Ep 177 | FREE hands-on science labs on SATURDAY!

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So in the summer camp, the uh scientists and the engineers they come and talk to their campers and they just tell them their origin story. And a bunch of them say they got their start at a camp.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Really?

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Yeah. So I mean they're just producing their next round of employees that way.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Giving back and inspiring the next generation is a huge part of what we do. It's another way to tell our story, right? And the researchers, I promise you, who participate in robotics camp and who lead the other members of our staff who lead Science Saturday sessions. That is the very best part of their week. I promise you it is. They are more excited, perhaps, than our students. And that is what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week, we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every child in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support your child's success. For parents looking for screenless weekend activities, the search can be tough, especially if their kids are not the outdoorsy type. You want to engage their minds while helping create great memories. My next guests are doing just that at Science Saturdays at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. One is the STEM Middle School teacher at Brown Barge and instructor at Science Saturday, while the other is the communications director at IHMC. Today they're going to share how this free monthly event is getting kids excited about science and inspired for the future, inspiring young minds and serving up STEM brain builders Shannon Nickinson and Heath Parr. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Thank you so much for having us. So IHMC or Institute for Human and Machine Cognition is, I feel like, widely known in town as the place with all the cool robots.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

For sure, that's us.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

But I'm guessing that you could deliver a more official description of what's done there.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

I mean, I think the place with cool robots would fit nicely on a business card. However, we are a little bit more than that. We like to say that we have three research pillars that we were founded on more than 20 years ago. A little closet space at UWF. Our foundations are in AI research and machine learning. So understanding the way that computers can work with us, and we can in turn work with them to improve the human condition and the world around us. Of course, robotics and exoskeletons, that is the sexy part of what we do. Everybody loves a robot. And then the third pillar is kind of newish to the institute, the health span, resilience, and performance research. And that is research based from the molecule to the whole human, looking at ways that we can extend our health span, not our lifespan necessarily, but that period of time where we're at our best and doing the things that we want to do. And that research touches everything from aging to neurodegenerative disorders and everything in between. It's a really exciting place.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

It is exciting. And that's what I like about IHMC is I feel like you're asking the big questions.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

For sure we are.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

And the questions don't live at the philosopher's lounge. I don't think a philosopher's lounge is a real thing, but let's pretend it is like a teacher's lounge, but where philosophers sit around and pontificate. Like it goes into the experimentation phase. And so all that to say really major things happening here, but why go out of your way to offer a free resource to kids? And we love kids and we love big questions, but why are we combining the two?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Because engaging kids in STEM, that's the gateway drug to a career in science. And maybe a career in science is not ultimately what every kid who comes to us is going to do. But what we want them to do is to understand more about it, to understand why asking questions is important. And how you might go about getting the answers to those questions. We can't build the brain power of the future without investing in our younger students. And that is a big part of what our commitment to Science Saturdays is about. Yes, the how to think, not what to think.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

That's the scientific process and its application and the annoying everyday problems that we have to solve, right? Heath.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

I found your Science Saturday origin story pretty heartwarming. Are you willing to share it?

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Sure. Okay. Actually, it's my origin story into computer science altogether teaching. I got into teaching 15 years ago to be a coach, and I was coaching basketball and all that. And my oldest son, Michael, was about to come to uh middle school with me, and he could care less about basketball or any sport still. So I went to this competition, this engineering robotics competition hosted at UWF called Best Robotics, and it just blew us away. They treated like a sporting event. Like there was like 24 schools competing, and they all brought their band and their mascot, and they were just beating on the drums and going crazy. And there was like eight teams at a time competing. And I was like, this is the most amazing robotics competition I have ever seen. It was insane. It was awesome. And so the next day I went to school and I told them I need to go find a new basketball coach because I was the new robotics guy. And uh, so we I started a club, my son was in it, we did really well. And then a couple years later, the principal he was like, You should start a class, a computer science class. And I was like, let's do it. So that's what we did. And then somehow I don't even remember how I ran into I met Ursula, who's the educational outreach at IHMC, and she hired me to teach the summer camp. And then I started also doing the Science Saturdays.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

And what's that like to do Science Saturdays? Especially with the contrast of like, okay, students who presumably have to go to school. Yes, it's voluntary. Yeah, right, right, right. I was trying to be nice about it, but yeah, versus students who were like running to go to Science Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Oh, I love it. It's great because it's all hands-on. So the kids are always enjoying that. And for me, there's no paperwork, there's no parent conference, there's no extra duty. I just show up. No grade book, nothing. Right. Yeah. I just show up and have a good time and teach what I love teaching, and then I go home and yeah, I love it. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Are there any special moments that stick out to you in the Science Saturday events?

