Trip #2: Gallup Middle
School, Tohatchi High School, Chee Dodge Elementary School
After the semester ended, 6 undergraduate
students at Colorado State University went with Brian Jones
of the Little Shop of Physics for a road trip to
the southern Navajo reservation. We presented a series
of programs and workshops:
2 days of programs at Gallup Middle School.
1 teacher workshop at Gallup Middle School, to which
teachers from the area were invited.
1 day of programs at Tohatchi High School.
1 day of programs at Chee Dodge Elementary School.
We also toured the community of Navajo Pine, hosted by
teachers from the local school (who had been at our
workshop) and visited Canyon de Chelly.
Click here for more photos.
During the week, we presented programs to over 2,000 K-12
students and workshops to over 20 teachers. It was a very
full week in a part of the world that receives very few
outside programs.
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 2000+ students had 1 hour of time with our
hands-on experiments, aided by student assistants.
• The trip allowed us to continue to develop our
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!