A photo of my siblings and I during the holidays where I gave a talk
at their school. This was during my sister’s grade 6 class where they are
learning about space. Hailey is 10 here while Arden is 8.
By Charissa Campbell
One good thing about being a scientist is not only trying to learn
about how the world works but being a good role model for the younger
generation to encourage them to study science as well. This can be done by
taking part in public outreach or, as in my case, encouraging your younger
siblings to always be interested in science. I could do both of those things
due to the significant gap in the age between my siblings and I. I took part in
a public outreach program with a local science center teaching kids about
astronomy in an observatory. Nothing was more satisfying than seeing little
kids say “wow” or just to see their eyes bright up when I would show them
Saturn or even just the moon.
Not only is public outreach important but reassuring young females
that science is still a degree that they can take a part in even though most
scientists are male. I remember at a young age I always knew I wanted to study astronomy
but it seemed daunting when the majority of scientists in that field are male.
However, in recent decades, this has slowly been changing due to more outreach
programs encouraging elementary female students to still take a part in
scientific activities. One example of this is the Women in Scholarship,
Engineering, Science & Technology (WISEST) program in Alberta, where I did
my schooling. This conference invites promising females from elementary to
junior high to take part in a two-day conference to learn more about science
and what they can do with that type of degree. There are several female
scientists that talk about what they do and what could benefit from getting
that type of degree. Another important feature is they have a hands-on day
where you learn about problem solving head on. This program is what encouraged
me to continue in the sciences as I was invited a few times to participate. The
best part about this is, now that my younger sister is in grade 6, she has been
invited to take part as she is interested in becoming a forensic scientist and
this made me extremely happy to hear.
The best part of going home during the holidays, besides unlimited
food, is to visit my brother and sister who are significantly younger than me.
Our love for each other is endless and luckily, we don’t have the constant
bickering that normal siblings have due to our large age gap. Now that I am in
graduate school, however, I can’t take the summers off from school to be with
them which will be difficult. However, every time I am with them, especially with
my new work with Mars, they are always asking me scientific questions and I am
happy to answer them. In my opinion, I am simply encouraging them to continue
to be curious about different types of degrees they could get. Being a big
sister is always challenging for being the perfect role model but it is even
harder when you throw science in the mix.
Now that they are getting older, they are
learning more science in school and so when I travelled home for the holidays
this year, my sister really wanted me to come to her school to talk about NASA
and Mars to her grade 6 class. Of course, I agreed because I firmly believe
that outreach is important to students in elementary school especially since
they were starting their science subject about space. One interesting topic
that came up while they were asking me questions was about the “spiders” on
Mars. At first thought I knew this could not be true as they were going on
about how real spiders were there. After considering this topic more I realized
that news outlets were naming a type of terrain on Mars after spiders due to
their features looking like spiders, as shown in the figure below. This made me
laugh because it meant that these students were actively finding articles about
space topics but not quite considering it more than they should. In my opinion
that is fine because they might not lack the needed knowledge to understand
what exactly was meant by “spiders” on Mars and at least they are gaining
exposure about scientific findings. It was a great experience to talk to the
grade 6 class about Mars and answer the questions they had and the best part
was to see my sibling’s big smiles at
the
back of the classroom as I knew how proud they were of me.
Image showing the ‘spiders’ on Mars. It may appear as if the veins
appear to be spider-like. Image taken from http://www.space.com/34481-mars-spiders-citizen-scientists-investigation.html
One thing that I have always tried to be with my younger siblings is
a good role model as a big sister as well as a scientist. Their curiosity for
the sciences, especially with me being so involved with it, has always been
huge because I love to talk about it at home; not just because I want to but to
also keep them interested in this very important issue. Science has always been
around but now with technology and such, getting a degree in sciences may be
more accessible for everyone, all it takes is a little curiosity.
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