Lots of free events at 2014 Arizona SciTech Festival in February/March

Now in its 3rd year the Arizona SciTech Festival has been organizing hundreds of free activities for children and adults all over the state. I’ve attended a few events down here in Southern Arizona, focusing on science experiments, outer space, creative innovations in science technology engineering and math (STEM).

The Arizona SciTech Festival is a state-wide celebration of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM or STEAM when you include the arts) held annually in February and March. Through a series of over 200 expos, workshops, conversations, exhibitions and tours held in diverse neighborhoods throughout the state, the Arizona SciTech Festival excites and informs Arizonans from ages 3 to 103 about how STEM will drive our state for next 100 years. Spearheaded by Arizona Science Center, the Arizona Technology Council Foundation, Arizona Commerce Authority, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, the Arizona SciTech Festival is a grass roots collaboration of over 350 organizations in industry, academia, arts, civic, community and K-12.

For a list of ongoing and future activities in Pima County, go to their website, www.azscitechfest.org or click here.

You can also download the full event schedule or locate a colorful guide (with gecko design) at the Pima County public libraries or Bookman’s stores. Pima County activities are highlighted in blue. And here’s the list of science activities at the Pima County libraries (click here), including Science Saturdays and Hands on Science activities.

Enjoy this Sci-Tech Festival.

Photos of Martian (and Hawaiian) lava coils

Photos below sent to me from Andrew Ryan, graduate student at Arizona State University’s School of Earth & Space Exploration. He co-authored an article that revealed evidence of lava coils on Mars (click here for my earlier blog about this today). I asked Ryan for photos (being as I’m from the Big Island of Hawaii where the active volcanoes are) and here’s what he sent me. First two of Mars, taken by NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, and the last one of Hawaii is courtesy of USGS.

Martian landscape with lava coils, colorized

Hawaiian lava coil

The article about this discovery in Science is co-authored by ASU Regent’s Professor of Geological Science Philip Christensen.

Freedom Rider Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr. coming to UA

Join Arizona Public Media for a historic guest appearance by Freedom Rider, Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr. commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides.

The event takes place Monday, April 25 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. in the UA Modern Languages building, room 350. Free admission, seating is limited. Sign up here for the Tucson event or the April 23 event at Arizona State University’s Eight-Arizona PBS Studio A:
(http://www.asset.asu.edu/new/events.html#community_events).

The event will include a presentation by Dr. LaFayette, previews of the PBS film “Freedom Riders,” plus new local documentary: “Barrios & Barriers: Tucson’s Civil Rights Era.”

photo courtesy of AZPM

Following the screening there will be a panel presentation featuring: Freedom Rider & civil rights pioneer, Bernard LaFayette, Jr.; Clarence Boykins, Director, Tucson/So AZ Black Chamber of Commerce; & Guadalupe Castillo, Co-Chair of Derechos Humanos; History Professor at Pima Community College.

Co-Hosted by: the Nonviolence Legacy Project / Culture of Peace Alliance and Arizona Public Media.

American Experience PBS: FREEDOM RIDERS is the powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white
Americans risked their lives – many endured savage beatings and imprisonment
– for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed
through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom
Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing
their belief in nonviolent activism. For more information about the film
visit the American Experience website.
http://phoenixnonviolence.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b18c41f2c4a93ae2f7c312cde&id=6cf1360a08&e=a8ea6785ce

Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr., has been a Civil Rights Movement activist,
minister, educator, lecturer and is a global authority on the strategy of
nonviolent social change. He co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) in 1960, where he was a leader of the Nashville movement.
In 1961, he was beaten and jailed during the Freedom Rides. Miraculously, he
also survived an assassination attempt by the Ku Klux Klan in Selma,
Alabama.

He served on the Executive Staff of Martin Luther King, Jr., and was
appointed by Dr. King as National Program Administrator for the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and National Coordinator for the 1968 Poor Peoples’ Campaign.