The good Cornellians can do: James Gaarder ’78

After retiring from a career in software design and development, James Gaarder '78 was looking for a volunteer opportunity that combined public speaking with education. He came across a National Museum of Natural History recruiting post for their new learning venue, called Q?rius (pronounced ‘curious’). James signed up and found that he greatly enjoyed sharing selections from the museum’s collections with an audience of teens and tweens.

He trained to serve as a docent in other areas of the museum, including using the 6-foot diameter Science-on-a-Sphere (SOS).

“SOS is great because it provides some spectacular graphics to keep the audience occupied as they listen to the talk,” he says.

James enjoys augmenting the SOS script with personal reflections. For example, when talking about the iconic “Earthrise” photo from 1969, he observes, “This was voted one of the most impactful environmental pictures of all time. There’s something about looking at our planet from afar, that gives us a different sense of our place in it.”

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