I was just talking to Chuck Berry, leader of the South Dakota Hub, and I heard all about the GREAT Year of Science events the hub organized. I want to share a few of these with you - hopefully you’ll be as inspired as I am as we kick off 2010!

Chuck is a Professor at South Dakota State University, and he and his colleagues organized not one, not two, but THREE university courses that were centered on the Year of Science. There was a course on Science Journalism, and it focused on the role of the media in the public understanding of science. This course was such a success it will be taught again next year! Another course was taught in the Honors College, and it focused on the public understanding of climate change. The students read Thomas Friedman’s book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. The most inspiring course, I think, was at the University Center Lifelong Learning Institute. The class was made up of, as Chuck says, “a few dozen older folks.” I think it’s fantastic that the course was aimed at a non-standard audience! Says Chuck, “when you’re getting it out to the non-students, that’s when you’re really making hay, in the way the Year of Science was intended.”

Continuing on the theme of bringing science to non-students, the SDSU Film Society screened four science films throughout the year - the audience, Chuck says, is mostly non-university people. One of the films, called A Sense of Wonder, was a documentary about Rachel Carson. And, says Chuck, “the words she said were right out of the Year of Science.” The films were very well received, and the film society will continue to screen science films in the future.

The South Dakota Hub consists of about 20 organizations - universities, museums, and outdoor education centers. Of course, they had many more events than I can fit in this blog post! Check out the South Dakota Hub Page (coming soon) to learn more about their YoS events. Also, Chuck wrote a paper about the Year of Science, and it will be published in The Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Sciences in April - we will make the paper available to you when it is published!

South Dakota will be sending a contingent from the Sanford Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory to the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC in October 2010. (A few quick words on the Sanford Underground Lab - an old gold mine, over 2 feet deep, is being converted into a physics lab, so scientists can do experiments without the pesky interference of radiation and particles from outer space. Is that cool or what?) Chuck would like to host Satellite Events in South Dakota, in conjunction with the USA Science and Engineering Festival.

One last thing: during our conversation, Chuck mentioned that he’d hoped to involve industry in the Year of Science, but was relatively unsuccessful. I agree that industry has a lot to offer. If your hub has involved corporations or industry, we would love to hear how you’ve encouraged those relationships. Please leave a comment here on the blog, or contact me at skene@berkeley.edu.

This is not a story about dating. In the summer of 2009, the DC COPUS Regional Hub, a loosely knit group of science cheerleaders from associations, federal agencies, local schools and businesses, decided to hold a Meet the Scientist program this past fall.

We’d kicked the idea around earlier in the year and had met with local schools, but the decision to put the event together was made about six weeks before it started. Why bring scientists into our public schools? Throughout five years of elementary school, I saw math and reading homework daily, and only an occasional science project come home. And we all love challenges.

How We Recruited Schools and Scientists

The National Science Teachers’ Association built two surveys for us on Survey Monkey - one for scientists and the other for schools. The scientists’ survey told us what area of science they specialized in, how comfortable they were talking to students and at what level, how to find them and when they were available.

The science teachers (some were schools but most were individual teachers) told us what type of science they were looking for, which class they wanted scientists for, and what their expectations were.

From these two surveys we matched the scientists with local schools and sent both groups letters of introduction to the other. One of our big concerns was we didn’t want to get in the middle of schools coordinating events with scientists because we didn’t have enough people to manage it. Our core group was four people - myself, Ed Rock of NSTA, Bernadette Farrelly of AIBS and Jen Collins who works on science and education for COPUS. We all had other jobs and little time to spare.

Finding Scientist and School Volunteers

We drove potential participants to the survey links in multiple ways:

Contacted Everyone We Could Think Of - The DC COPUS leadership team contacted everyone it knew in scientific societies and associations, as well as other science organizations in our area. We also partnered with the Retired Scientists, Engineers & Technicians (ReSET) program. Executive director John Meagher leads this group, which sends its members into elementary schools for long-term projects.

Reached Out to the Schools - We got in touch with schools in DC and in suburbs within a 50-60 mile radius of the city. We also contacted a couple of district science supervisors and a random sample of school principals and science lead teachers in Montgomery County. The response was excellent.

Used Social Media for Scientist Recruitment - We used Facebook and LinkedIn to recruit as many scientists as we could. For instance, AAAS sent out our notice to fans of its Science Careers page which has several thousand young scientists and graduate students participating. We also put up notices on college and association pages.

Scientists in the Schools

More than 100 scientists and 50 schools (we could have gotten more schools but were afraid we’d run out of scientists) signed on. Each school was assigned two scientists, given their contact information and told to follow-up with them directly.

