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National Youth Science Camp 2019 Program

1/28/2019

National Youth Science Camp 2019 Program
With All Expenses Paid Including Travel
For Two Graduating NM High School Seniors

Application Deadline is February 28, 2019

Two New Mexico high school seniors interested in science will receive an all-expenses-paid, month-long stay at the prestigious National Youth Science Camp (NYSC) from June 27 – July 20, 2019. The NYSC pays all expenses for the students including airfare. The NYSC Delegates in 2018 were Melina Bone of Sandia Preparatory School in Albuquerque and Joseph Davis of Aldo Leopold Charter School in Silver City.

What happens on a typical day at the National Youth Science Camp? A typical day begins with a morning lecture from a guest scientist. Then some groups go on outdoor trips, and the rest participate in hands-on, small group science seminars facilitated by guest scientists or NYSC staff members. In the afternoon are seminars, athletic and recreational activities, art, and music.   An evening science lecture follows dinner. All activities challenge delegates to approach problems with creativity.

Where is the camp held?  NYSC is held in the eastern mountains of West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands. Delegates can visit the nearby National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, hike in the unique wilderness areas of the Monongahela National Forest and visit other notable West Virginia landmarks.

How are Delegates Chosen? Students apply at http://apply.nyscamp.org/. The New Mexico Academy of Science (NMAS) selects two delegates and alternates for the camp based upon an applicant’s academic achievement, leadership in school and community activities, and genuine interest in the sciences. The NMAS coordinator is Dr. Richard E. Nygren (Sandia National Laboratories, renygre@sandia.gov).

The NYSC website http://apply.nyscamp.org/ has more information, links for Facebook, Twitter and LinkEd and answers for frequently asked questions. Also, you may phone or email:
NYSC Director Andrew Blackwood: andrew.blackwood@nysf.com  Phone NYSC: (304) 205-9724 x91

2018 National Youth Science Camp

2/14/2018

              National Youth Science Camp 2018 Program
                                   With All Expenses Paid Including Travel
                               For Two Graduating NM High School Seniors
                                  Application Deadline is February 28, 2018

Two New Mexico high school seniors interested in science will receive an all-expenses-paid, month-long stay at the prestigious National Youth Science Camp (NYSC) from June 27 – July 21, 2018. The NYSC program pays all expenses for the students including airfare.
Apply on the web at http://apply.nysc.org/ and for links for Facebook, Twitter and LinkEd. The website http://www.nysc.org has frequently asked questions. Also, you may phone or email:
E-mail NYSC Director John Giroir: (john.gifroir@nysf.com) Phone NYSC: (304) 205-9724
The New Mexico Academy of Science (NMAS) selects two candidates and alternates for the camp based upon an applicant’s academic achievement, leadership in school and community activities, and genuine interest in the sciences. In 2017, Yoni Xiong of Carlsbad HS and Vesan Cabardo of Centennial HS in Las Cruces attended NYSC and Carter Fietek of Del Norte HS was selected as an alternate.
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice extends a personal invitation by letter to New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez to participate in NYSC. NMAS (www.nmas.org) selects candidate in New Mexico. The NMAS coordinator is Dr. Richard E. Nygren (Sandia National Laboratories, renygre@sandia.gov).
Where is the camp held? NYSC is held in the eastern mountains of West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands. Delegates can visit the nearby National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, hike in the unique wilderness areas of the Monongahela National Forest and visit other notable West Virginia landmarks.
What happens on a typical day at the National Youth Science Camp? A typical day begins with a morning lecture from a guest scientist. Then some groups go on outdoor trips, and the rest participate in hands-on, small group science seminars facilitated by guest scientists or NYSC staff members. In the afternoon are seminars, athletic and recreational activities, art, and music. An evening science lecture follows dinner. All activities challenge delegates to approach problems with creativity.

The 2016 New Mexico Journal of Science is now published!

2/12/2017

From the Editor:

The New Mexico Journal of Science is a publication of the New Mexico Academy of Science. Each issue of the Journal, which has been published since 1906, contains research papers and articles deemed of interest to the scientists, educators, and citizens of New Mexico. Some volumes address scienti c topics of social or economic interest to the state, while others emphasize scienti c research in areas where New Mexico is particularly active.

The Academy oversees a New Mexico Junior Academy of Science program that sponsors an annual statewide scienti c paper competition for students in New Mexico’s high schools. is volume of the Journal contains a selection of research papers from that competition.

The New Mexico Academy of Science Research Symposium was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico on November 5, 2016. Oral and poster presentations at the Symposium described scienti c research being conducted by undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty at New Mexico’s colleges and universities, and the abstracts of those presentations are once again included in this year’s Journal. e New Mexico Academy of Science also presented its annual Outstanding Science Teacher Awards at the meeting. We wish to acknowledge the organizations which co-sponsored the 2016 Research Symposium: the New Mexico Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NM EPSCoR), and the University of New Mexico’s Center for Water and the Environment.

Please have a look at our 2016 NM Journal of Science.

