Bring Your Kid to Work Day
On April 25, 2013, children of SSEC families visited SSEC for a day with their parents.
The idea for hosting an SSEC Bring Your Child to Work Day grew out of Janean Hill's efforts last year in setting up a schedule for her niece. This year's group touring the building included 8 children ranging from 8 to 12 years of age.
Patrick Rowley, Mark Hobson and Derrick Herndon had the opportunity to take these eight kids throughout the building for a whirlwind tour designed by Maria Vasys. First stop was the weather imagery on the 3D globe followed by a visit with Jean Phillips in the library where they learned about snowflakes and the Explorer 7 satellite.
Patrick Rowley demonstrates the Science on a Sphere. Photo by Mark Hobson.
Jean Phillips gave a comprehensive tour of the Schwerdtfeger Library,
including a close look at the scale model of the Explorer 7 satellite. Photo by Patrick Rowley.
Next up was AMRC and then up to the roof where Mark Hobson explained that the metal spikes on the roof protected us from dragons (Derrick noted that these were more specifically lightning dragons). From the roof the tour moved on to the Data Center and then finally to the CAVE, where Jordan Gerth discussed radar imagery and satellite images.
Lee Wellhouse equips a new team for Antarctic studies. Photo by Patrick Rowley.
Jordan Gerth ends the tour with an explanation of satellite meteorology. Photo by Mark Hobson.
The kids were very interactive, asking lots of questions and answering questions with surprisingly detailed answers. From their conversations during and after the tour, it was easy to pick up that some of these concepts were not new for these children, but their enjoyment in connecting ideas to instruments and visualizations was inspiring. It was almost like they had learned some of this before. Hmmmm. They must have very smart and thoughtful parents.
Everything looks pretty good from the roof.
submitted by Derrick Herndon.
