Science Safari, and the end of the blog.

Back from the big teacher trip around Utah. 12 teachers participated, and we went to the Delta Coal-Fired Power plant, looked at oil and gas drilling sites, visited with bio-remediation specialists, talked to the Governor's Energy Advisor and a rep. from Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. We built stuff and made stuff and learned stuff and looked at stuff and figured stuff out. Then I came home and slept for approximately 48 straight hours, with occasional breaks to eat or go ride my horse. These trips need two leaders. I've done the experiment now, and am certain of it.

My gut (!) tells me that it was a very successful trip. All the teachers were engaged, and active in the process, asking good questions and getting involved. I overheard several conversations about how they would use this information in their classrooms, and how cool their students would find it that they got to stick their heads (almost) inside the 3,000 degree boiler at Delta.

Today, I am delighted to find myself back at work with my friends---going to lunch, and catching up on all I've missed. It's good to be back. But it means the end of this blog! Maybe I'll start another one somewhere else. I'll let you know. Maybe it will be 'professor grrrl'. ; )

Science Unwrapped

So, up in Logan, they are doing something pretty fun. Once per month, on the last Friday, they have a public lecture by a 'local' scientist, followed by an activity for the public. They call it Science Unwrapped.

I was invited to give a talk about 'The Lives of the Stars'... no, not THOSE stars. ; ) The kind that fuse hydrogen into helium. Shane and I put our heads together, and came up with what I thought was a really fun activity. We modified the stellar evolution flowchart to be a little simpler (leaving out some of the intricacies about which element gets fused when), and then turned it into a scavenger hunt! They could walk around the quad, and fill in the flowchart as they followed the branch points to figure out the answers. Shane put the whole thing 'to scale' in time, so that people could really get a sense that stuff happens at the beginning and the end, but in the middle, there's just not much going on for a REALLY long time. He made up some spiffy posters and handouts---apparently, his copy center charges much less than ours. At the middle of the main sequence part of the lifetime, there was lemonade and cookies, which fits in with the current age of the Sun, and the fact that now, for this tiny smitch of time, lemonade and cookies exist in the Universe.

Anyway. A rousing success.

Today, I'm getting final details taken care of for this teacher thing next week. Hooray for Kinko's!

Montana dreamin'

Just back from Bozeman, Montana (with a brief 32-hour stop at the homestead---including the Superbowl party!). I killed. I say that because I was talking to the public about interferometry and Fourier transforms, and not only did they laugh at my jokes, and ask lots of good questions, but they asked me to come back in July for their big Yellowstone star party. (Picture me blowing on my fingernails and polishing them on my lapels. If I wore lapels.)

Here are a couple of photos of me and my new friends Richard and Melanie at Yellowstone! The most amazing thing is the way the steam condenses on the trees. The shopping bag photo is in front of Old Faithful, and contains a totally sweet jigsaw puzzle of a geologic map, and a book called 'The Mind of the Raven', which is mostly about ravens being smarter than you ever imagined. Gosh. Nature. Wow.

Plague! which reminds me...

So, I awoke this morning to a report on NPR that a man on the Navajo reservation has just been diagnosed with bubonic plague. Now, everyone who knows me knows that I have a weird interest/obsession with this particular bacterium. (I know why---it's all perfectly logical, but it's complicated).

But this reminded me to tell you about Saturday, when it took me TWO HOURS to get through Shiprock, NM, a wide spot in the road, because of the big Navajo Sundowner fair that was happening. There were far more people there than the town was designed to accommodate. Ferris wheels, and food and craft stands lining the road, and people walking just everywhere, in the rain. The Navajo police were there, directing traffic at every intersection, and there were entire fields full of parked RVs and cars and tents. Here's what the NEW YORK TIMES says about it:

Shiprock Navajo Fair, Shiprock. The oldest and most traditional Navajo fair, it features a rodeo, dancing and singing, a parade, and arts-and-crafts exhibits. Call tel. 800/448-1240 for details. Early October.

So you know it's a big deal, because the NYT generally doesn't concern itself with little festivals.

Oddly enough, it seemed to be the custom to throw all the trash on the ground. It seemed mostly confined to the median of the road, but the place was completely packed, so maybe that's just where I could SEE the trash. There were no trash cans anywhere that I could see, so I guess the idea was to go around and clean it all up afterwards? The dogs were having a field day. I saw one with a whole, raw chicken in his mouth, just trotting down the road with his tail gently wagging. That dog was having a good day!

One of the more interesting things was the fact that not one NOT ONE of the food stands was a professional business. They were all just mom and pop operations, set up to sell fry bread or Navajo tacos or mutton stew. Sadly, there was no way I was going to find a place to park and get out and try some! I just had to stare at the tasty goodness from inside my glass and steel bubble.

At any rate, it happens in early October every year, so if you were looking for a way to explore the culture where you wouldn't feel uncomfortable, this is probably it!