Congressman Mike Simpson

Congressman Mike Simpson is my representative in the Idaho Congress.  His office called and asked me to make an appointment to visit with him.  He had gotten notice that I was here as an Einstein Fellow and he wanted to talk with me about what that meant.  We had a nice visit.  He didn't talk about educational issue even when I tried to steer the conversation in that direction.  I did learn that he was a dentist in Idaho Falls and grew up in Blackfoot.  We talked about the diversity of Idaho with urban and rural.

Congressman Simpson did say that he thought the big problem with education in Idaho was a lack of trust and fear.  The Superintendent of Education doesn't trust the Board of Education who don't trust the Legislators who don't trust the Idaho Educators Association and the teachers don't trust anyone.  If he were the governor, he would bring together a representative of all stakeholders at some sort of retreat where they could talk and start some real communication.

NSF Einstein Fellows poster session

Each year, the National Science Foundation hosts a poster session for all of the Einstein Fellows that work at the Foundation.  We each create a poster that tells about our background and educational interests.  Program Directors and others are invited to come and see the posters and visit with the Fellows. The purpose is for people at NSF to get to see who the Fellows are and what they are doing at their schools and during their fellowship.  I am posting my pictures from last year's and this year's poster session.
                                                                                                                                                                       

What do you think?  I think that I'm not getting older, I'm getting better!  (By the way, this year's picture is on the left, last year is on the right)

Leland Melvin, NASA

Each month Einstein Fellows get together to talk about business and what is happening in the fellowship. We meet at different agencies so that we can see where each of us work and find different places around the DC area that are involved in education and education policy.

This month we met at NASA Headquarters in SW DC.  Our special guest speaker was Leland Melvin, NASA Associate Administrator for Education.  He shared with us an incredible story of how his life got to where it is now.

As a young man, he wanted to play football, which he did in college and professionally.  During college he had an injury and while he was healing, a mentor suggested he take some engineering classes.  His response was, "Why, I only want to play football."  But he took the classes anyway and ended up getting a degree in material engineering.  After college another injury took him out of football and he was encouraged to apply to be an astronaut.  He did and was accepted.  But during training, he was injured and lost his hearing.  This stopped him from going into space (for a time) and got him involved in educational outreach.  There are many details that I am leaving out.  The main thing I took away from his story is that he thought he knew what he wanted to do - play football, but life took him on many different turns and all of them somehow prepared him for where he is now.  He has had many wonderful experiences and great disappointments and all of them have lead him to a place where he does what he loves and that is to help  people to "believe, inspire, and reach higher."

Leland is seated, the third from the left.  The rest are Einstein Fellows.

Leland as he is telling us the story of how in high school football he played wide end receiver.  The game is tied and the ball is thrown to him and...he misses it!  Unknown to him there is a pro football talent scout watching.  His coach, instead of pulling him out of the game, sends him back telling him that he can do it.  The ball comes to him again and this time, he catches it and makes the winning score.  His message was that sometimes we need someone to believe in us and give us a second, (or third or fourth) chance in life.

Hiking near Great Falls, VA

Today I went hiking with some people from NSF.  Once again, I drove my car.  Getting to the trail head was no problem, but coming back to DC I was supposed to get off the I-495 Beltway and take the George Washington Parkway.  Somehow I missed the exit and ended up on the 395 N.  I made it home, but it took twice as long.  I have been venturing out much more often and believe it or not, I am getting better at driving in DC.  We went hiking on the Difficult Run trail along the Potomac River.  After hiking with the group, I decided to drive another 5 miles to Great Falls National Park and hike a little more.  Good news was that they were waiving the Park fee because of the holiday.

Difficult Run Trail with the Potomac River in the background.

I did not know any of the people that showed up for the hike, but everyone was friendly and I had a good time.

This is Great Falls on the Potomac River.

The Potomac River looks much different here than it does a few miles down stream when it goes through Washington, DC. There it is wide and slow.  Here it is deep and wild.

The park ranger is explaining the lock system that was built to get boats around the falls.

Martin Luther King Jr Memorial

Because this is Martin Luther King Jr Holiday weekend, even though it was very cold, I decided to get out and walk down to his new Memorial.  On the way I stopped at Eastern Market and bought a knitted ear band to keep warmer and then the post office to mail one more Estimated Tax check.  Since they don't take any withholdings out of my fellowship stipend, I have to plan a lot more carefully for taxes.  The MLK Memorial is quite a distance from my house, about 24 blocks.  I walked down Independence Ave and up Constitution Ave.  This blog is a picture log of some of the sights along the way.

