Yellow Ledbetter and the Lt. Governor

The Lt. Gov. of NJ, Kim Guadagno, visited the lab yesterday to talk about economic development in the state and learn about what's going on at the lab. I had the chance to talk to her for a bit about science education, workforce development, and using plasmas as a teaching tool. Of course I had to fire up our plasma speaker as the attention-grabber. Lately I've been playing Pearl Jam, I have no idea what the lyrics are but it sounds great. The full story is now on the university web site, written by PPPL's Patti Wieser and with a photo by Elle Starkman. I wasn't bored...or asleep..., just listening....intently!

Here's a link to the story.

2012 looks a lot like 2011

...and that's a good thing in my book.

Steph, Aliya, and Deedee continue to strengthen and expand our programs. We're in the middle of the Science on Saturday lecture series, 27 years in a row with record crowds. The middle and high school science bowl competitions are coming up, followed by an expanded Young Women's Conference.  We are getting ready to select undergraduates for the NUF, SULI, and Community College summer internships. The GPIC Hub is starting its second year and I'm concentrating on developing the future workforce (K-12). We've added new teams for our partnership with NASA that will fly experiments in July. Steph and Aliya are working with Trenton High School students on a microgravity experiment. We are developing a couple of new research areas, one in plasma speakers, the other in atmospheric plasmas. The semester just started and I'm teaching a writing seminar. Finally, the US 1 newspaper wrote a story on both the Art of Science competition and me.

Looks like a great year....stay tuned!

Winter, 2011 Update

2011 Art of Science competition First Prize

2011 may be winding down but it seems like things are as fun, as varied, and as busy as normal.  The Sustainability Workshop high school is doing well and the Philadelphia Inquirer just ran a front-page article on the school and the school founder, Simon Hauger, recently gave a talk on the school at PopTech.  The 2011 Art of Science competition was a huge success, we received press coverage around the world, including a slide show at the New York Times.  The winning image.  while not a photo of a plasma, is from a post-doc affiliated at PPPL and so that means that of the five competitions, PPPL people have won three.  The physical gallery opened on 11/11/11 in the Friend Center on campus and I had the pleasure of lecturing to a group of K-12 superintendents, principals, and supervisors on the intersection of art and science and the use of images like this to communicate with the general public on scientific topics.  The entire Science Education staff spent a week in Salt Lake City at the American Physical Society's Division of Plasma Physics meeting where 1,500 plasma physicists from around the world shared the latest results.  We presented our own work on our partnership with NASA, our efforts to recruit young women into careers in science, and our study of the effectiveness of our programs.  For example, since 2000, 72% of our undergraduate interns have gone on to a graduate school in a science, engineering, or technical field.  Of those, 44% are studying plasma physics.  And finally, I completed my machine shop course.  One drill indicator, one plumb bob, and one fly cutter, priceless.

I Dare You to Try It! (2011 Version)

More than 11 years ago, I wrote an essay called "I Dare You to Try It," about my new career as a science educator.  I'm normally a fairly slow writer, but I vividly remember where I was when I sat down at the computer to write it and how the entire essay just flowed out of me.  During the past few weeks, I keep on coming back to that piece and I think it is because I've been doing such a wide variety of activities and they are the type of activities that I like to say give me the "fuel" I need to do what I do.  So here's the updated version of my old essay.

_________________________________________________
How would you like a job where you are given the freedom to use your imagination, your creativity, and your scientific training to the fullest?  How would you like a job where you feel that you are making a difference?  How would you like a job that makes you feel that in a small but significant way you are changing lives?  Who wouldn't like a job like that and do you even call it a "job" or "work" if it does all of that and more? Yet that's how I describe mine.

How would you like a job where Monday you are attending the ribbon-cutting of an innovative new high school, Tuesday you are chatting with the Commander of the final space shuttle mission, Wednesday you are organizing the Art of Science Competition and then taking a metal-working class, Thursday you are leading a professional development workshop for K-12 science teachers on the scientific method, and Friday you are the guest scientist in a second grade class talking about energy?  Yum, that's a tasty week and welcome to the world of science education.

Turning sunlight into energy with a solar-powered car.

The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma...

This was taken at the ribbon-cutting ceremony
 but I've been feeling a lot of this lately.
  (Photo courtesy of The Sustainability Workshop)

I get into the lab less and less and I miss it.  But vacuum pumps still don't smile and power supplies still don't say "Ah, ha!" Working with students and teachers is even more rewarding than it was 11 years ago.  You don't have to do it formally like I do but you can if you are about to graduate with your PhD or Ed.D.  Or you can start by simply calling up your local elementary school and offering to bring in some of your "toys" for an hour.  Go ahead, I dare you to try it.  You'll never, ever regret it.

Wonderful video on The Sustainability Workshop

Pop!Tech created a new video on the school down at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  It's excellent and worth your time.  Here's the link:  The Sustainability Workshop

Microgravity - The Video!

Aliya Merali, one of the newer members of the Science Education Department and a veteran of four microgravity flights, put together a five minute video of our experience preparing for our week flying in microgravity.  It is an awesome video and well worth a look.  Here's the link to the video:

http://clouds.pppl.gov/photo-links

Failure is an Option - Student Version

It isn't called the Navy Yard for nothing!

 Yesterday, I had a chance to head down to the Philadelphia Navy Yard and sit down with the students of The Sustainability Workshop to talk about what makes a successful research project.  I was asked to tell them about a "cool" project that I managed and what it took to make it a success.  Hmmmm, what to choose? How about something that involved multiple people, complicated logistics, difficult experimental challenges, and maybe even "fun."  Oh, wait, I got it, that thing with NASA, you know, K-12 teachers working intensely for months on a common goal that ended with us floating through the air!

So I showed the students our 5 minute video (thanks Aliya!) and let the questions fly.  "How does that work?"  "What happens to gravity?" "How can I do that?"  "Cool!"

If high school students can build this car as part of an after school club, imagine what they can do if they have a school devoted to real-world projects.

What was immediately clear to me was that this was an amazing group of students, enthusiastic, engaged with the topic, ready to get to work, and fun. (there's that pesky word again) So we talked about how the airplane simulates microgravity ("Imagine a football thrown from Michael Vick to DeShawn Jackson for a touchdown and the path the football takes.  Now imagine you are inside that football and you are holding a pen and you let that pen go.  As you both travel inside that football and the football is in free fall, it appears that the pen is floating.  Get it?").  And we talked about some of the experiments such as water splashing in microgravity (One of the students compared it to blood splashing in a CSI-Miami episode. It made sense at the time!) or a pendulum stopping as gravity went to zero ("you have to see it to believe it!").

Then our conversation headed towards the fact that a regular school, a normal school, does not accept failure. Grades, GPA, SAT scores, quizes, tests, and so on are how students are measured and there is no room for mistakes.  But their school, with the curriculum centered on real-world research projects, not only allow mistakes but actually requires failure. (Just like life, according to one of the students.  Told you they were wise...)  We talked about how a good research project can only succeed if there is room for mistakes.  And if you don't fail, your project is too simple and probably not very interesting.  From there we headed to the main idea, that the hard part is not getting frustrated when you fail or to not cut corners when you are under a time constraint.  Instead, you must be open to the failure, and learning from it.  The students got that instantly, and embraced it.  Wow.

Simon Hauger, Lead Teacher of the school,
Principal, and the driving force (pun intended).

The hour flew by and as we wrapped it up one of the students said, "Now that wasn't boring, I didn't fall asleep!"

I couldn't think of a better compliment.

(Thanks to Nick Guilbert, Director of Sustainability at The Peddie School for the photographs.)