Scholars in the Schools
Throughout the school year, the Pinhead Institute brings internationally renowned scientist into our regional schools. These acclaimed scientists lead labs, experiments, workshops, and field expeditions for students in grade school through high school. This program enables students from rural communities throughout the region to have the opportunity to interact with PhD scientists from around the world specializing in everything from nanoscience, to biochemistry, to field biology, to climatology, and much more.
Since its inception, Pinhead has placed over fifty scientists in our regional schools through the "Scholars in the Schools" program. During each academic school year, Pinhead Institute places internationally renowned scientists in our regional schools, including Nucla, Norwood, Telluride, Ridgway, and Ouray, reaching over two thousand students each year and exposing them to real world applications of the scientific method.
In collaboration with teachers, the demonstrations and hands-on activities enhance the science curriculum, increase science awareness among students, stimulate scientific thinking and put a human face on the scientific community.
Scholars in the Schools Schedule -
January 2012:
* Joe Tanner (NASA Astronaut, Retired)
Learn more about Scholars in the Schools and listen to Pinhead's Program Director's interview with Joe Tanner here on Telluride Inside & Out.
Joe Tanner is a Senior Instructor in the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He teaches a two-semester Graduate Projects course to students at Masters and PhD levels. The students work design projects in the areas of human spacecraft, small satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Colorado in 2008, he was employed by NASA at Johnson Space Center for eight years as an instructor and research pilot and sixteen years as an astronaut. Joe flew four missions on the space shuttle with one being to the Hubble Space Telescope and two to the International Space Station. During his four missions he performed seven spacewalks (or EVAs) totaling more than forty-six hours. His primary duty as an instructor pilot was to train the astronaut pilots landing techniques in the Shuttle Training Aircraft. Joe started his flying career as a U.S. Navy jet aircraft pilot.
December 2011:
*Dr. Ron Estler (Fort Lewis College)
When you pack lots of it into a space, or take most of it out, ordinary air turns into some pretty powerful stuff. A famous demonstration in physics uses two metal bowls that fit together to form a hollow sphere. When the air inside is removed, the hemispheres are almost impossible to separate. This experiment was first performed in 1654 by Otto von Guericke, inventor of the vacuum pump. Guericke reportedly achieved a seal so strong that even two teams of 15 horses each, pulling in opposite directions, could not pull the halves apart.
During his visit to our regional schools, Dr. Ron Estler will put a couple salad bowls and a vacuum chamber to the test in his own version of the classic experiment. But instead of horsepower, he’ll be using kidpower. Evacuated Sphere Tug-of-War will be the main event at Pinhead's next Scholars in the Schools program - “Under Pressure: Fun with Air and No Air.” Besides the evacuated sphere tug-of-war we will blast off water rockets, see if we can levitate ping-pong balls, and more with our crazy chemist Dr. Ron Estler. The pressure is on!
November 2011:
*Dr. Joe Alaimo (Ouray County Veterinary Services)
Telluride students will take a trip with Dr. Joe Alamino through the long, winding, zone of digestion that allows food to magically change into energy for the body and... a by-product… produced by all creatures from the Kingdom Animalia, including HUMANS!
October 2011:
*Dr. Andrew Berry (Harvard University)
It is amazing to think about ourselves simply as modified apes, but that's what we are. We share a common ancestor with chimpanzees dating back to about 7 million years ago, meaning that, over that 7 million period, from the time of that hairy common ancestor, a whole set of truly remarkable changes have occurred to make us who we are today. Dr. Andrew Berry, an evolutionary biologist from Harvard, will help our regional students look at fossil records to see what was happening during this transition and teach kids that ultimately the trickiest questions concerning our origins can only be answered by using genetic data -- by comparing DNA sequences of people from different populations.
