Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Guest Post: Lauren Tompkins on Expanding Your Horizons

Guest Post from Lauren Tompkins a postdoc in the University of Chicago ATLAS group.

Last February, as my first winter as a University of Chicago postdoc wore on, I became restless with my everyday routine.  I was doing interesting work on an electronics upgrade to the Atlas Experiment at the LHC, but felt disconnected from life outside of the Ivory Tower.  I thought that doing some outreach, particularly in a city as large and diverse as Chicago, would restore that connection for me.  As was mentioned in a previous post, finding an existing program is a good way to get started in outreach, so I set out to find a program that I was sure would exist in Chicago, Expanding Your Horizons (EYH).  

EYH is an international organization of over 70 one-day conferences for middle school girls.  At the conferences, women from the local STEM community do hands-on workshops with the girls, showing them that STEM careers are fun and accessible, hoping to empower them to take their place in the science and technology world.  Jessica and I participated in EYH several times through UC Berkeley’s Society of Women in the Physical Sciences.  Our perennial workshop was build-your-own radio.  Our group spent less than $500 on simple crystal radio kits which we helped the 45 girls construct during the workshop. Watching their faces light up when they first heard a transmission on a radio they constructed by hand was a treat. EYH seemed like a perfect way to get involved in outreach.  

A google search turned up no entries for EYH Chicago, and so, with the support of my boss, Young-Kee Kim, I decided to start one.   I knew that with three major research universities and two national labs in the area, finding fellow planners would be easy, and it would be a great opportunity to meet other women invested in outreach.

That was in March.  It has now been several months of planning and there is a fantastic group of organizers in place.  We are a group of ten women, half from University of Chicago, half from University of Illinois at Chicago.  We are mostly graduate students and postdocs, evenly distributed between research science and STEM education.  Many of us have been involved in EYH in the past, either as participants, workshop leaders or organizers.  Everyone is in charge of some aspect of the planning.  I oversee the budget and the overall planning process, and I’m gaining experience in project management, a valuable skill in my research field.  Some people are in charge of recruiting workshop leaders, others oversee outreach to teachers and students, as well as more mundane but vital details such as facilities and compliance with the University rules.  Our workshop is scheduled for March 23rd and we plan to host 200 girls on the campus of University of Chicago.  The University has been very supportive, providing us with start-up funding and space in the physics and chemistry buildings.  The girls will have the opportunity to do 3 workshops, you can check the evolving schedule on our website.

Our main challenges are twofold.  We are targeting schools from underprivileged neighborhoods, which primarily serve students of color.  We would like to involve STEM professional women who look like them, but sadly, there are very few.  Second, we are trying to inspire the girls to take their place in the STEM world, but that world is much broader than academic research so we need to find workshop leaders from outside academia.  To overcome these two challenges we are reaching out to community groups and professional organizations to try to identify relevant workshop leaders. For example, we would love to have a structural engineer help the girls design a building, or a forensic scientist guide them through a mini crime scene.  A computer programmer could show them how to write an ap and a sound engineer could help them mix a track. (I didn’t come up with this one on my own--it was a favorite of the girls at the Mills EYH!).

Planning an EYH conference isn’t for everyone, but I highly encourage anyone to get involved, either as a workshop leader or as a volunteer, in your local EYH.  You can find a conference near you by going to the national website’s conference locator, and find examples and resources for putting on a workshop.

4 comments :

Unknown said...

Wow. I love that you saw a need and stepped up to fill it! It's really impressive what you've made happen so far.

A potentially useful local resource would be to take advantage of the citizen science group at the Adler Planetarium. They have a group of about 12 designers, software developers, educators, and astronomers. It's really because of this mix of skills in one place that they're able to create the great zooniverse products -- not just the astronomy-focused projects like galaxy zoo and planethunters, but in health (cancer search), climate (cyclone data, ship logs), etc. They run a lot of workshops for kids and might be interested in creating something specific for your needs. I'd be happy to put you in touch with them, if it's of interest (it's a little tricky finding actual email addresses).

The other local resource that comes to mind (in seeing your bit about having someone run a workshop on mixing a track) is http://rockforkids.org/ I saw Mike Herrero give a TEDx talk in Evanston on this and was really impressed. He's found a really smart way of connecting with chicago inner-city kids -- empowering them through mastering the technology and enjoying the creativity of writing and recording music.

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for the suggestions!! I will definitely look into them.

Nicolle Zellner said...

I find great joy in my public outreach events. Another good resource is the local library. They usually host a lecture series of some sort.

Jennifer Hoffman said...

Lauren, I'm so glad you are carrying the EYH torch forward! Good luck with your event! -- Jennifer