DC COPUS also connected with local colleges and universities whose scientists were piloting outreach programs with K-12 students. For example, the Johns’ Hopkins Shady Grove Life Sciences Center held its first Frontiers in Science and Medicine Day, for 200 seventh graders that attend Shady Grove Middle School during our Meet the Scientist month.

Training information for the scientists - particularly those going into elementary schools - was supplied by ReSET and the San Diego Science Festival 2009, which held a Nifty Fifty Meet the Scientist program earlier this year.

A follow-up survey with scientists and teachers to evaluate and learn from this test experience is in progress. One lesson we learned is it takes time to connect schools and scientists. Some of the visits are still in the planning phase and will be held early in 2010.

A second Washington, DC event is in the works. The USA Science & Engineering Festival plans to hold a Meet the Scientist event in October of 2010 as part of its outreach activities. Here are some of the photos and links to presentations.

Barrett Elementary School - Arlington, VA

http://tinyurl.com/DrGarfinkel-09

http://tinyurl.com/DrCostin-09

Takoma Park Middle School Math and Science Magnet - Takoma Park, MD

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/mainstory/story.aspx?id=78990

http://picasaweb.google.com/sdega315/MeetTheScientists#

http://www.gazette.net/stories/10072009/silvnew181211_32533.shtml

Johns Hopkins University - Montgomery Campus

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/mainstory/story.aspx?id=75842

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/10/AR2009101000858.html

(Author Aimee Stern is a member of the COPUS action team and head of Stern Communications, a Washington, DC-based firm specializing in science, health and education.)

Welcome to our new COPUS blogger and Regional Hub Coordinator Jennifer Skene! Jennifer is a post doc at the University of California, Museum of Paleontology diving in to science education -- and will be a regular blogger here at COPUS. We are thrilled to have her join the COPUS team!

COPUS Regional Hubs are doing great things, across the country! This is the first in a series of blogs to update you on Regional Hub activities. We'll share the strategies that are working for each Regional Hub, and introduce you to the people who are making things happen.

I recently spoke to Natalie Kuldell, one of the liaisons of the Cambridge Regional Hub, and an Instructor of Biological Engineering at MIT. Natalie, along with co-leaders Ben Wiehe of WGBH, and Marie Studer of the Encyclopedia of Life, meet with the Cambridge hub members every other month. They don't meet at the member organizations' offices. Instead, they meet in a neutral space, like a bar (I love the idea of a hub in a pub!) or a municipal building. They start with a 30-minute talk about a topic of general interest, and then break for snacks and networking. The hub members suggest the topics for the meetings. "We want it to be group directed, not top-down," says Natalie. Some of the topics suggested for future meetings include how to improve an organization's web presence, and how to better interact with the press. Right now, the challenge is to develop a good communication tool, so that everyone can participate in planning the hub meetings and can coordinate on collaborative activities. They're experimenting with a Google Group - I'll keep you posted on how it works out.

Networking is central to the Cambridge hub's strategy; the Cambridge area has lots of science resources, and COPUS brings different groups together. Natalie says it's been great for people with complementary interests to connect and talk about how they can help each other out. The Cambridge hub meetings have resulted in a few collaborations already: several MIT graduate students have spoken at the science cafés organized by Ben Wiehe.

As an instructor at MIT, Natalie designs the curriculum for the biological engineering undergraduate major and teaches several research-based courses - learn more about her work here. Natalie wants "scientists to be spokespeople for science." Especially in the area of biological engineering - "bioengineering is a field that needs a good public interface, so people can get a good idea of what bioengineering can and can't do." She hopes that when her students are asked about bioengineering issues, like genetically modified food, they can be articulate providers of good information. In the classroom, Natalie works with about 100 students each year. Her involvement with COPUS lets her interact with a much broader group.

Do you have suggestions or strategies you'd like to share with other COPUS Regional Hubs? Or questions about how other hubs operate? Email me at skene@berkeley.edu

This blog posting was contributed by our Ohio Regional Hub leader. I thought others might enjoy reading it!