*Karl Thompson (Environmental Geochemist)
Karl Thompson is an environmental consultant who works on remediation projects centered around contaminated groundwater and soil at sites all across the United States. While attending university his research focused on ancient ocean chemistry as an indicator to understanding how early life may have responded to global scale climate events. Karl will be in town to give our regional students a snap shot of the research and professional opportunities available to geologists.
September 2011:
*Solar Roller (Durango Discovery Museum)
The Solar Roller is the Discovery Museum's mobile science discovery center focused on energy science literacy. It features hands-on, inquiry based exhibits, including: power generating pedal cycles, infrared camera, microscope, sun-scope, model steam turbine, Solar Race Cars, Build-a-Circuit, and more. The Solar Roller engages youth in the process of scientific inquiry and experimentation in an accessible, relevant, and fun format, and gives them the tools to understand the science of energy.
April 2011:
* Dr. Susan DeSensi Meador (formally, Boston University)
"Scientist Susan" (a Telluride favorite) specializes in "Mysterious Mixtures & Strange Solutions" where some of her demonstrations include toothpaste for elephants, rainbows emerging from oil and water, and underwater volcanoes. Not only will Dr. Meador show how chemistry is not remotely "boring," with disappearing colors and carbon towers, but kids will also learn basic chemistry concepts like density, pH and chemical reactivity.
March 2011:
* Dr. Rosemary White (Boston University)
Dr. Rosemary White's specialty includes an interactive presentation called "The Cool Colors of Chemistry." Dr. White will answer questions such as "Why is the sky blue and the grass green?" Students will understand the crazy colors of our world through easy to understand chemistry; they'll never look at the world the same way again.
* Dr. Terry Erwin (Curator of Entomology, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History)
Also known as "one of the most influential entomological conservation biologists and systematic taxonomists today," Dr. Erwin will share his knowledge about the Carabidae-Neotropical ground beetles, especially those that never tough the ground during his visit to our regional schools. Dr. Erwin's passion for biodiversity conservation will show our regional students the importance of preserving our planet's rainforests and teach everyone how museums, such as the Smithsonian, are important resources for understanding our past as well as preserving our future.
* Dr. Julie Cole (University of Arizona, Tucson)
Dr. Julie Cole will visit regional classes to discuss her focus of research - utilitizing geochemical recoreds from long-lived corals and cave/lake sampling to study paleoclimatology. Dr. Cole is particularly interested in tropical climate systems such as the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and monsoons, which orchestrate patterns of climate change over large, even global, reaches yet are poorly understood in tems of their natural range of variability and their sensitivity to global forcings and background conditions. Dr. Cole's research also focuses on the paleoclimate records of the Southwestern US, in particular the recurrence of decadal and longer "megadroughts."
February 2011:
* Dr. John Steinberg (UMass, Boston)
Dr. John Steinberg has been a Senior Scientist at the Fiske Center (UMass) directing a multi-year project in Northern Iceland to understand the formation of property rights during the Viking Age and after (AD 874-1700). Buildings from the Viking Age in Iceland were constructed out of turf and are now buried in deep wind-blown deposits, thereby making them almost impossible to identify, except using remote sensing. Dr. Steinberg uses GIS and shallow geophysics to study settlement patterns to understand broad trenches over the landscape.
January 2011:
(photo courtesy of the Telluride Daily Planet)
* Joe Tanner (NASA Astronaut, Retired)
Joe Tanner is a Senior Instructor in the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He teaches a two-semester Graduate Projects course to students at Masters and PhD levels. The students work design projects in the areas of human spacecraft, small satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Colorado in 2008, he was employed by NASA at Johnson Space Center for eight years as an instructor and research pilot and sixteen years as an astronaut. Joe flew four missions on the space shuttle with one being to the Hubble Space Telescope and two to the International Space Station. During his four missions he performed seven spacewalks (or EVAs) totaling more than forty-six hours. His primary duty as an instructor pilot was to train the astronaut pilots landing techniques in the Shuttle Training Aircraft. Joe started his flying career as a U.S. Navy jet aircraft pilot.