COPUS Satellite Events

COPUS is pleased to be partnering with the USA Science & Engineering Festival! This is a wonderful opportunity to carry forward the great momentum generated by our celebration of Year of Science 2009 - and to strengthen the voice of science through our collaborative community! This will be the first truly national celebration of Science!

What makes an Event a Festival satellite event?

Whether the event is simple or extravagant; collaborative or hosted by one organization or group, the following will always be true:

  • It uses the USA Science Festival branding
  • It is registered on the USA Science Festival Web site as an event
  • It takes place on the same dates as the USASEF Expo: October 23 and 24, 2010
  • The event organizers will facilitate participation in the connecting event (see below)
  • It celebrates science, and the contributions of science to our lives in a way that is fun, hands on, personal, and engaging for the public.

Here are some of the ideas that are brewing and ways that they might connect to the DC event.

What makes an Event a Festival satellite event?

  • Host a party! Provide cake, play science themed games or hands on activities focusing on a theme or suite of activities of your choosing. Engage attendees to participate in national, connecting activity.
  • A local quiz show modeled after the TV program, Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
  • A scavenger hunt, where participants are invited to find science in unsuspecting places.
  • Science Bees held at the local and regional levels, similar to the Geography Bee.
  • Science lab open house in which science labs and companies host an open house for local high school students, providing opportunities to talk with the scientists.
  • Dinner with a Scientist – A sit-down dinner for students, teachers, and scientists. A teacher and about 10 of his or her students are joined by a scientist for one course of the dinner. Scientists talk briefly about their work and career paths. Then the scientists rotate to a different table for the next course. Students and teachers speak with 3-4 scientists over the course of the evening. Modeled after an event put on by the Oakland Unified School District, involving about 200 people: http://science.ousd.k12.ca.us/dinner.htm.
  • Science walk-a-thon – Organize your community to log enough cumulative miles to get to the moon (238, 857 miles). Or even the sun (93 million miles)! Include signs along the way pointing out interesting distances and facts (E.g., A cheetah running at top speed could run from here to the red post in 30 seconds. How long does it take you? Science cafés – These popular events bring scientists into conversation with community members at a local pub, café, or restaurant. See http://www.sciencecafes.org/ to learn about organizing a café.
  • Science at the Farmers' Market - Set up booths to teach about agricultural science, food webs, or food science to explore questions like: What happens when you fry an egg? How does yeast work? Why are some cookies chewy and some crunchy?
  • Specialty science – Co-host an event about science where you might least expect it – E.g., the Science of Wine at a local winery, the Physics of Baseball at a local ballpark.
  • Science behind the scenes – An individual and their family or a student and their class could win a prize tour of a behind-the-scenes tour of a research center, museum, zoo or aquarium.
  • Science time capsule - Collect objects that represent science in 2010. Include a list of the 10 big questions that science is seeking to answer.

If you have other ideas to share, we'd love to hear from you!

And once you have selected your satellite event, don't forget to register the event! Click here if your community plans to participate.

Connecting Events Across the Nation

While each of you is hosting a satellite event and thousands are celebrating in the National Mall, there will be a single activity that will connect us all together. Yet to be selected, this activity will be easily replicable, science related, engaging, and fun! Ideally, the activity will provide some sort of data that can be displayed on a map or a screen at each of the events and in the National Mall to reflect the nation-wide celebration of science. Here are some ideas that have been suggested:

  • Science Twitter – Everyone responds to the same question, e.g., “What will science do for us in the 21 st century? As the messages are received, the answers will be displayed using a wordle. What is wordle, you ask? Visit this site: http://www.wordle.net/
  • Science quilt/mosaic - individuals submit a picture of science, and we create a computer generated quilt to incorporate them
  • Litter pick-up with a rolling tabulation coming from each region.

We would love to hear your suggestions for a nationwide activity! Send us your ideas!

 


© COPUS 2009
National Science Foundation The cognizant fiduciary body for the COPUS and Year of Science 2009 projects is the American Institute of Biological Sciences Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(3) scientific association founded in 1947 as a part of the National Academy of Sciences, and an independent, member-governed organization since the 1950s. Support for COPUS workshops by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. EAR-0606600, EAR-0628790, and EAR-0814048. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.