Dear COPUS Hub Colleagues:

This morning during the call I was asked about the role of our Public TV/Radio stations. We work in Cleveland with ideastream (a partnership of Cleveland’s WVIZ-TV PBS and WCPN-Radio NPR), although our outreach work is statewide. They serve as our non-profit fiscal agent. Aside from being the largest PBS/NPR outlet in Ohio, they also operate the Ohio Channel in Columbus, which covers state level government. Through their work, we are part of a network of all the PBS/NPR outlets in Ohio. For an indirect fee on our income, they provide us with office space, phones, computers, financial services, etc. We, in turn, look for opportunities to involve them in science & math outreach. Below is just one example of an activity done jointly between WVIZ TV, Great Lakes Science Center, SMART Consortium (one of OMSC’s teacher quality member organizations), and a panel of National Board Certified middle school science teachers. We received production funding from eTech Ohio - part of the state’s teacher quality initiatives for digital learning. Now, very little of this is new from a content perspective, but our design concept was to give teachers background knowledge, pedagogy, and additional resources so that a more inquiry-based approach could be taken to the study of the concepts in the videos. The first 20 episodes are here We are in the process of doing 8 more related to thermodynamics, convection, conduction, more air pressure, etc. to get at interactions of the hydrosphere and atmosphere.

http://www.wviz.org/psi/

The other current project is the production of the twenty-two 45-second STEM Ed viral media public awareness spots I mentioned this morning. Those start to roll out in April. They will show students and families some intriguing topics from science, engineering, mathematics, and technology that we hope will inspire students to seek careers in these areas. Resources for parents - including career preparation and college scholarship/apprenticeship opportunities will also be made available through a Web site dedicated specifically to this project. This is just in DRAFT, but we will probably be using something like this for outreach and conversation:
www.conduitohio.ning.com

Also look at our “Ideas” special news report from April 2008 http://www.wviz.org/index.php/WVIZ/ideas/ on Ohio’s schools and the crisis in STEM education. The relationship with media is complex, but workable. If it is objective and informs the community, then we can sometimes arrange to get news coverage. Such efforts are held to strict practices of news reporting. We can also purchase air time or underwriting and make more subjective advocacy announcements on a fee-based arrangement.

Feel free to write or call to discuss any of this in more depth.

George Viebranz, Executive Director

Ohio Mathematics and Science Coalition

www.OhioMSC.org

I received a couple of great updates from our Las Cruces hub leader:

I just submitted our starting program on our NPR station - KRWG FM to the Year of Science web pages under Programs..

In January we are lucky to have four 15-minute interviews focusing on the Interpretation of Science (Science Education). Next month we are hoping to have another four interviews on Evolution.

I am not sure of the schedule of exactly when the interviews are on, but I think they may be on in the morning. The first (and all following will be also archived) is available on the web at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/krwg/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1453478&sectionID=6467

Our four interviewees for January are:

Christin Slaughter (Biology) - Christin is Outreach Co-odinator for the Biology Department and is currently working with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant to NMSU.

Carol Sutherland (Extension Plant Sciences). Carol talks to thousands of students, Master Gardeners and others on entomology every year.

Susan W. Brown (Director, Stem Outreach, Institute for Excellence in Math and Science Education).

Diane Walker (Doctoral Student, Science Education, College of Education).

I am amazed that we have been able to get this much done! The major credit should go to Fred Martino, who is the Assistant Executive Director of University Broadcasting, and who was totally supportive of this effort.

And in another email, he shared info about how they collaborate with the State Fair:

The story on the Southern New Mexico State Fair (we in New Mexico have several regional State Fairs plus the main State Fair in Albuquerque) is that we have a new fair director, Wilma Arroyos, and she thought we at NMSU should have a display at the 2008 fair. Unfortunately she brought this up about a month before the fair so we had no luck getting other departments in, but good old EPPWS is always ready for outreach and along with a lot of work by Carol Sutherland of Cooperative Extension we filled one half of a Cold War Era Quonset hut (about 120’ long, so we got the first 60’). It was as usual (we have done fairs before, including the one in Albuquerque) a great hit and I mentioned to Wilma that the Year of science was coming up and would she be interested. She said that they were thinking of renovating two more Quonset Huts and what if she gave those to us and made The Year of Science a theme of the 2009 Fair? I of course jumped on that and then panicked - what if I don’t get enough participation! Well I’m still not sure about that, but we seem to have interested the Asombro Institute for Science Education and the Las Cruces Museum of Natural History, plus the Las Cruces Astronomical Society. So I guess it is a go. The Fair is September 30-October 4, 2009.

Thanks Dave! For further info about the Las Cruces Year of Science activities, contact:

David B. Richman
nmbugman@taipan.nmsu.edu

January 11th marked the 4th anniversary of Family Appreciation Day in San Francisco through which every San Francisco family with children ages 0 to 18 years old receives FREE entrance and transportation to museums and attraction. This year it also marked the first of two Bay Area launch events for the Year of Science 2009. Held at the Crissy Field Center, the launch included the opportunity to explore fossils and natural history objects, examine surface tension, peer into Bay waters, test aerodynamic designs in a wind tunnel, color with natural pigments from plants, and generally reflect on the wonders of science that is all around us. Great fun was had by all!

The second launch event will take place in the South at the Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT) on Saturday, Jan. 24, from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Visit Bay Area Science for more information.