Waiting in the Wings: Emergence of Zika and Other Mosquito-Borne Viruses

9/22/2016

Special Free Lecture - at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (Albuquerque)

What: Waiting in the Wings: Emergence of Zika and Other Mosquito-Borne Viruses
Who: Kathryn Hanley, Ph.D., Biology Department, NMSU
When: 7:00pm, Friday, September 23, 2016
Where: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (map)

Mosquito-borne viruses in the Americas have undergone a cataclysmic shift over the past decade. Rates of dengue fever have surged across North and South America including Florida, Hawaii, and regions of the U.S.- Mexico border. Chikungunya virus invaded the Americas in 2013 ushering in an epidemic of disabling joint pain. Finally Zika virus appeared in the Americas in 2015, triggering a public health emergency because of its ability to cause microcephaly in the developing fetus. This presentation will describe the ancestral cycles of dengue, chikungunya and Zika and the ecological factors that promote human transmission. Dr. Hanley will offer her thoughts on what the future may hold and whether new methods of mosquito control will be sufficient to contain whatever may be "waiting in the wings."

Dr. Kathryn A. Hanley conducts cutting-edge research on the emergence and control of mosquito-borne viruses, including Zika, dengue and chikungunya. She participated in the development of a dengue virus vaccine, currently in clinical trials, during research at the National Institutes of Health. At NMSU she investigates the ecology and molecular biology of mosquito-borne viruses in the laboratory and the field, and works on the development of new drugs to treat dengue and Zika virus. She has authored or co-authored more than 50 research papers and co-edited the book Frontiers in Dengue Virus Research. Dr. Hanley has a B.S. in biology (Amherst College) and Ph.D. in biology (University of California, San Diego). She is currently the Chair of the American Committee on Arthropod-borne Viruses.

This special lecture is sponsored by the New Mexico Academy of Science in partnership with the NM Museum of Natural History & Science.

Journey to the Beginning of Time - Public Talk by Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss

6/11/2016

Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss will be speaking at UNM Anthropology Maxwell Museum lecture hall on June 25, 1:30 p.m., sponsored by CESE and NMSR (see below). The talk is free and open to the public.
http://www.cese.org/lawrence-krauss-to-speak-at-cese-annual-meeting/

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

5/14/2016

The NMAS recommends adoption and implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) by the New Mexico Public Education Department. For more information about NMAS' position and NGSS, visit our new webpage on the topic.

Citizen Science:The Power and the Potential

1/25/2016

February 11, 2016
2 pm lecture by Rick Bonney, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
4 pm poster session and reception
Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum
Free, but space is limited so please RSVP.

Around the globe, thousands of research projects are engaging millions of individuals—many of whom are not trained as scientists—in collecting, categorizing, transcribing, or analyzing scientific data. These projects, known as citizen science, cover a breadth of topics from microbiomes to native bees to water quality to galaxies. Most projects obtain or manage scientific information at scales or resolutions that are unattainable by individual researchers or research teams, whether enrolling thousands of individuals collecting data across several continents, enlisting small armies of participants in categorizing vast quantities of online data, or organizing small groups of volunteers to tackle local problems. The scientific potential of citizen science is enormous, and hundreds of peer-reviewed papers have now been published based on citizen-collected data. The educational opportunities provided by citizen science are also huge, but are not yet reaching their full potential. This talk will explore the range of citizen science projects; describe numerous outcomes for science, environmental conservation; and public literacy; show how to integrate citizen science into research and teaching; and discuss next steps for this rapidly growing field.
Co-sponsored by the NM Informal Science Education Network (NM ISE Net) and NM EPSCoR, with support from Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER), NM Museum of Natural History and Science, and the Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum
Who Should Attend?
Informal Science Educators, Environmental Educators, Museum Professionals, Citizen Science participants, and Scientists with an interest in Outreach or STEM Education
Who Should Present a Poster?
Anyone who would like to share their citizen science project or results.

About the Speaker
Rick Bonney is director of the public engagement in science program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where he has worked for 32 years. During that time he has received more than 20 awards from the National Science Foundation focused on program and curriculum development, professional development, exhibit development, and program research and evaluation. Rick co-founded the Lab’s citizen science program and started many of its current citizen science projects. He is founder and director of the website www.citizenscience.org;co-editor of the book Citizen Science, published by Cornell University Press; and Principal Investigator of two NSF-funded workshops designed to identify best practices in citizen science project development, implementation, and evaluation. He is also a founder of the Citizen Science Association and is serving on its first board of directors. Rick was lead of the CAISE inquiry group on citizen science in 2009 and editor of the PI Guide to Managing Evaluation in Informal STEM Education Projects published by the Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education in 2012. His team at the Lab of Ornithology is currently developing customizable tools for evaluating the impacts of participating in a range of citizen science project models and is employing these tools in the evaluation of several citizen science projects around North America.
Registration deadline for the lecture or reception is February 5. Poster abstracts are due byJanuary 29.

Click here to register

2015 Outstanding Science Teacher Awards

11/13/2015

Outstanding Science Teacher Turtle Haste, Desert Ridge Middle School, Albuquerque

Outstanding Science Teacher Anna Suggs, Zia Middle School, Las Cruces

It is our great pleasure to announce the 2015 NMAS Outstanding Science Teachers: Turtle Haste and Anna Suggs.

