ARM Explores New Frontier with American Association for the Advancment of Science

 
Published: 25 February 2011
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science invited the ARM Facility to join its “boulevard” at the AAAS 2011 Annual Meeting in Washington D.C.

Reaching a new audience, the ARM Facility participated for the first time in the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held February 17-21 in Washington D.C. A total of 8,200 meeting registrants, families, and press attended the event, themed “Science Without Borders” to emphasize the global scale of complex scientific challenges. Consistent with that theme, many visitors to the ARM Facility exhibit asked about the ARM Mobile Facilities, with specific inquiries about using them for climate studies in Antarctica, Haiti, Korea, and the Middle East. Visitors were also interested in both long-term and field campaign data sets and were amazed to learn that all ARM data are free. A few visitors involved in related research were surprised they hadn’t heard of ARM before.

Numerous scientists and educators at the AAAS 2011 Annual Meeting stopped at the ARM exhibit to learn about the user facility’s measurement capabilities and data collections.

Unlike the other scientific conferences that ARM traditionally attends, AAAS held its public “Family Science Days” in the same hall as the scientific exhibits and posters. The resulting crossflow of traffic led many teachers to the ARM exhibit. One teacher expressed interest in using ARM’s live data display,

kiosk.arm.gov, in her classroom as an example for communicating data, and several science teachers asked about using ARM data for classroom projects. In all, just over 200 visitors stopped at the ARM exhibit to talk or pick up materials during the event.

About 300 visitors stopped by the ARM education exhibit, where the lesson plans were well received, and several visitors signed up to receive the biannual education newsletter. One interested parent wanted to know how to help kids discover interesting and diverse scientific jobs—such as bringing them to these types of events. As always, the youngest visitors were happy to find the Climate Kids for a photo opportunity, and the ARM bookmarks continue to be a hit among young and old alike.