It is our great pleasure to announce this year's NMAS Outstanding Science Teachers: Lindsay Henson and Colleen Ruiz. Lindsay Henson grew up in Indianola, Iowa, with a dream of attending Iowa State University, majoring in Biomedical Engineering, and becoming a Pediatric Oncologist. As a high school senior her goal started to change shape and would continue to morph into something she least expected, a high school science teacher. In 1998, Lindsay moved 1100 miles away to Socorro, New Mexico to attend the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech) and pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with a minor in Chemistry and emphasis in pre-med. When not studying, she worked at the campus daycare center with children ranging in ages from two to twelve and volunteered as the assistant cheerleading coach at the local high school. After graduating from New Mexico Tech, Lindsay moved to Albuquerque to pursue a career in outpatient physical therapy. In 2005, she graduated from PIMA Medical Institute as a certified Physical Therapy Technician. After three years, she started the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at Western Governor’s University to become a high school science teacher. Lindsay completed her MAT degree in the summer of 2011 and started teaching at the Public Academy for Performing Arts (PAPA) that fall. Encouraging students to do their best, to venture outside of their comfort zone, and try things they “don’t like” is Lindsay’s daily motivation. It is this motivation that gives her students the opportunity to engage in:
Colleen Ruiz earned her bachelor’s degree in science for Civil Engineering from New Mexico State University in 1997. Over the next ten years she gained career experience with natural gas pipe lines, nuclear energy, forest management, as well as commercial, residential, and campus design. In 2008, Colleen went back to school to earn a teaching license with a science endorsement. She works for Annunciation School in Albuquerque. She developed and conducts hands-on, weekly labs for 200, 3rd – 6th grade students. Students engage in dissections, mineral testing, erosion labs, hot air balloon design, wind turbine design, LEGO simple machines, chemistry experiments, build model electrically wired houses, and build solar powered cars among other adventures. Colleen’s sixth grade students participate in:
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 The New Mexico Academy of Science is pleased to present a talk by renowned expert in satellite remote sensing, Dr. Thomas Schmugge.
Title: Rain in New Mexico: Past, Present & Future Time, Date, and Location: 5:30 PM, Wednesday, October 8th, at the Museum of Nature and Science, Las Cruces. Parking and entrance is on the Downtown Mall, at 450 North Water Street. (click here for map) By: Dr. Tom Schmugge, NASA, USDA, and NMSU, retired. Tom now works part-time at the New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute, on a project funded by the National Science Foundation to quantify all the water inputs and outputs of the state, the water budget Abstract: In the state water budget the biggest components are precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET), which are very difficult to assess on a statewide basis, particularly for our sparsely populated New Mexico. For ET this is especially true because of the difficulty in measuring it on the ground. There are several approaches using remotely sensed data to augment the ground net work of rain gauges and to estimate ET. I discuss these approaches and their results. One startling result is that these observations of precipitation have shown a decrease of about 1.25 million acre-feet / year since 1990, from a level of about 110 million ac-ft. Previous climatology would indicate that this trend should reverse as it did after the drought of the 50s. However, the complication of climate change suggests that this might not happen. Recent results of studies on climate change portend that the future probably won't be wetter. Brief biography of Dr. Schmugge: Dr. Thomas Schmugge spent 34 years as a research physical scientist in NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (1970-86) and the USDA Hydrology Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland (1986-2004). He has been a truly peerless intellectual leader in improving both the theory and the application of microwave and infrared radiative transfer for the remote sensing of the land surface, especially soil moisture, surface temperature, and emissivity. Without exaggeration, he has been a trailblazer and is now unquestionably one of the few world experts on remote sensing in hydrology. Dr. Schmugge was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (1998) and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2001). In 2006, Tom received the Robert E. Horton Medal of the American Geophysical Union. The medal is awarded for “outstanding contributions to the geophysical aspects of hydrology.” His accomplishments perfectly embody this ideal. His research has dealt with soil moisture and radiation, the main drivers of the Earth’s energy and water budgets. Dr. Schmugge was appointed the Gerald Thomas Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at New Mexico State University in 2005, a position he held to 2008. His expertise is being put to use at the New Mexico Water Resource Research Institute, for the task of generating a water budget for the state of New Mexico. This project is funded by the EPSCoR program of the National Science Foundation. |
AuthorNew Mexico Academy of Science Archives
December 2020
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New Mexico Academy of ScienceNMAS is a member of the National Association of Academies of Science (NAAS) and an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). We do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, physical disability, or sexual orientation. NMAS is a 501(c)3.
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