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The Circuit News from the halls of academic engineering, science, and technology August 2020 Headlines Science panel to U.S. schools: Reopen this fall RECOMMENDATIONS Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Academies of Provide masks for all teachers and Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are calling on K-12 school staff, and require all staff and administrators to reopen this fall, with priority given to students in students to wear them. kindergarten through fifth grade and to children with special needs. Make hand-washing stations or “Opening schools will benefit families beyond providing education, hand sanitizer available to all who including by supplying child care, school services, enter the building, minimize meals, and other family supports,” the organization contact with shared surfaces, and increase regular cleanings. said in a recently released report. “Without in-person Limit large groups in cafeterias and instruction, schools risk children falling behind academically and school entrances, possibly by exacerbating educational inequities.” The report recommends that staggering start times. federal and state governments help schools cover the cost of Reorganize classrooms to allow for appropriate prophylactic measures, including masks, enhanced physical distancing, perhaps by cleaning, facility upgrades, and reconfigured classes. The price tag shrinking classes or by moving to larger spaces. Consider “cohorting,” would be hefty. The report estimates that implementing the in which students stay with the recommendations would cost about $1.8 million for a school district same staff for the entire day. with eight buildings and 3,200 students. “While it will be impossible for Prioritize cleaning, ventilation, and schools to entirely eliminate the risk of COVID-19, young children in air filtration, but recognize that particular will be impacted by not having in-person learning and may they will not eliminate the risk. suffer long-term academic consequences if they fall behind as a Create a culture of health and safety, and enforce virus-mitigation result,” the group said. “In grades K-3, children are still developing the protocols through positive skills to regulate their own behavior, emotions, and attention, and reinforcement, not harsh discipline. therefore struggle with distance learning.” READ MORE Girls in Engineering Anne Mayoral, director of UC-Berkeley’s Girls in Engineering camp, leads a virtual tour of Oakland’s American Steel Studios. COVID-19 forces the organizers of STEM-focused camps to get creative Every summer, engineering and computer-science programs across the country sponsor a wide assortment of camps, workshops, and seminars designed to spark creativity among young people — including, perhaps, a few prospective enrollees. This summer, however, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the programs themselves that had to get creative: How do you capture the imagination of a sixth- grader or convince a rising high-school sophomore that his or her future lies in STEM — all without person-to-person contact? The approaches were as varied as the presenting organizations — Louisiana State University, the National Society of Black Engineers, New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, the University of HANDS-ON Arkansas, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and Princeton University’s Center for Complex Materials, among many others. On the West Coast, Mission College and LEARNING California State University-East Bay teamed up to offer a weeklong virtual camp for Participants in UC- Latinx youngsters — VR headsets included. Some schools seemed hellbent on Berkeley’s Girls in expanding their offerings in the face of the pandemic. For the first time since its initial Engineering camp pilot phase, the University of California-Berkeley's popular Girls in Engineering (GiE) made mechanical camp was offered free of charge to all participants. ChromeBooks and WiFi hotspots hands (above) out of cardboard, tape, were provided to students who didn’t have a computer at home, and an additional and string. In the week was added to the camp. “Our decision to make the camp free stems from the civil engineering fact that the families in our target demographic are the ones most severely impacted module, campers by the COVID-19 crisis,” said Anne Mayoral, MS, GiE’s program director. By all built structures accounts, the reimagined camp was a hit. “I would give the camp 10 stars,” said (below) using only gumdrops Camila Lucero Nube, 11. “Before camp, I loved science, especially the human and toothpicks. body. I was also interested in computers, but I wasn’t sure what engineers did or if it was for me. But (now), it’s definitely something I could see myself doing.” Another school that took its first-ever virtual summer camp to new heights — quite literally — was Missouri University of Science and Technology (S&T). The high-schoolers who participated in the university’s “Space: The Final Frontier” camp designed and built small satellites using provided materials. At the end of the weeklong camp, the completed creations were sent to S&T, which plans to launch more than a dozen of the satellites some 100,000 feet into the air via a high-altitude balloon. Campers will be able to track the flight and receive images and data captured by the satellites. The “mission” is set for this month, weather permitting. READ MORE Rendering courtesy of Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center The proposed Proteus laboratory would sit 60 feet below the surface of the Caribbean, just off the island nation of Curacao. Northeastern plunges into project led by ‘aquanaut’ Fabien Cousteau Explorer and environmentalist Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of famed marine biologist Jacques- Yves Cousteau, is teaming up with Northeastern University to build what would be the world’s largest underwater laboratory. Plans call for the lab — dubbed Proteus, after an ancient Greek sea god — to be constructed near Curacao, some 60 feet below the surface of the Caribbean. “If it gets built, and I truly hope it does, it will be transformative,” said Mark Patterson, PhD, associate dean for research and graduate affairs in Northeastern’s College of Science. “It really will be like the International Space Station at the bottom of the sea.” Although its design has yet to be finalized, the facility is expected to be four times larger than any existing underwater habitat, with space for research labs, sleeping quarters, an underwater greenhouse, and a video production facility to livestream educational programming. Northeastern is one of several “strategic partners” in the endeavor. Others include Rutgers University and the Caribbean Research and Management of Biodiversity Foundation, a nonprofit Mark Patterson organization headquartered in Curacao. Patterson, a professor of marine and environmental sciences, and Northeastern colleague Brian Helmuth, PhD, are serving as science advisors to the Proteus project. Patterson said an envisioned lab would give researchers “the gift of time," inasmuch as divers based underwater wouldn’t have to limit the duration of their dives out of concern about decompression sickness. “If you need to be out in the water column — making your measurements, collecting the weird organisms that are there, doing engineering tasks — and you’re operating from the surface, you don’t have the luxury of time,” Patterson said. “You’re on the clock the instant you hit the water.” Patterson is well acquainted with Cousteau and his efforts to better understand the world’s oceans. Northeastern was a partner in an earlier Cousteau-led project — Mission 31, in which scientists from Northeastern, MIT, and Florida International University rotated through Aquarius, an underwater lab in the Florida Keys. Cousteau predicted that Proteus will prove “indispensable” in solving global challenges such as climate change, rising sea levels, extreme storms, and highly transmissible viruses. “The knowledge that will be uncovered underwater,” he said, “will forever change the way generations of humans live up above.” READ MORE Applied physics rejoins Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science In a move heralded as an important step in Yale University’s push to become the first institution with a comprehensive university-wide research and education program in quantum science, engineering, and materials, Yale’s Department of Applied Physics (AP) has rejoined the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS). “This is a great move for the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Applied Physics, and the university,” said SEAS Dean Jeffrey Brock, PhD. “AP is a crucial link between physics and engineering. By bringing AP back into SEAS, that link becomes even more pronounced, and collaborations will surely be all the more fruitful and better resourced.” The Department of Applied Physics, which is dedicated to seeking solutions to critical problems through the study of nature’s laws and by the application of technology, split from SEAS in a 2010 restructuring. Sohrab Ismail-Beigi, PhD, professor of applied physics, mechanical engineering, and materials science, said the focus of AP research is “near the border between science and engineering — but somewhat on the science side of the line.” The reunification of the two academic units, which officially took effect July 1, follows Yale’s announcement of plans for a new state- of-the-art building intended for quantum-science, engineering, and materials research. READ MORE Headlines University of Florida The University

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