Newsletter No. 10 - February 1, 2010  |
Festival Dates: Expo on the National Mall:
10/10/10 - 10/24/10 10/23 & 10/24
Last Online Info Session for Exhibitors this Tuesday!
Online Info Session for Satellite Event Organizers this Wednesday!
Email rkiefer@mindspring.com if you need registration info.
Partner Organizations: Five new Nifty Fifty speakers have been
added. Find out who! Don't forget to
nominate your Nifty Fifty.
Attend a free teacher workshop on March 6 to learn how to prepare your student team for our You Can Do The Rubik's Cube Tournament.
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Festival Partners: Help Us Identify a Nobel Laureate in Your Community!
The Nobel Prize. In the field of research, it's the highest honor that can be awarded a scientist for exemplary achievement.
But however lofty this award might be, the bottom line is that Nobel Laureates are first and foremost human beings who, as youngsters, often went through the same challenges, joys and experiences that most kids do while growing up and preparing for a career.
It is the 'human', 'up close and personal' side of Nobel Laureates that the USA Science & Engineering Festival aims to get across to young students in the Festival's Lunch With a Laureate sessions which will take place in cities across the country. The sessions are a rare opportunity for a small group of middle and high school students to engage in an informal conversation with a Nobel Prize-winning scientist over a brown bag lunch.
Festival Partners: If you know of a Nobel Laureate in your institute, organization or professional network, please let us know! We would like to invite the Nobel Laureate to participate in a "Lunch with a Laureate" session in their locale during the weeks leading up to the Festival Expo.
The lunch meetings are a chance for students to learn first-hand about some of the most exciting scientific discoveries, to hear about personal aspects of the Laureate's life (including childhood and early student years), the trials and tribulations of fast-paced research, and to find out what makes a Nobel Laureate tick. These lunches, typically hosted by School Districts or individual schools, will be taking place in as many U.S. cities as possible, including all over the greater Washington D.C. area.
Nine Laureates -ranging in specialties from physiology and medicine to chemistry and physics - have been confirmed thus far to take part in individual lunches. Here is just a brief look at some of them:
William Phillips won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for his contributions to laser cooling, a technique to slow the movement of gaseous atoms in order to better study them. Even as a seventh grader growing up in Pennsylvania, William remembers having a laboratory in the basement of the family home where he experimented with rockets and carbon arcs.
Robert Grubbs (born in rural Kentucky in the house built by his father) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005 for work in the field of olefin metathesis, an organic reaction which has gained widespread use in research and industry for making products ranging from medicines and polymers to enhanced fuels.
 John Mather, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work in helping to cement the big-bang theory of the universe using the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite. Says John of his childhood: "My interest in science started quite early. My earliest school recollection, from age 6, is actually of mathematics, realizing that one could fill an entire page with digits and never come to the largest possible number, so I saw what was meant by infinity."
Other Laureates signed up as participants include:
Leon Lederman, Nobel winner in Physics in 1988 for his work with neutrinos (elementary particles that travel at the speed of light);
Dudley Herschbach, Nobel recipient in Chemistry in 1986 for shedding light on the behavior of individual molecules in a chemical reaction rather than just looking at the overall behavior of large molecular masses;
Phillip Sharp, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1993 for his work in genetics;
Kary Mullis, 1993 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of the Polymerase Chain Reaction - the process that allows amplification of specific DNA sequences;
Alan Heeger, 2000 recipient in Chemistry for the work he and colleagues did in discovering and development of conductive polymers.
Click here to find out more about these Nobel Laureates!
"Through our informal lunch program, we hope to spark students' interest and to introduce them to a real science hero in their community," says Larry Bock. "For most, this will be their first time meeting a Nobel Award-winning scientist and we expect that this experience will inspire them in thinking about their own futures."
Please forward the names and contact info of the Laureates you would like to recommend to: Larry Bock at biobock@mac.com
Details about how individual schools can be involved will be announced soon.