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because you know they have like the third and fourth graders, right? And then they have the fifth and sixth graders as well. And there's been several students of mine who, when they were in third and fourth grade, they were in Science Saturday. And at the end of it, they're like, I'm gonna go to Brown Barge Middle School. I'm gonna take your class, Mr. Parr. And then several years later, they show up in my class and they're like, Do you remember me? And I'm like, Yeah. What's your name? You know, but yeah. So yeah, so they're in my class and they go through my class all three years. And so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

So it kind of sets their appetite for science, you think?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yeah, it definitely does, yeah. One thing you asked Shannon earlier was like, Why do you guys do it for free and all that? So in the summer camp, the uh scientists and the engineers they come and talk to our campers and they just tell them their origin story. And a bunch of them say they got their start at a camp.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

So I mean, they're just producing their next round of employees that way.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Giving giving back and inspiring the next generation is a huge part of what we do. It's another way to tell our story, right? And the researchers, I promise you, who participate in robotics camp and who lead the other members of our staff who lead Science Saturday sessions. That is the very best part of their week. I promise you it is. They are more excited, perhaps, than our students. And that is that's what it's all about. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

So who does lead the Science Saturdays? We know Heat's there. Who else is there?

SPEAKER_00 8:20

We have on our Pensacola campus, the other sessions are all led by IHMC staffers. So we have had robotics researchers, artificial intelligence researchers. We've had health span, resilience, and performance researchers. We have a session all about how the brain works, for example. We have led by one of our doctors, Dr. Kevin Gluck, who helped who does this great like skull cap that he puts on his head with the sections of your brain outlined on it. It's a very bold fashion choice, and I am glad that he fully commits. But he uses that to show kids what's underneath the hood there. Some really cool stuff is underneath the hood. We lead sessions on 3D computer printing and photo editing, and we have an upcoming session on balloon cars, which is physics. And we built electric motors with Dr. Robert Griffin, who leads the robotics team. There's something for everybody. So to Heath's point, like if you're not a sporty kid, but you get this, you found, you know, he helped find his place for Michael with robotics. But if that's not your thing, just wait a month. There'll be another science Saturday on a totally different topic. And it might be something that you just never even thought you would be interested in. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Do the kids know how big of a deal it is? Like, because IHMC, I mean, y'all are no slackers. I've met some of the researchers from the health span, actually. And the person I'm thinking of, he's just like top tier, top tier. And so do the kids have any idea what they are getting? Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

I'm gonna say probably not for the third and fourth graders. I think for sure by the time they come back to us as campers in the summer, I think they're starting to get, you know, that's for kids who are eighth, ninth, and tenth graders by the ninth, tenth grade year, like they're kind of turning on to what this could be, what kind of place it might be. And it's probably not until much later, I'm sure, in life that they were like, this isn't a world-class research establishment right here in little old Pensacola. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Okay, so earlier, I think Heath said, and then you just said it, that something about the kids being in batches, this age group and that age group. Can you tell me what that looks like from a practical standpoint? So like a parent could imagine where their kid would be plugged into. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Well, with the third and fourth graders, it's really basic, you know, and it's it's fun. They're building roller coasters with cardstock, or they're doing programming with Ozobots with me. And the fifth and sixth graders, we turn it up just a little bit, right? They might be doing the Newtonian cars, the Bloom cars, stuff like that. And I'm doing a little bit of game design programming with them. Then when they get to the summer camp when they're in middle school and high school, then they're doing much high-level engineering and programming, learning about logic statements and variables, stuff like that. And then another cool thing that happens is some of them get to be volunteers to help with Science Saturday. So they get their community service hours for the bright futures. And then they get to be volunteers for the summer camp. And then if they stick around long enough, they get to do an internship there. Some of them even get to do, which has helped them a lot with putting on the resume for scholarships and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I have one of those students who started at robotics camp with Heath. And then this year, of course, she's a sophomore now, so she's she'll age out of the camp eligibility era. But this past summer she volunteered and she got to lead and help with all three weeks of local camp in Pensacola. And she has come back as a Science Saturday volunteer. And she really she loves doing the work and being helpful and being engaged in the projects that are going on. But she really is discovering something that she enjoys about helping other kids, which is not part of the Science Saturday curriculum, but is a wonderful benefit.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

