer

If you've ever used a telescope to look at the moon, you've seen something up close that was actually 238,900 miles away. But what if you were an astronomer at NASA, trying to study galaxies over one million miles away from our planet? You'd definitely want a much larger telescope – and that's where optical engineers like Dr. Margaret Dominguez come in. Margaret grew up on a farm in rural Mexico, where her father encouraged her natural curiosity and interest in mathematics from an early age. She went on to study physics in college, and even started an extra-curricular physicists club, where she eventually met the NASA astronomer who would offer Margaret her first position at NASA. Today, Margaret is still asking questions about the universe that only physics can answer, and really is building a telescope that will look at galaxies over a million miles away.

Dr. Margaret Dominguez
NASA Optical Engineer

Gabriel Guzman

Musician & Educator

Gabriel Guzman is a Mexican musician with a career of more than 25 years in Mexico and the United States. He is also a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and has performed at many important forums in both countries. His song "Café Café" performed with Radio Jarocho, has reached 1 million views on Spotify and has become a part of the regular repertoire of traditional music and dance ensembles. His compositions also appear in the American film "The Old Ways" inspired by a legend from Veracruz and which is available on Netflix. Gabriel currently divides his time between Mexico and Washington D.C. where he continues to perform at schools and festivals in the area and promote his book De un fandango.

Gabriel Guzman
Musician & Educator

Jen & Knox White Johnson

Neurodiversity Advocacy Designer & Artist

When local artist, designer, and activist Jen White-Johnson went looking for resources that would represent her black Autistic son Knox and his experiences, she didn't find anything. But that didn't stop her. Jen worked with her son to make their own book "KnoxRoxs," an advocacy photo zine centered around their story and autism acceptance in families of color. The award-winning zine has allowed Jen and Knox to lead and encourage conversations about accepting Disabled and Neurodivergent children. Today, Jen lives in Baltimore, where her art practice centers on Black disabled joy and futures, while Knox continues collaborating with his mom to produce more zines.

Jen & Knox White Johnson
Neurodiversity Advocacy Designer & Artist

Veronica Melendez

Visual Artist

Veronica Melendez is an interdisciplinary artist, publisher, and curator based between Washington D.C. and Greenfield, MA. Having been raised in and around Washington D.C amongst one of the largest Central American populations in the U.S, her work centers the many ways people in the diaspora create home. She is a founder of La Horchata Zine, an arts publication highlighting creatives from the Central American diaspora. She was selected for the 2018 Archive of Documentary Arts Collection Award for Documentarians of the American South by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, NPR, VICE, Hyperallergic, and The Brooklyn Rail among others. La Horchata Zine has been exhibited at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA and the inaugural exhibition Presente! in the Molina Family Latino Gallery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography, Creative Arts and Visual Culture at Hampshire College.

Veronica Melendez
Visual Artist

Ellen Ochoa

Astronaut & Optical Systems Analyst

What would you bring on a mission to the stars? Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina woman to visit outer space, brought her flute along when she boarded the Discovery space shuttle in 1993, merging her lifelong loves of music and science as she finally achieved her dream of becoming an astronaut. She and her fellow crew members were researching the earth's ozone layer, and as mission specialist, Ellen was tasked with a crucial job: launching and retrieving a satellite. It was the ultimate test of the systems Ellen had spent years developing – and she passed it perfectly, all while floating in a vacuum. Including her first mission, Ellen has visited space four times, and continued to research better means of interstellar travel. Today, she serves as the chair of the National Science Board.

Ellen Ochoa
Astronaut & Optical Systems Analyst

Isha Renta

Bomba Practitioner, Author, & Meteorologist

Isha Renta was born and raised in Ponce, Puerto Rico but her first experience with Afro-Puerto Rican bomba was in Washington, DC. She began her training in 2007 with ‘Raíces de Borinquen’, as her passion for this genre increased. Isha founded and directs ‘Semilla Cultural’, a non-profit organization shaped by a team of volunteers that educates about bomba through workshops, classes and performances. Isha is also a member of the all-female bomba and plena ensemble, Madre Tierra. Isha is fully committed to preserve and disseminate her culture to empower the communities while she continues her growth in this field. She is also an author of the bilingual book Sofia and her Bomba Drum, and she is also a meteorologist.

Isha Renta
Bomba Practitioner, Author, & Meteorologist

Ubaldo Sánchez

Artist

Recognized as a gifted young artist in his home country Guatemala, and then in his new American high school, he has gone on to make kites, murals, sculptures, pottery, and paintings. President Barack Obama selected one of Sanchez’s paintings, New Dawn, a portrait of Obama, for the White House collection. Though he’s been in the U.S. for over 20 years, Sanchez maintains strong ties with his homeland and has set up a fund to provide scholarships for kids in Guatemala, so they can continue their education. In 2017, the government honored him with the presidential medal called the “La Orden del Quetzal” (the name of the national bird of Guatemala) for his art and his community service.

Ubaldo Sánchez
Artist

Rea Ann Silva

Inventor & Founder of Beautyblender

Rea Ann Silva
Inventor & Founder of Beautyblender

Access for Every Maker

KID Museum is dedicated to expanding access to STEM and maker learning opportunities for all by providing free and reduced-cost opportunities to participate in our programming.

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