May 08 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine

Today's students, tomorrow's researchers

Lab takes science to local communities

Photos by Sandra Valdez

Expanding Your Horizons

More than 120 junior-high and high-school girls learned firsthand about science, engineering, and math at the annual Expanding Your Horizons conference co-sponsored by the Laboratory. In the top left photo, Laboratory staff member Emily Schultz-Fellenz of Environmental Geology and Spatial Analysis gives advice about building a sturdy bridge to Katrina Thrulow, left, of New Mexico Academy for Math and Sciences and Felisha Lopez of Penasco Middle School.

Bottom left: Ariel Castaneda, right, and Chanell Martinez, both of Pojoaque Middle School, examine their bridge at the Expanding Your Horizons conference. Weights in the center of the bridge create the buckling effect; the exercise tests how much weight their bridge can hold.episode of CSI: NY, a forensic-based police show on TV. Though smaller, it too features a touch screen with graphical user interface, digital camera, GPS, microphone, memory card slot, and wireless Bluetooth and WiFi communications. The new, smaller devices are being used to track bird flu outbreaks in places such as Alaska, California, Russia, Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Canada, Ecuador, and parts of Africa.

Science at San Ildefonso

Kyle Benavidez, top right, uses a soldering gun to make a robot during a robotics workshop at San Ildefonso Pueblo. The Tribal Relations team in the Government Affairs Office partners with the Laboratory Foundation and Northern New Mexico College to sponsor the Pueblo Education Outreach program.

Parent volunteer Sophie Calabaza of the National Nuclear Security Administration's Los Alamos Site Office, bottom roght, helps fourth-grade student Alix Luarkie attach his rocket to a makeshift launchpad during a rocketry workshop. Students learn the basics of aerodynamics, weight and balance, propulsion, and basic geometry in the rocketry workshop.