Argonne Activities at SC12

Argonne coding campers, class of 2015

In July, I participated in Argonne’s first summer coding camp, a computer science education opportunity attended by 42 local high school students and organized in partnership with the DuPage County chapter of the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO).

Posted in Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, Education

Secrets of the Universe — Coming to an IMAX screen near you in 2016

I’m thrilled to be part of a new NSF-funded IMAX and digital 3D documentary film project that will introduce audiences to the major scientific instruments being used to explore the origins of the universe. Chief among these are the Large

Posted in Education

The beginning of a change

After posting a few months back on the exciting STEAM work at RISD, and the push to integrate art into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curricula, I was eager to attend the “The Art of Science Learning” talk at

Posted in Education

Extreme-Scale Computing Training Course: Class of 2013!

Today I met with the first class of young scientists and researchers to participate in the Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing. The trainees are now into week two of lectures and hands-on sessions aimed at teaching them how to

Posted in Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, Education

From Lego bricks to C++: promoting computational thinking skills in U.S. schools

TEALS (Technology Education And Literacy in Schools) is a nonprofit tech-literacy teaching program that grew out of Microsoft engineer Kevin Wang’s desire to teach computer science in his spare time. Microsoft liked it, funded it, and made Wang its chief

Posted in Education, Musings

Critical thinking skills: what designers have and U.S. industry needs

From the time I was an undergraduate physics major, I’ve also been interested in the creative activities intrinsic to art and design fields. Critique, conceptualization, and iteration are all useful practices for developing new ways of seeing reality. Good artists

Posted in Education, Musings