Dear STEM Ambassadors and Community Partners,
We are excited to share this month’s newsletter with you! Over the last month, STEM Ambassadors could be found sharing their work around the Salt Lake Valley and in the news. Dr. Shrinivasan Raghuraman discussed his research on cone snails with community members at the Friendly Neighborhood Senior Center. Greg Handy spent an afternoon in Big Cottonwood Canyon where he shared the math behind rock climbing with participants on a Splore trip. Dr. Krista Carlson delivered an engaging presentation at Draper State Prison as part of the INSPIRE Program. Pratiti Tagore brought a hands-on water quality activity to students at the Girls Transition Center. Dr. Kelsey Cone hosted a zombie-themed science night at the Watchtower Cafe complete with a Disease Detective game where participants identified the cause of a zombie outbreak by interviewing volunteer actors. In addition to these exciting programs, two STEM Ambassadors were featured online and in the news! Helena Lucente’s engagement experience with state legislators was published in the American Society for Cell Biology blog. Dr. Gabrielle Kardon’s lab tour for families affected by congenital diaphragmatic hernia, a birth defect studied in her lab, was featured on KSL.
We are now nearing the end of the 2017 cohort. A celebration recognizing STEM Ambassadors and community partners will be held on October 5th at 5:00 PM. Contact Megan Young as soon as possible to RSVP!
Thank you for your support!
Nalini Nadkarni, Director
Caitlin Weber, Program Manager
Megan Young, Program Coordinator
Jiajia He, Newsletter Editor
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Recognizing STEM Ambassadors and Community Partners
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The 2016 STEM Ambassador Annual Celebration
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As the 2017 cohort comes to a close, the STEMAP team would like to recognize the Ambassadors and community partners who made this project possible. We will be hosting a recognition and award ceremony on October 5th at the University of Utah. Join us to recognize the achievements of STEMAP participants, see materials from past events, and hear from Ambassadors and community partners. Snacks and refreshments will be provided at the start of the event.
RSVP today to Megan Young!
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Shrinivasan Raghuraman at Friendly Neighborhood Senior Center
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STEM Ambassador Shrinivasan Raghuraman
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Ambassador Shrinivasan Raghuraman visited community members at the Friendly Neighborhood Senior Center on September 11th to talk about cutting edge research on venomous cone snails. Researchers have derived potential new forms of drugs to treat diabetes, chronic pain, and other ailments from the hundreds of different venoms made by different cone snail species. Shrinivasan recounted how researchers began investigating cone snail venom, and how the differences in behavior between individual species contributes to the variation in venom compounds.
Shrinivasan also passed around snail shells for attendees to see while participants asked excellent questions about the implications of his research.
Thank you Friendly Neighborhood Senior Center for hosting this presentation!
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Helena Lucente on the ASCB blog
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STEM Ambassador Helena Lucente
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Ambassador Helena Lucente's engagement experience with two members of the Utah State Legislature was published in a blog for the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). Read it here!
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Gabrielle Kardon in the News!
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Dr. Gabrielle Kardon, a STEM Ambassador, displaying mouse diaphragms on a microscope.
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STEM Ambassador Gabrielle Kardon recently hosted a tour in her lab, described in last month's newsletter. Shortly after, KSL aired a segment about the lab tour and the work being done in the Kardon Lab. Check it out here!
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Zombie Science Night with Kelsey Cone
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Click here to see a video interview with STEM Ambassador Kelsey Cone at Watchtower Cafe!
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Ambassador and virologist Kelsey Cone partnered with the Watchtower Cafe to create a fun night of pop culture zombie trivia, facts about real zombie-like infections, and an interactive Disease Detective whodunit game. At the end of the event, Kelsey announced the Disease Detective winner to a packed room, sending one lucky person home with a zombie survival kit.
Thank you to Watchtower Cafe for hosting Kelsey and to the volunteers who made the Disease Detective game possible!
