During Spring Break, 8 undergraduate students at Colorado State University went with Brian Jones of the Little Shop of Physics and Ty Smith of Native American Student Services to Fruitland, New Mexico and Ignacio Colorado for a week of school programs.
2 days of programs at Ojo Amarillo School, including an evening open house for families.
1 teacher workshop with Ojo Amarillo teachers and teachers from other schools.
1 teacher workshop with teachers from several schools at the Southern Ute Education Center.
2 days of programs at the Southern Ute Education Center.
During the week, we presented programs to well over 1000 K-12 students, of all ages, and presented workshops to over 30 teachers. We also participated in cultural activities at Alex Benally's Hogan and at Aztec Ruins National Monument.
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Highlights of the week:
• Teachers at workshops took home 10 hands-on experiments they could use in classes, such as "Writing with Light", a nice application of the photon picture of light (in honor of Einstein and WYP 2005).
• All 1000+ students had 1 hour of time with our hands-on experiments, aided by student assistants.
• The family evening at Ojo drew hundreds of people to the school on a Monday evening.
• The trip allowed us to develop a partnership with Colorado State University's Native American Student Services office. This is a wonderful partnership. Several NASS students and alums took part in programs, and NASS was able to make contacts at new schools. The partnership allowed us to receive a very warm welcome at schools, and generally made folks much more receptive to our visit.
All of this would not have been possible without the WYP 2005 grant, a point we were sure everyone knew!