I think that's when they start to realize where they're at. Because when the scientists and the engineers come and speak to us, the best questions come from the volunteers because they're like, oh, wait a second. They wait like this is fun. How did you get there? I mean, what's the roadmap to get there? You know what I mean? So at that point, they're really starting to realize Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

So there's a little bit of, oh, that person can do it. And they're a scientist working in this way or that way. I could be a scientist working in this way or that way. Because scientists, when you're an itty bitty child, it is a picture of a person in a lab coat with some beakers. That is a scientist. But in the real world, scientists they work in all kinds of environments.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And they work out and they have tattoos and they own dogs and they know taekwondo and they have a whole life around outside. And that's an important thing that our team members share with kids when they do the lunch with a scientist during camp, or even when they get the chance to lead a science Saturday session, that you can see the person behind the lab coat. And the lab coat, you don't even have to wear the lab coat sometimes. You can just be a regular person.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah, I love that. Okay, so we were talking about robotics camp. So I just want to make a distinction for our listeners. Robotics camp is a once-a-year summer event that is open to the public, but it's paid. There's a paid ticket to entry. And then Science Saturday is every month and it is free, but there's what's the cap, like 25 students?

SPEAKER_00 14:03

You do have to register because we have a limitation on how many people can comfortably be in the room. So that's 25-ish, sometimes a couple more, a couple less. But that's a good, we found that's a good number for everybody to have a chance to do what they need to do and be engaged and not be a wallflower and all that kind of stuff. So there is registration. It's like we said, it's free, but the seats go fast. So and how do people register? So of course we always have the link on our website, ihmc.us, the eventbrite, if that's something that most people are probably familiar with for registering for tickets for things. A registration for science Saturdays opens about two weeks before each date.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

And that sounds like a set your alarm kind of situation. A little bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

We try to make sure that we also are spreading the word through Facebook and Instagram and our social media channels in that way. But the best way to keep in the loop is to sign up for our email list because you'll get a ping then whenever registration is about to open. And then registration for robotics camp, which usually takes place late June, early July, somewhere in that area. That registration opens March, April-ish. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

And for the Science Saturday, what is the range of ages that can participate?

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Third through sixth, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

We added seventh graders actually this past year, mostly due to demand from parents whose kids were aging out after sixth grade. They were gonna miss Science Saturday way too much. Could we somehow please make something for seventh graders? So we tried that this year, this past school year, and it seemed to work well. So we're making a couple of programmatic tweaks, but we do it in two sessions. The 9 a.m. is for third and fourth graders, and the 11 a.m. is fifth through seventh graders. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

And we, of course, are living in the ecosystem of Escambi County public schools, but would parents of students who do homeschool or virtual school or in a neighboring county, like maybe one student in Escambi County has a cousin in a neighboring county and he wants to come to it's open. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

We have served in the almost at least 18 years that we have been doing Science Saturday. Almost 6,000 kids have come through our doors to be part of at least one of those sessions. And last year we represented or were represented by 27 different schools across the two county area. So we get homeschool kids, we get private school kids, we get public school kids, we get all the kids. We want all the kids to come and experience it and find what moves them. That's the best part. And sometimes we even get, we had the greatest thing, our first session for this fall. We have an IHMC employee who was a Science Saturday kid. Yeah, her name is Virginia Vaughn. Shout out to Virginia. And her mom, we found a photo. Ursula Schwetke, our director of outreach, found a photo of Virginia when she was at her first Science Saturday with her mom who worked at UWF in the chemistry department. So it is my personal mission to make sure we recreate the photo of adult Virginia and her mom together in the classroom again because Virginia helped volunteer to run one of our sessions on optical illusions and how sight works and how your brain works. That was one of our openings, our opening session for this fall.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

This is so cool. It's very cool. This is it's so amazing. Okay, one more logistic question. And then I have a question for both of you as we wrap up. This is so logistiky. That's not a word, but right now it is. Yeah. How like parking and drop-off, do the parents do they stay or do they just like dump the kid out and then they leave and then they get to go have time by themselves? I know that's a very weird, detailed question, but I'm putting myself in the mind of a parent. They want to know, yeah, okay, yes, I like the idea, but from a scheduling standpoint, how do we roll? So how does it happen?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Well, I know in the youngest group, the third and fourth graders, a lot of the parents stay.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

And they sit on the outside edge and they watch. And sometimes I get them involved and make them volunteer helpers.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

