Turns out that shipping heavy equipment back and forth to schools (even all the way to California) throughout the academic year results in a lot of broken items. We often don’t have enough time between shipments to completely fix all of the equipment, so we use spares and place the broken items in a pile until there is a long enough period of time to fix them. Yes, you guessed it, we wait for the summer break.

The Xraise team has been working with teachers throughout the region to leverage engineering design challenges as a way to allow young students to test their developing scientific knowledge and apply it to practical problems. Engineering-based projects have been shown to enhance student understanding of science and, for many, their interest in science. With help from Xraise, teachers are discovering that engineering provides elementary students with a real-world context for learning science.

The day included talks by Peter Wittich, on his past work at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, and Julia Thom-Levy, on the CERN particle accelerator. Both are Cornell associate professors of physics who co-sponsored the event through funding from the Particle Physics at the Energy Frontier Award #1307256, from the National Science Foundation. Research Assistant Professor Ryan Fisher, from Syracuse University, also presented on the recent news of the first observation of gravitational waves and on his work with Advanced LIGO.

This question was posed to several engineers at CHESS who were asked to describe in simple terms the three most important aspects of their jobs at a National Synchrotron Light-Source facility. Their responses were strikingly similar, with the ability to solve complex problems being at the top of their collective list, followed by the application of math and science knowledge to help them tackle these problems.

Cornell Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering student, Anton Volkmann, has sealed his place in the rich history of walkalong gliding.  Described as “the paper airplane that keeps on flying,” you launch one of these gliders by hand, then keep it aloft on a wave of air that you create by walking. First invented in 1950, they weren’t publicized until featured on PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda in 2001. They are still little-known outside of a small, but growing group of progressive educators and aeronautic enthusiasts.

This means that beyond what happens on the front lines here at our lab, we foster a culture of science that transcends the space between our walls. Our public engagement and education team, Xraise, raises interest and awareness in science by letting the science speak for itself. Bathed in photons and electrons our entire lives, it’s easy to take for granted that light is emitted when charged particles are accelerated.

In an effort to encourage a more diverse pool of students to participate in summer research programs, CHESS has adopted a new model for supporting students when they leave their own college campuses during the summer. The Summer Undergraduate Research in Science and Engineering (SUNRiSE) program brings students and faculty members from their home institutions to Cornell University for the summer months, offering opportunities for visiting faculty to conduct their experiments on CHESS beamlines and allowing students the chance to participate in cutting-edge research at the laboratory.

The Education and Outreach team was delighted to have been invited to speak during a parallel workshop session offered on the third day of the User meeting entitled “Bringing Big Science into the Classroom”. This all-day session, organized in part by Dr. Aleida Perez and her colleagues at the Office of Educational Programs, featured NSLS-II and CFN scientists sharing highlights of recent educational initiatives aimed at secondary science educators.

This past semester an enthusiastic team of graduate students ignited public interest in accelerators and light sources by creating and presenting interactive exhibits that demystify synchrotron science.