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Sponsorship Has Its Privileges When you become a Sponsor for the 2010 USA Science & Engineering Festival, you are not only playing a significant role in helping motivate, educate and prepare our nation's youth for some of the most challenging areas of technology, you are also telling America that you are proud of that role! Moreover, you enjoy a whole range of sponsor benefits - all designed to increase awareness of your organization amongst the hundreds of thousands of individuals who will attend the Festival, and the thousands more worldwide who will view our website. In addition to sponsors being featured on the Festival website and in our bi-weekly e-newsletter (see below), we will showcase your involvement through various means before and during the Festival. For example, your corporate logo will be featured on thousands of Festival posters to be posted at schools throughout the greater Washington DC area and by over 300 partner organizations. All Festival events, including the Expo on the National Mall, will feature sponsor signage. In collaboration with our many media partners, we will feature print ads, radio and TV spots, and well-placed Metro advertisements in the Washington DC area. Higher level sponsors will have the opportunity to speak at Festival press gatherings and opening events, and all sponsors will be invited to a private Sponsor event. Levels of visibility coincide with level of sponsorship, as the Festival Sponsor Benefits Grid indicates. Here are some examples that were employed during last year's San Diego Science Festival (the event that gave birth to this year's USA Science & Engineering Festival): Click here for an example of a TV ad Here is an example of a print ad: C'mon and show America your participation! Become a Festival Sponsor today! To see a list of our current sponsors, click here.For more information on becoming a corporate sponsor, please contact: Larry Bock 760-846-3473 biobock@mac.com |
North Carolina's First Science Festival Celebrates Triangle Region as National Leader in Science and Engineering
Planned as a Satellite Event for the USA Science & Engineering Festival, the Triangle Science Festival is the first of its kind to be held in North Carolina.
 Founder Roger Harris, who has been working on the project since August 2008, is delighted to partner with the USA Science & Engineering Festival. "We're grateful to the Festival's organizers' guidance and leadership," he says. "Being an official Satellite Event takes our vision from a dream to reality."
Harris emphasizes the event's benefits: "Our Festival provides Triangle individuals, businesses and institutions the opportunity to connect directly with the public about science. Participants will show the public that science is central to their everyday lives and the Triangle's economy, environment and future development."
The long-term goal is to raise the Triangle's profile nationwide. The Festival will highlight the region's national leadership not only in cutting-edge research, but also in bringing that research to market.
Activities and programs will showcase local scientists' and educators' ability to communicate the meaning of such research to the public. "We invite teachers, students, businesses, scientists, or anyone to host an activity or program," says Harris, who has two degrees in the biological sciences.
The Triangle provides a rich source of scientific prowess from which to draw for the Festival's events. It is home to Duke University, North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina which bolster the world-renowned Research Triangle Park. The Park boasts several Fortune 500 companies as well as numerous start-ups spun off from local science and engineering research.
Harris' enthusiasm is infectious. "How lucky we are to live in a region that is such a powerhouse of science and engineering. That's something we want to celebrate!"
Visit the website for more information about the Triangle Science Festival:
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 THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS
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NuVasive - FEI - Case Western Reserve University
Silicon Valley Bank - Bechtel
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
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Create a Festival Jingle
Grand Prize: $500
(and knowing that your Jingle will be sung by thousands of science enthusiasts)
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Visit us online at www.usasciencefestival.org
New logo design by MORRIS
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Festival Host:
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Register your team for our
You Can Do the Rubik's
Cube Tournament
Click here for more info
In partnership with
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Sponsorship Opportunities
Help us create the largest celebration of science and engineering in the World.
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Be part of the
National Celebration:
Host a Satellite Event
in Your Community Find out how |
Does your School or Choir
want to be part of the
Powers of Ten
performance on
10/10/10?
Contact us!
Host a Festival Event
Find out more!
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