National Youth Science Camp 2015 Program
With All Expenses Paid Including Travel
For Two Graduating NM High School Seniors

Application Deadline is March 1, 2015

Two New Mexico high school seniors who are interested in science will be selected for an all-expenses-paid, month-long stay at the National Youth Science Camp (NYSC) in West Virginia's Potomac Highlands from June 17 – July 11, 2015.  Applications are now being accepted for this prestigious program.  Each year in the summer following graduation, two New Mexico high school seniors attend an intense month-long camp for young scientists.  The NYSC program pays all expenses for the students including airfare.   New Mexico’s participation is established through a request from the Governor of West Virginia, Earl Ray Tomblin, to New Mexico’s Governor Susana Martinez. 

Applicants must be candidates for high school graduation between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015 and must be able to attend the entire NYSC program.  Application forms and other information are available from the National Youth Science Foundation on the web athttp://www.nysf.com/w/programs/nysc/.  You may also inquire about the NYSC in the following ways:

Phone: (304) 205-9724, direct voicemail extension 90   Fax: (866) 833-0875

E-mail: office@nysf.com   Facebook: National Youth Science Foundation   Twitter: NYSCdotORG

Applications are done through the website http://apply.nysc.org.  The deadline is March 1, 2015

The New Mexico Academy of Science (NMAS, www.nmas.org) administers the National Youth Science Camp (NYSC) program in New Mexico.   Judges from NMAS will select two New Mexico high school seniors to attend the science camp this summer based upon their academic achievement, leadership in school and community activities, and a genuine interest in the sciences.  The NMAS Coordinator for NYSC is Dr. Richard E. Nygren (Sandia National Laboratories, renygre@sandia.gov).   

Last year’s attendees were Dennis Huang  from La Cueva High School in Albuquerque and Anjik Ghosh from Albuquerque Academy, and Rana Chan from La Cueva High School was the alternate.   In 2013 the attendees were Maria Morrow from El Dorado High School in Albuquerque and Evan Liu of Albuquerque Academy, and Stephen Jenkins of Onate High School in Las Cruces was the alternate.  

Students from around the country attend the NYSC in the wilderness of the Monongahela National Forest in the eastern mountains of West Virginia's Potomac Highlands. Visiting scientists are invited to the camp based on their reputation as leaders in their field(s) and on their ability to share up-to-date research with the students.  Their exciting lectures and the hands-on experiences expose delegates to current work across the spectrum of scientific disciplines.  Students have many opportunities to increase their appreciation for the great outdoors and push themselves physically in an extensive outdoor program.  Many students establish friendships that last a lifetime.

Annunciation Catholic School is in need of judges to share their enthusiasm about science with our students. We are looking for friendly professionals with experience in biology, medicine, physics, engineering, agriculture, or city planning to judge Science Fair or Future City models, research papers, and presentations.  Please volunteer to judge the Middle School competition on Friday January 16th from 8:00-12:30.  Breakfast and lunch will be provided.  The address is 2610 Utah, NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110.  Major cross streets are Wyoming and Menaul.
 
Please contact Colleen Ruiz at cruiz@acsabq.org or 505-228-8185 if interested.

The 2013 Chelyabinsk (Russian) Meteorite and Other Stories of Destructive Impacts and Airbursts on Earth
Mark Boslough, Ph.D., Sandia National Laboratories

Friday, January 9, 2015, 7:00 - 8:30 PM. Doors open at 6:15 PM.
Free admission, no registration required

Sponsor
New Mexico Academy of Science

Host & Lecture Location 
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
Dynatheater
1801 Mountain Rd. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104 • (505) 841-2800

Shortly after dawn on February 15, 2013, an asteroid descended at about 19 kilometers per second (42,500 mph) exploding at high altitude in a momentary flash brighter than the sun and generating a shock wave that injured   over a thousand people. This type of event is not as unusual on Earth as one might think. Hear the story and related research from New Mexico expert Dr. Mark Boslough on planetary impacts and global catastrophes.  Dr. Boslough’s research on airbursts challenged the conventional view of asteroid collision risk and is now widely  accepted by the scientific community. In 2011 he stated, “It is virtually certain (probability more than 99%) that the next destructive NEO (Near Earth Object) event will be an airburst."

Dr. Boslough’s work has been profiled on PBS NOVA, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic and the BBC. The asteroid 73520 Boslough (2003 MB1) is named after him. He is currently a Principal Member of the technical staff at Sandia Laboratories.He earned his B.S. in Physics (Colorado State University) and  M.S. and Ph.D.in Applied Physics (Caltech) where his research focused on geophysics.

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.

The NMAS, NM EPSCoR, NM AMP, and NMPMSE  are proud to host this year's Research Symposium!  Come out and join us!

November 1, 2014. Albuquerque Hyatt Regency.
October 24. Registration deadline.
September 30. Abstract submission deadline.

The latest issue of the NMAS Newsletter is now available here.  Check it out!

The National Youth Science Camp (NYSC) 2014 Program of the New Mexico Academy of Science (NMAS) is once again sponsoring (all expenses paid!) two graduating New Mexico high school seniors to attend a prestigious 3-week-long camp in West Virginia (June 27 - July 20, 2014).  

Please help us get the word out about this wonderful opportunity and generous program by distributing the attached program description to schools and teachers.  

If you have any questions about the program, please contact Richard Nygren (renygre@sandia.gov), NMAS coordinator for the NYSC.

The Asombro Institute for Science Education is sponsoring a "Cactus Adoption and Native Plant Day" at the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park in Las Cruces on 1 March 2014.  Anyone is welcome to participate.  See the flyer for additional information.

Judges are needed for the Central New Mexico Science and Engineering Research Challenge on 21 March 2014. The fair will be held in the Johnson Center on the University of New Mexico Campus in Albuquerque, NM.  Click here to register as a judge.