Posted on behalf of Materials Girl

It’s late October, I’m running on ~7 hours sleep for the last 48 hours, and deadlines are fast approaching (not to mention my quantum midterm in 2.5 hours)! Must… sleep… study…

My original intent – up until yesterday when my parents offered a “bribe” for staying in school – was to get a job after I graduate next June. After getting that “break” for a year or two, I could head off to grad school. I’ve already started sending off resumes to big companies… Considering the new aforementioned development, however, I’m considering staying at my university for a Master’s in materials science & engineering – possibly ceramics, in which case I have to study for the GRE and write essays now!

So the debate in question is: break to work or grad school ASAP? I’ve heard a few arguments, but not much from scientists. Go!

I (that would be Anna) have been trying to get out and about, leaving the cozy confines of the Nature office in Cambridge to keep current with what’s happening in the scientific community in Boston.

Last Friday, I stopped by Science Outreach Night at the MIT Museum, hosted by the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (from their website: “COPUS is a grassroots effort whose goal is to engage sectors of the public in science to increase their understanding of the nature of science and its value to society”). The event brought together various science outreach groups from MIT and the greater Boston area to network and share ideas on how to best educate the general public (and importantly, children) about science. The evening featured talks by educators, demos, booths from organizations, and an open bar (!!), all set against the undeniably geeky-cool exhibits at the MIT museum, which include models of teeny electric cars which can be stacked together and plugged into the city’s power grid, and tanks of wild type and mutant zebrafish, for visual comparison purposes. As I said, geeky and cool at the same time.

One of the 22 organizations represented at Friday night’s networking event was MIT Sea Grant, a program in place throughout the coastal and Great Lakes states, devoted to teaching K-12 kids about marine biology. Sea Grant programs include Adopt-a-Boat, in which students visit commercial fishing boats and interact with the fisherman, Eelgrass restoration which teaches students how to grow eelgrass and how to “restore, conserve, and manage our fragile marine ecosystems.” The program that really caught my eye however, had an appropriately web-geeky component.

Sea Perch provides students with a kit containing all the parts necessary to build a remotely operated underwater vehicle. The students build the robot from the ground up, including welding the circuitry, water proofing sensitive components, and optimizing functionality. The robots can be outfitted to “collect environmental data such as light, depth, and temperature via sensors”, collect water and sediment samples, record temperature, underwater sounds, and “explore underwater habitats.” The coolest part (as if this wasn’t cool enough) is that the collected data is contributed (I believe) to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) repository of coastal water conditions. The students’ data thus amounts to citizen monitoring of water quality, benefiting both the students and the scientific community.

While researchers can choose to include or exclude students’ data, the students are left with a sense of validation in that their data are available for use by real, grown-up scientists, and are being taken seriously. I think that this sort of support of a student’s efforts by the scientific community can be hugely beneficial to the development of scientific curiosity, interest, and importantly, confidence.

I was so taken with the various exhibits at Science Outreach night that I completely forgot about the open bar. That’s saying something, folks.