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Montshire Museum of Science

Anna Super and her charges. (Todd Bookman/NHPR)
Anna Super and her charges. (Todd Bookman/NHPR)

Anna: I was teaching maybe a skull lab the other day, and in the middle of the lab one of the little kids turns to his friend and says “This is a lot of fun isn’t it.”

The Montshire Museum of Science is a vibrant center for children -- and adults -- to make discoveries about science and the natural world. Anna Super was three years old when her parents first brought her to the museum. She’s 29 now,  and still fascinated.

Anna: My title is explainer so I help people out at exhibits.  If someone’s looking at an exhibit and they can’t figure out what to do with it I’ll jump in there and toss the penny into the penny well or I’ll help them spin a ball on our spin table.  So I get people more engaged in the museum.  And then my favorite part of my job is teaching some labs and getting people interested in things like the ants and the bees and the turtles.  

When I was three years old I remember discovering an armadillo. I don’t remember if it was a mount or if it was alive.  But I remember that armadillo made a huge impression on me and ever since then I was in love with the Montshire Museum.

I think the most important thing I do here is I teach the children to be excited about science. It’s often the children that are most excited about a subject that succeed at it. In life the scientist maybe wasn’t the straight A science student maybe the scientist was the extremely excited science student as a child. 

So I do actually hope some of the kids I work with go on to science and engineering but I also hope a lot of students I work with go to be just the way I ended up being. Just never afraid of nature always excited always willing to learn and just really passionate about it.

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