Turtle Haste has been teaching science for 25 years and currently teaches 7th and 8th grade science at Desert Ridge Middle School in Albuquerque. She has a B.S. in Physical Geography from the University of Central Missouri and an Masters in Science Education from Oregon State University.

She is a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certified Teacher in Early Adolescent Science. She holds a NASA Endeavor Fellow STEM Certificate from Columbia University Teacher College. In 2007 she was a NOAA Teacher at Sea, in 2014-2015 she was named a Teachers For Global Classrooms Fellow, and in 2015 she was honored as one of the New Mexico Women of STEM for her contributions in motivating young women to pursue education and careers in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

Ms. Haste is known for her connections with researchers around the world, showing her students how the topics they study are being explored by scientists. Her students have exchanged e-mails, packages and the occasional video hook-up with researchers in Antarctica. Student work on a sun shadows project—measuring the length of shadows at different locations around the world at consistent times between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice—was the first middle school science project ever accepted for presentation to the American Geophysical Union, the major annual professional meeting for geophysicists.

She has taught the summer program for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (held at Stanford University) from 2005 to 2015. She has participated in the American Meteorological Society DatasStreme Project from 2010 to 2015 (serving as Local Literacy Implementation Team (LIT) coordinator for New Mexico) and the NOAA Climate Stewards Educational program from 2011 to 2015 (with involvement through project wiki, professional development opportunities focusing on climate, on-line digital meetings, sponsoring a local climate stewardship project, and serving on the Teacher at Sea initial applicant review committee).

Her nominator for the NMAS Award said the following about her: “She uses her curiosity, knowledge, and awe of the physical world around her to instill excitement in her students. When she introduces basic and very important scientific concepts, she does so in fun and entertaining ways.”

Anna Suggs has been a sixth grade teacher for 21 years. For the last 15 years, she has been teaching sixth grade science at Zia Middle School in Las Cruces NM. She has a B.S. in agricultural animal science and an M.A. in curriculum and instruction, both from New Mexico State University.

During her tenure at Zia Middle School, she has been instrumental in implementing and participating in multiple afterschool science and technology programs, including the following: SEMAA (Science, Engineering Math and Aerospace Academy) through New Mexico State University; GUTS (Growing Up Thinking Scientifically) Computer Program; BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) Robotics Teams; and the Technology Students Association. Her students at Zia also have worked in coordination with Spaceport America to build and launch small rockets carrying payloads.

Her desire to inspire young scientists has led to her (and her students’) participation in the NASA Remote Sensing Earth Science Teacher Program in cooperation with Goddard Space F;ight Center. Ms. Suggs and her students have been doing research at White Sands National Monument for 5 years. The research was to determine the impact of human activity on the dune field and the students worked with satellite data and a small UAV flown by the local model airplane club. This research has involved hundreds of students as well as teachers, university personnel, members of the model airplane club, and parents. She has also frequently taught other science teachers at summer institutes and science conferences.

In 2015, she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, one of only 102 mathematics and science teachers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Department of Defense Education Activity to receive the award.

Ms. Suggs said the award is affirmation and inspiration to her, "The award affirms that the years of hard work, of constantly refining the art of teaching science, have been recognized," she said. "The inspiration is that, now that I have the award, I must continue work to empower my students and colleagues with a love of science and learning."

Remembering Marshall Berman

10/28/2015

Marshall Berman died on October 25, 2015 after being in a short-term coma caused a series of declines in his health. He moved from Albuquerque to Colorado to be with his children where he could be cared for a few years ago. But his heart was still in Albuquerque among his many friends and associates. Marshall was very active throughout his life in the process of learning for both the old and young. He founded and was the President of the Coalition for Excellence in Science and Math Education, The Friendly Philosophers, and helped start the New Mexicans for Science and Reason, and he was also a Past President of the New Mexico Academy of Science.

Dr. Berman was a friend of education and communication. In 1998, Marshall successfully ran for the State Board of Education. His intent was to help increase the effectiveness of education in the state and to try and block the effects of pseudo-scientists who had taken over the Board and were driving educational standards with some very ill-conceived science requirements and lack, thereof. He was successful in the latter and set the stage for the former by instilling the concept of using data to drive reform rather than silver bullets. Marshall did not believe in the current changes that began in 2011, but by then, there was no more Board of Education and he was growing quite ill with a variety of health problems.

Marshall was retired from Sandia Laboratories, and had a PhD in nuclear physics. He is survived by 3 children and 3 grandchildren with another on the way. Marshall touched many lives and drove many events in New Mexico. He will be missed very badly. There will be a memorial in celebration of his life in Albuquerque on the weekend of December 12 and 13th. As soon as the details are worked out, the specifics will be published and sent out to the many people he influenced over the years.

2015 NMAS Research Symposium

8/25/2015

The New Mexico Academy of Science (NMAS) and its partners, the New Mexico Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NM EPSCoR) and the University of New Mexico Center for Research Excellence in Science and Technology (UNM CREST), invite you to the 2015 Research Symposium!

Visit the official NMAS Symposium site for more information and to register.