I was invited to be part of "Ask a Scientist" activity at a middle school STEM fair. I had to sit at a table and interact with students. It was such a motivating experience!! I took some props with me to entice the kids. There were soil samples, agar plates with bacterial colonies, a soil corer, and bi-lingual I heart Soil messages! It was fascinating to see the enthusiasm, and admire the projects everyone came up with. For those two hours, it was the happiest place on Earth for me. There was hope, motivation, enthusiasm, curiosity, fun, and kids being kids. It made so much more sense for me to do what I am doing. It was also a neat experience to explain my work to 10-11 year olds in a way that they would understand what I do. While there was no way of finding out if they understood or not, I did receive quite a number of "Cool" and "Oooh, this is fun" when I finished explaining my work. So I am assuming my interactions went well! Too bad I did not get a chance to play with the "Space-Time Simulation". It was so crowded that I did not even get a chance to click a decent photo, without any person in the frame! It was an excellent demonstration of the concept of gravity! This activity has motivated me to partner with a citizen-science project involving Tucson school kids and visitors at Biosphere2. Details coming soon! Till then, science-ing away!
