In other news

If you haven’t visited the Bradbury Science Museum yet, you’d better stop in before it’s too late—after all, the museum (and the Los Alamos area in general) has been named one of the 1,000 places in North America to see before you die in the book of the same name. 

The entry in the third edition of 1,000 Places to See in the United States and Canada Before You Die includes a photo of a BSM exhibit and explains that “even visitors without security clearances can visit downtown’s Bradbury Science Museum (named after the man who succeeded Oppenheimer, and run by Los Alamos National Laboratory). The exhibits on the lab’s wartime roots share space with interactive science displays on radiation, lasers, and the human genome, and an actual 5-ton ‘Little Boy’ nuclear bomb like the one dropped on Hiroshima.”

The entry also offers information on Valles Caldera National Preserve and Bandelier National Monument. 

STEM Day at the Roundhouse featured students, teachers, and policy makers engaged in math activities that developed problem-solving skills and built conceptual understanding.

CPO staff visit state legislature

On January 18, members of the Community Partnerships Office visited the legislature in Santa Fe to share information about STEM initiatives and activities in New Mexico.

Officially titled STEM Day at the NM Legislative Session and hosted by the LANL Foundation, the event included college prep for STEM careers, teacher professional development, and resources on computer programming, 3D printing, and robotics—and more. 

A teacher from Los Alamos Public Schools browses the MSA Garage Grab.

Area schools receive science materials from Math and Science Academy

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Math and Science Academy (MSA) hosted a teacher Garage Grab the week of January 16. The announcement was circulated to partner schools and districts in northern New Mexico.

Teachers from three school districts—Los Alamos, Española, and Pojoaque—and teachers from McCurdy Charter School chose to attend and selected miscellaneous science materials for their classrooms. Among the many items available (for free!) at MSA's storage facility were rocks and minerals classroom sets, mineral test kits, beakers, graduated cylinders, thermometers, and several elementary science kits. In addition to science materials, teachers could choose from several education practitioner books.

MSA is an intensive and comprehensive professional development program designed to support continuous and sustainable improvement of teaching and learning mathematics and science in participating school districts. MSA supports teachers and school leaders in job-embedded professional learning with a focus on systems change with the ultimate goals of improving student learning and achievement in math and science in northern New Mexico. The MSA program is composed of summer institutes, math content training throughout the school year, instructional coaching, and facilitation support for job-embedded professional learning.

Two 2016 Expanding Your Horizons participants get a taste for a career in medicine. Credit: Virginia Lierz.

Volunteer with Expanding Your Horizons 2017

Expanding Your Horizons 2017 Student Technical Workshop, which takes place on March 9 at the Santa Fe Convention Center, is seeking volunteers to lead fun, interactive workshops for this popular STEM event for girls. A LANL-sponsored event for fifth- through eighth-grade girls in Northern New Mexico, Expanding Your Horizons aims to cultivate an interest in professions such as science and math. Participants build connections with role models as they attend workshops and presentations with women working in traditionally male occupations.

This event is run entirely by volunteers, and any help is welcome. There are many volunteer opportunities, including—but not limited to—chaperoning a small group of girls throughout the day, setting up or cleaning and much more. For Laboratory employees, besides helping young women in New Mexico explore STEM fields, volunteers’ time counts toward Science Education Community Service Time.

Please contact volunteer coordinators Jessica Manzanares or Tamra Heberling for more information. Volunteers can join until March 6 and can sign up directly with this online sign-up sheet.

This future city showcases the power of public space.

Future City aims to make the world a better place

How do sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from across New Mexico hope to make the world a better place? Those who participated in the January 14 Future City event imagined, researched, designed, and built cities of the future that showcased solutions to a citywide sustainability issue: in this case, the power of public space.

Held at the University of New Mexico's School of Architecture and Planning, students used SimCity to present their solutions via a virtual city design, a 1,500-word essay, a scale model, a project plan, and a presentation to judges. “It teaches them a variety of skills including teaming, engineering, and presenting,” explains Janelle Vigil-Maestas of the Laboratory’s Community Partnerships Office, which was a sponsor of the event.

Annunciation Catholic School was the regional winner of the event and will represent New Mexico at the national finals this month in Washington, D.C.