Community Outreach Involving the Meteorology Field
Norman, Oklahoma | October 14th 2023:
After not being able to attend due to COVID-19 restrictions, alternate plans, or other work obligations, I finally got to experience the National Weather Festival in all its glory. This festival is an annual occurence at the National Weather Center and is an awesome event to showcase what the School of Meteorology and other meteorologists in the area do. It's complete with balloon launches, news vans, food trucks, drone demonstrations, tons of experiments, tables, and much more. This one was extra special because a solar eclipse was going on right in the middle of it! All in all, I had a blast.But the reason this is in the 'community outreach' section is because of what I spent most of my time at the festival doing, which was assisting in tabling for our brand new outreach organization within the department: the School of Meteorology Outreach group (SoMO). After about a year of several graduate students consolidating SoMO into the official group it is, it finally made it's first debut at this year's festival. The website for SoMO just launched, so check it out here for more information! Otherwise, here's a few pictures of the festival in general, and of SoMO making water tornadoes, cup anemometers, and demonstrating a rotating tank experiments (more info on how those work also available at the website!)
Norman, Oklahoma | July 2022:
Yes, indeed, I'm back with the kiddies. Only this time it was for a week instead of just one day :D The University of Oklahoma has Precollegiate Programs for youngsters, and within these programs is a Mini College camp during the summer for 1st - 6th graders. Me and a team of other School of Meteorology graduate students came together to coordinate, plan, and prepare lessons for them during a week of their camp! We were split up into groups and my group catered to 1st and 2nd graders where each of us taught for one day during the week. I was actually really nervous; this was my first time full-on teaching for 1 1/2 hours (you can check out the YouTube video to see me teaching them about fronts), but it was so much fun and I created so many memories! I didn't expect the kids to be so engaged and excited and *funny* when learning about the weather. The second to last pic is my favorite where there is a wide range of expressions XD This is defintely something I want to do again next year. Shout out to the Mini College program for the fun opportunity, and credit to them for some of the pics (the ones that are high-quality) below!P.S. defintely not me standing on my tippy-toes to look taller in that last pic.
Norman, Oklahoma | November 2021:
I've started working at the National Weather Museum and Science Center! This non-profit is the only museum in the United States exclusively about all things related to weather, including early forecasting instruments, tornado debris displays, a library, flight simulation, and much more. It's an extremely kid-friendly place with lots of hands-on activities, but the adults learn just as much! I help out with tours by guiding and answering any questions guests have, collecting payments, and I have recently been writing some blogs for the website. Though there are lots of fun and interesting exhibits, the museum is still in its early stages of development and is continously growing as funds become available. If you are interested to learn more, donate, or reserve a tour, visit the website linked below. We'd love to see you there!
National Weather Museum and Science Center
Washington D.C. | October 2019:
The beginnings of the Howard University Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences Society (HU-MASS), a club I'm currently in the process of creating for students interested in weather at Howard Unviersity. Here is an event where another student and I volunteered at Jefferson-Houston Elementary school, teaching children about weather phenomena and doing simple experiments with them. It was all lots of fun! (That little girl in the top right picture has the expression of a future meteorologist lol).
San Jose, California | October 2016:
We are officers of the SJSU Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (S.C.A.M.S) selling delicious good we baked the night before!
San Jose, California | October 2015:
I'm part of the Community Service Rangers club at San Jose State, and we do a lot of helpful activities to benefit our community. Here, we are picking up trash one afternoon after school at East Willaims Park. There's a lot more events we have planned, such as river and beach cleanups and making care packages for folks in the military. So stay tuned!
