OUTREACH
Growing up I had an amazing family who would always put the education of my brothers and I before everything else. We went to Kriterion Montessori in San Antonio and I found out that everyone had their own style of learning and that by understanding your own you could play to your strengths while addressing your weaknesses and improving. I also found out that if you really worked hard and weren’t told what your were supposed to be learning then you could expand your knowledge base very quickly; I discovered this when I moved from Montessori to public school and found that most 13 year-olds hadn’t worked through entire mathematics text books to Algebra 2, transcribed and proved whole books of Euclidean geometry as a class, or did Shakespeare’s plays. I was by no means the only person in my class to do this and as such I thought it was quite normal, moving to public school showed me how lucky I was for the small class sizes and intimate relationship with my teachers and the love of learning it fostered in my brothers and I. Unfortunately, whether due to financial or location circumstances, not everyone is able to have this kind of education and so I want to help spread some of the joy and individuality of learning by incorporating as much STEM outreach into my session as a “Mars” astronaut as possible.
The RSoFM page is the main source of material for the Real Science on Fake Mars project. This project was a random thought I had floating around until I shared it with my mom and some of her colleagues and peers in the STEM outreach community in Clark County Las Vegas. I must say the team assembled from teachers, informal educators and education community leaders is astounding and they’ve worked miracles for this project. Look into the RSoFM page for more information and if you have an idea for an event or a project and would like the HI-SEAS III crew to be a part of it please shoot me an email.
Checkout some of our great outreach videos, these address questions asked us by everyone from elementary school kids to University level ethics class with a bit of Russian culture for balance:
Russian Independence Day, Nov 7
Oakland University Discussion on Gender and Diversity
Oakland University Discussion on Safety
domesoph 