All right. They love it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

And then I think the older groups, it's more of a drop-off and pickup situation. They have a parking lot in the back.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah, we do have parking, but downtown Pensacola parking is a little bit of a challenge. Let's say. So we do have drop-off and pickup parking for sure. We're at 40 South Alchaney Street, which, if you're familiar with downtown, we are right next to St. Michael's Cemetery. So there is street parking, and the street parking at our building is free. Ooh, love that. Just saying. Just saying. So the sessions are a little over an hour. There's like a 15-minute window between the first session and the second. So we can reset the room. Yeah. We can reset the room and get everybody ready for the next. So it's definitely a good place to drop your kiddo if they're feeling independent and go visit Palafox Market or do a couple errands and then come back and get your kiddo and head off for the rest of the day.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Exactly. Okay. So here's my final question for the both of you. So Heath, I'll have you go first. Ideally, what would be your dream for how this camp would shape the next generation?

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Oh, well, it's meant to like spark their interest and just make learning fun. But it also, like I was saying earlier, it's like the first step to like a career path, if you ask me, because as they get more experienced with it, they get to build the confidence. I mean, if you think about like programming or engineering, that can be scary to a kid, right? And then they start to do it and they start to realize it's not as hard as they might think it is. It's not impossible. So then they start to look for other activities at their school. Because we'll ask them, you guys join a club at school, a robotics club, and some of them are like, yeah, they have it, but I haven't joined it, but I'm gonna join it now. Oh we get a lot of that. And then I see a lot of my campers at the competitions from their school, like we're competing against them, and I'm like, I memory you, yeah. So it's a great way to just introduce it to them, to get to meet the people who do it for a living, and then to see that it's uh definitely a possibility for them.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

I love that. What about you? I love the idea that this is an enrichment opportunity that is open to every kid. There's no, I mean, there's a fee for camp, right? But for Science Saturday, we really want that to be the opening the door for kids to be that spark of their imagination. And not every kid has equal resources at home. And we see lots of times we see kids who coming to Science Saturday is the first time they thought about science in a way that wasn't whatever was being covered in their book. Or when they came to robotics camp, they heard about programming, but they weren't interested, but maybe not sure. And they didn't have a way to explore it in a safe way to see if it was their thing or not. But we give them that opportunity. And then sometimes when they leave camp, they're excited, they can see how they might apply it to something else that they're interested in, that it created this rigor in their thinking. This gave them a pathway for critical thinking and problem solving and working together in teams with people that you don't know. I mean, all that, that's life. That's life no matter what path you follow, is working with different people and trying to reach a common goal and critically solving the problems on a deadline and making the thing work that starts from nothing. And at the end, you have a robot that Mr. Parr lets you demolition derby sometimes at the end.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Well, you know, a lot of times on the every other year I do Ozobots, which are little tiny robots like the size of a quarter, right? And then they use uh color to be programmed. And at the end of the session, there'll be a line of parents with their phone, be like, How do we buy one of these Ozobots? And so I tell you, Amazon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or whatever. And because all the kids want to get an Ozobot at the end of the session. So my gosh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

I feel like this is science without a container. Yeah. You know, because when you were saying, okay, the kids, they see, okay, this is science. Open your book to chapter 11. And now at these events, they're seeing, okay, no, actually, this microphone we're talking into, let me tell you about the science behind it. This cool robot, let me tell you about the science, the knocking down the thing. We'll talk about the science. Yeah. And to be able to see it everywhere and to see themselves in it, I think is so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah, super important to be able to see yourself, maybe in a realm you didn't think was for you. Yeah. But is definitely for you because you see people who some of them aren't that much older than our high school students when you get down to it. Some of our researchers right out of their PhD are in their 20s. Those are people they could be. And that can be really inspirational. And that's different than like an adult or your teacher or your mom telling you you can be blah blah when you grow up.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

No.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Well, of course, they say that, but there's somebody who looks just a little bit older than they are who did it.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

And now with like the breadth of videos that are science-based on YouTube, I could see where this would continue. So that might be cool for a parent to know as well that okay, Mr. Beast, that's fine. But also the NASA guy who does the squirrel challenge and all those. And so to be able to continue that curiosity in a way that the student leads, not is just them responding to open up to chapter 11. So thank you guys so much. This was such a fun conversation. Oh, thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you. I'll put the link to everything that we talked about in the show notes. So if anyone wants to check it out, they can do so easily. Awesome. That's great. Thanks. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Scambia County Public Schools.