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LABRats: The Mad Scientist's Club Meets Scouting
Some random reader sent in this note: "The Society for Amateur Scientists (SAS), an organization that exists to help those with a love of science make new discoveries, has launched a youth program called LABRats to help young people do real science. There's a white paper available describing the program, which is something of a cross between the Mad Scientist's Club and the Boy/Girl Scouts. The idea is to train a small army of young scientists and engineers, 12-18 years old, to do experiments and solve problems in their communities by teaming them up with adult scientist/engineer mentors. Those who advance through the ranks of the program would have to complete a series of experiments, projects, and other tasks that demonstrate proficiency in the basics of science and engineering. The creators -- including Shawn Carlson, a MacArthur Fellow -- aim to make the highest rank comparable in difficulty to Eagle Scout. One of the SAS local chapters in Connecticut built an astronomical observatory, which was used by high school student Lisa Glukhovsky to measure the distance to near-earth asteroids. She was one of three Grand Prize winners in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for 2003. It sounds like a great idea to me. Sure, I'm a little worried that a few misguided youth might take the program's motto -- "Do the experiment!" -- a bit too literally when working on their Nuclear Engineering merit badge. But then again, maybe someday a LABRat will spot an asteroid with our name on it -- and tell NASA."
I really like the outline but am not sure how I feel about "no mixed gender groups". I can see the point about social issues interfering with the kids learning, but I just have to think that a girls group would end up a bit more neglected or simply non-existant.
I would love to volunteer time for such an organization to help local kids, but am not sure I could get behind that limitation. It's still very conceptual though, who knows if they will get anywhere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I started the "Society for Amature Radio Scientists", but for some reason, no one wanted to join.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Several years ago I did some science enrichment work with a Boys and Girls' club in South Central LA. It was a mixed-gender group of 11-13 year-olds from the surrounding neighborhood (a scary 'hood, too: bars in every window, pit bulls in every yard, and burned-out vehicles and graffiti everywhere). The counselors held the children to very high standards of conduct, so we never encountered gender issues in the lab.
BTW, in several hundred presentations to groups ranging from pre-school through grad school, I have never seen students dive into a technology project with as much drive and intelligence. After 2 weeks with Lego Mindstorms and books about remote exploration, we held a final showcase. After my brief lecture about remote environments, every last student was just bursting with questions. Some questions were better than I had heard anywhere else. We then broke for technical demos. Because hardware was scarce, they had devised a team approach to tear-down and rebuild that let them accomplish it in 2 minutes flat (vs. typically 20-45 minutes for an adult). Thus they were able to showcase many original designs in less than an hour.
The highest-performing assembly was designed by a girl, a fact that none of the students thought unusual or remarkable. They just said, "We saved Nancy's for last because it's the fastest!"
To me, this experience is a strong argument for mixed-gender sci/tech enrichment, especially in neighborhoods with otherwise poor infrastructure.
"His editorial exploits have included an assignment from the National Enquirer to evaluate the feasibility of eavesdropping on Howard Hughes by laser (it was possible, but Forrest declined to take part) and getting dropped by Scientific American as their 'The Amateur Scientist' columnist because he admitted to the magazine's editors that he was a born-again Christian."
The Forrest Mims Engineer's Notebook
I just want to point out that Mr. Mims wasn't dropped from "Scientific American" exactly because he is a born-again Christian. He was dropped because he is a Creationist. "Scientific American" is just one of the many bigoted publications that refuses to deal reasonably with the subject of Creationism. As a consequence of their firing Mr. Mims, I have refused to buy "Scientific American" for the last several years.
Another blurb on Forrest Mims from another site: ISCID: Forrest M. Mims III
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)