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STEM Ambassador Reflections
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We are excited to feature several articles from STEM Ambassadors in this month’s newsletter. Read about their engagement experiences below!
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Ambassador Gregory Handy presents notecards about the mathematics of climbing to Splore.
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My name is Gregory Handy, a STEM Ambassador from the Mathematics Department at the University of Utah. Over the past several months, I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Splore, a non-profit organization that specializes in leading accessible outdoor adventures. Throughout the year, I’ve participated in cross-country skiing and rock climbing trips, during which I have the opportunity to discuss the mathematical concepts that can be found in each activity. Splore’s main goal as an organization is to make the outdoors accessible to anyone, regardless of age or physical ability, and during these trips, I attempted to do the same with mathematics. Splore really appreciated having this outside knowledge during their trips, so much so that they wanted to have a little bit of it on all of their trips. This led us to the idea of creating informational notecards that captured my key talking pointing.
With the help of the STEMAP staff, I created 2 front and back notecards summarizing my main ideas. These notecards were self-explanatory, included pictures, and while containing mathematical details, were accessible to the general public. However, they were not complete until we met with the Splore staff and received invaluable feedback. In the end, I added new talking points and printed three sizes: single-page, notecard size, and credit card size. A size for every adventure.
I encourage all STEM Ambassadors to consider working with Splore. This engagement really forced me to think how my field in mathematics relates to nature. Further, working with Splore gave me good feedback on how successful my event was, and offered a way for my engagement to last beyond my individual trips.
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Krista Carlson at the Utah State Prison
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STEM Ambassador Krista Carlson
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I recently had the privilege to present at the Utah State Prison through the INSPIRE program. The first thing I noticed when we entered the waiting room was the relaxed atmosphere, which I was not expecting in a prison environment. The guards and other visitors were friendly and eager to hear about presentation topic. The impromptu Q&A session in the lobby was good preparation for the discussion that was about to take place!
The presentation was held in the gym and was attended by about 40 inmates, a majority of whom had already attended at least one other INSPIRE lecture. I received a wide range questions from many different individuals during the presentation that demonstrated audience understanding. However, based on the questions I received during the presentation and the written feedback, I will make two major adjustments to improve the presentation for the next event. Firstly, I will prepare a graphical overview of the lecture to review at the beginning of the presentation. In eliminating the words from my slides, I removed the lecture overview and could have done a better job in preparing the audience about the topics that were about to be covered. Secondly, while I truly enjoyed the spirited dialog that occurred throughout the presentation, next time I will let the audience know that I will only be taking a few questions after each slide with time at the end for additional questions. Taking a few questions during the presentation allowed for engagement and individual recognition, but I ended up taking too many which broke up the flow and potentially distracted the audience.
Thanks again to Matt, Skye, and Nalini for helping me prepare for this awesome experience, and I look forward to participating again in the near future!
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Pratiti Tagore at the Girls Transition Center
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Ambassador Pratiti Tagore at the Girls Transition Center
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My STEM engagement event at the Girls’ Transition Center was spent in discussing water issues in Utah. I spoke to them about my country, my childhood, how I started studying water – and they were intrigued. I could see passionate future scientists as soon as we started our ‘pollution’ activity. It was messy and amazing to see the girls point out pollution sources and have so much fun with pretend polluted storm water runoff.
As we listed sources of pollution, I was surprised by their deep thinking connecting human actions to environmental degradation. The purpose of this activity was to encourage the girls to explore water issues in Utah, and environment issues in general. Their observations such as ‘fracking contaminates water’ questions such as ‘will turning off the shower while soaping save water?’ makes me a very happy Ambassador!
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9/27/17
9/29/17
10/05/17
10/05/17
10/13/17
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Pratiti Tagore at the Salt Lake County Jail
Ariadne Penalva at Liberty Senior Center
Lauren Williams at Magna Senior Center
STEMAP Annual Celebration- RSVP now!
Deadline to complete final engagement activity
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