Jefferson Memorial viewed across the Tidal Pool

Lincoln Memorial.  Notice how blue the sky is.

"Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope" described on the side of the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial

 

I love to look at trees in the winter.  These are some of the cherry trees given to the US by Japan after WWII.  They grow all around the Tidal Pool and are the reason for the Cherry Blossom Festival in the sprin.

Korean War Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Viet Nam War Memorial.  You can see my reflection as I am taking the picture.                                                                                           

             

I stopped at the Air and Space Museum on my walk back home.  This is Amelia A plane and The Spirit of St. Louis plane.  I watched a presentation called Journey to the Stars in the planetarium theater.  It gave me a chance to warm up and give my feet a rest.

 As I left the Air and Space Museum, I saw this tree that apparently is very confused by the weather we have been having here in DC.  Everything is brown and dormant, except this tree which is covered with blooms. Hope you enjoyed sharing my walk in DC with me today.  Wish you could have been here with me and seen it for yourself.  I would have loved the company.

NSF Reverse Science Fair

One of the Einstein Fellows, Melissa , was asked by her Division to organize a "Reverse" Science Fair.  She partnered with former Einstein Fellow, Antoinette Pena and her 8th grade students.  Instead of the students doing science projects and having scientists come to judge, the Reverse Science Fair had the scientists do the projects and the students were the judges.  It turned out very well.  Every day for a week, the atrium at NSF was set up with tables and scientists demonstrating and talking about the science they work on at NSF and about 25 different students moved from display to display asking questions and engaging in hands on activities.

It was such a good idea.  It gave the NSF scientists an opportunity to share science that they are passionate about, and it gave the students a chance to learn some very interesting science.

Students learning about fossils and what a paleontologist does.

At this booth, students are learning about hot peppers and what makes them hot.  Then they tested to see if water or milk did a better job of cooling the heat after a taste test.

Several of us Einstein Fellows were also asked to do a science project.  I had a booth that showed some ways that computer scientists are making contribution to science in diverse and interesting ways.  I talked about digitizing 20 years of New York Times in less than 3 months using a type of crowd sourcing,  Google's fleet of computer driven cars that have driven 190,000 on California roads, and using super computers to test materials to make smaller, more powerful batteries that can charge faster and last longer. Then the students and I tested making batteries out of potatoes, lemons, limes, and apples.  

I don't know how much the kids learned, but I learned a lot about making a potato battery  

• potatoes generated more electricity than the lemon, lime, or apple, about 1 volt
• a penny works better than a copper wire because of more surface area
• longer wires create more resistance and reduce the current
• the zinc coating on the nail is not very thick
• you can set up more than one potato in series or parallel to increase the voltage and current
• when you add more potatoes you also add more resistance
• the diameter of the wire makes a difference
• if you do this more than one day, get new materials or clean them with steel wool, because of the corrosion buildup on the metal
• it is not as easy as it looks on YouTube

Christmas 2011

Being an Einstein Fellow for a second Christmas has been an incredible experience, but this year I was anxious to return to Idaho and be with family for a few days.  I flew on Christmas day, all day!!  My taxi came to take me to the airport at 5 am., flew to Phoenix and then to Denver.  The Boise leg of my trip was delayed and this was my view for quite awhile.

Notice that there was no snow in Denver either.  Finally we were off to Boise where I rented a car and made my way to Anna's new house in Nampa.  In all, my trip was more than 15 hours, but it was worth it to be with people I love for a few days.  

Anna's house is very close to Lake Lowell and we walked with the kids and ate peanut butter sandwiches and threw rocks into the water. 

Madilyn wanted to be right with the boys.  It won't be long before she is throwing rocks in the lake too.

I also drove to Twin and spent a couple of days with Jon's family.  They all love baby Jane.  She has done a lot of growing in one month.

I also got to be with my mom and Bob and also Richard.  Idaho was beautiful.  Driving a car was fun.  I rarely drive in DC and it is usually stressful.  All too soon it was time to return to DC.  I love my job here, my boss is wonderful, but in six months it will be finished and I will be looking at what comes next.  Time does go fast.