The San Francisco Bay Area Hub will launch its Year of Science celebration on January 11 at Crissy Field Center, in conjunction with “Family Appreciation Day”—an annual, citywide San Francisco event. Crissy Field Center, a part of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and a COPUS participant, will host a lively day of hands-on science activities for families, linked to the Year of Science 2009. Several hub partners will join the fun, to share excitement about COPUS and promote Bay Area Year of Science 2009 events and activities that will be presented throughout 2009. Based on previous years’ attendance for Family Appreciation Day, we anticipate a terrific turnout for our kickoff event. Thank you, Crissy Field Center!

YoS launch event description submitted by Rachel Winheld winheld@berkeley.edu.

A description of the hubs planned activities from its liaison David Richman: New Mexico State University (NMSU) is a land grant and minority serving institution in Las Cruces, NM, that has been involved in science since its inception in 1888 as Las Cruces College. The Center for Natural History Collections and the Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science at NMSU have joined forces to promote The Year of Science in 2009, with several major events. Several other college departments and independent groups are cooperating with us in this effort. In April and in October we will have a campus wide open house at several natural science collections, the NMSU Museum, and at least one laboratory. On September 30-October 4, 2009 the Southern New Mexico State Fair will feature the Year of Science as its theme and we will have three buildings for displays, demonstrations and presentations on science. Finally we plan to have Brian Ellis present “Darwin and the Beagle” in November at the Corbett Student center Auditorium. We are currently still working out the details on the last activity. We will also be working on mini-programs on science throughout the year for KRWG-FM, our university-based NPR radio station.

For additional information contact: David Richman nmbugman@taipan.nmsu.edu

Participants in the Washington, DC COPUS Regional Hub now have a Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=33739102607) and are posting anything — and everything — related to the Year of Science 2009 and DC hub activities. The new Facebook group has more than 53 members, representing dozens of area science organizations, and is growing quickly. DC members have set-up discussion areas for each of the 12 monthly themes for the Year of Science and for a DC launch event thread. In addition to brainstorming ideas for activities and sharing information on events planned in support of Year of Science 2009, the group is using Facebook to plan a DC-area collaborative event to celebrate science. Participants have also been posting messages and wall announcements about science-related workshops, meetings, and resources. Most recently, colleagues in the community are sharing their expertise about topics ranging from outreach to web site development. In general, the Facebook group has allowed for unprecedented communication between members of a large, DC-based science community. The ability to see what other organizations have planned, to share best practices, to comment on ideas and offer suggestions or help, and to form collaborations has made science outreach easier and better. The science community is doing so many great things. Facebook is one way to tell your colleagues about it and form lasting partnerships that enable better public engagement in science. The COPUS National is on Facebook too: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=5277539203. Posted by Bernadette Farrelly.

Greetings fellow COPUS participants! The Society of Physics Students is happy to announce the creation of a COPUS Student Hub, a nationally distributed peer community interested in building bridges between their members, the national Coalition, and regional hubs to increase student understanding of and engagement in science. Your organization is invited to participate in this hub.

The idea for this hub was seeded a few months ago when I attended a meeting of COPUS participants that had started or were thinking of starting COPUS hubs, peer communities interested in building bridges between their members and the national Coalition. Some active hubs were represented, such as the Tampa Bay area regional hub, and others of us were still in the exploratory phase.

During that weekend-long experience I caught a glimpse of the potential of this Coalition. In discussions with representatives from science museums, science cafes, schools, and a variety of other organizations, I realized that there were many opportunities for collaborations and resource sharing between our members and these other organizations, opportunities that weren’t even on my radar!

We are optimistic that the Student Hub will foster this same spirit of collaboration. There are many student-focused organizations working toward similar goals of advancing science and science literacy, and this hub is a great way to bring them together.

At its core, the hub is about facilitating communication among organizations focused on students and enhancing their science experience. As in the national Coalition, there is no cost to participate in the hub, and the level of involvement is up to you. In fact, it is up to the hub participants to define what the hub will look like and its priorities.

For more information about the COPUS Student Hub and its’ plans, as well as the Society of Physics Students, please contact me, my information is:

Kendra Rand, Program Coordinator
Society of Physics Students
One Physics Ellipse
College Park, MD 20740-3843
Tel: 301.209.3047
Fax: 301.209.0839
E-mail: krand@aip.org
www.spsnational.org

I hope you will take some time to explore this opportunity and contact me with your questions, ideas, and interest.

Sincerely,
Kendra Rand

Relevant Links:
COPUS: www.copusproject.org
Hubs: www.copusproject.org/thematic_hubs.php
Society of Physics Students: www.spsnational.org