Birthday Battles

Thanks to Facebook and their Causes application, things are pretty tense around the office lately. You see, Causes allows you to make a birthday wish to raise money for the cause you care for most passionately. Friends, family and supporters can grant birthday wishes by donating through the Causes page on your behalf. Can you guess who we picked to support with our upcoming birthdays?

Joe, Rebecca and I are all having birthdays within the next month. Talk of cupcakes and candles led to some pretty boastful words, and somehow we all pledged to raise the most money for Technically Learning, using our birthdays to prompt our personal fan bases. Winner eats the cupcakes; losers buy. We've all notified our Facebook friends and now the race is on.

Maybe you want to get in on the action? Here's how: Support Team Rebecca, Team Joe or Team Natalie in the contest and help us reach our fundraising goal. The money raised during this heated birthday battle will go towards equipping and supporting new school sites in the 2010-2011 school year. Visit our pages, find out why we decided to make this pledge, and make a donation that will be both a wonderful birthday present and a show of support for improved science and math education in our public schools.

Best part? You don't have to be a registered Facebook user to donate. When you decide to donate for one (or more) of our birthdays after clicking on one of the links above, click the green "Donate" button, and on the next page, click the "Donate Without Facebook" button. (Of course, if you are Facebook user, donating through Facebook is a great way of publishing your support for one of our birthday competitors.)

There's no time to waste: Rebecca's birthday in 5 short days, and she's really hoping she can win some chocolate cupcakes with purple frosting. . .

(PS. If you have an upcoming birthday, registering for a Cause birthday wish is a great way for you to show your support for Technically Learning.)

Eric Hilton Helps Community 'Engage' With Astronomy

Eric Hilton, our VP of Education and a graduate student in Astronomy at the University of Washington, recently gave a talk for non-specialists entitled "Big Flares on Little Stars." Designed for the science aficionado interested -- but not expert -- in astronomy, Eric's talk was part of a series of informative presentations meant to communicate scientific research to those outside the field.

According to Eric, "Science needs to have a strong voice in the discussions around many very important issues, such as climate change, energy, health, etc. Unfortunately, although scientists are highly trained, they are not trained in how to communicate their science to politicians and the general public. Phil Rosenfield, Cliff Johnson, Rachel Mitchell and I decided to address this by creating Engage: The Science Speakers Series. Graduate students in the sciences prepare and deliver a ~30 minute presentation, followed by 20 minutes of question and answer with the audience." Because astronomers tend to have more experience reaching out to non-specialists (because we all know a little about the stars, even if it's only that they twinkle or that the Big Dipper looks like a measuring cup), this year the lecture series will largely be led by graduate students from the Astronomy department. This will expand next fall into a seminar where up-and-coming scientists will learn how to effectively share the results of their scientific endeavors.

Although Eric was competing with President Obama's State of the Union address, Eric had several families in the audience, including one pretty sharp teenager who asked insightful questions and kept Eric on his toes. The presentation was recorded, and will be put on YouTube in a few weeks once they edit the footage and splice in Eric's slides.

"I worked really hard on what is called 'arouse and fulfill' - raising questions and then answering them so that it is more of a story than a lecture. It seems to have worked pretty well. There were a few times when people gasped a bit when some piece of information was revealed, which was exciting from my end. I had no specific agenda except to let people know what I'm doing, to convey the sense of excitement and wonder I feel when I'm doing novel research, and to show how cool science is."

If you are interested in check out other lectures in the series, visit the Engage website for more information.