CENI Newsletter — May/June 2022

May/June 2022 Newsletter

Here at CENI we are looking forward to a rejuvenating summer, celebrating the good work done by the members of our Campus Engagement Network and our staff over the past academic year. CENI was recognized by the Alumni Association for outreach excellence, visited by the popular "Doodler" Steven White during a Hokie for a Day field trip, and sends best wishes to three outstanding new graduates.

Alumni Award for Outreach Excellence - Team

This award recognizes outstanding contributions by Virginia Tech faculty members who have extended the university's outreach mission throughout the commonwealth, the nation, and the world. Recipients are nominated by their peers and are inducted into the university's Academy of Outreach Excellence. The awards program video is available here and CENI is introduced at 5:10. Congratulations to Lisa, Phyllis, and Chelsea for their well-deserved achievement!

Getting to Know the Campus Engagement Network  

Fun fact: Hannah is an avid knitter and recently completed her first successful sweater project.

Highlights from the Campus Engagement Network

STEM for All Video Showcase Submission
The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech received a Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant in 2016 from the National Science Foundation. The goal of the project was to transform the department with narrow curricular paths that attracted a limited range of traditional engineers to a department that draws and retains a wider pool of students and prepares them to be holistic professionals for a broader range of careers. One strategy for realizing this vision included forging new connections to K-12 education. In partnership through CENI, Ms. Kim Keith worked with Dr. Chelsea E. Haines to develop a mutually beneficial service-learning class project that met both the RED team’s goals and Floyd County Schools’ goals of helping teachers integrate the 2018 Computer Science standards of learning into the curriculum. Watch this video Broadening Participation: Integrating CS Standards to learn how the project team did this. 

Hokie For A Day Doodle By Steven White

We had the pleasure of Steven White joining us during one of our Hokie for a Day field trips this semester. He was able to capture some of the activities the 5th graders enjoyed in his doodle! The Hokie for a Day exhibitors featured included the Fralin Life Science Institute, Virginia Tech Digging in the Crates, the Hokienauts, Mining and Minerals Engineering, and members of Dr. Chelsea E. Haines' undergraduate service learning class. Check out some more of Steven's doodles here.

Thinkabit Lab Summer Camp 2022
Come invent with us this summer! Attend a summer camp at the Thinkabit Lab at no cost. The Qualcomm Thinkabit Lab is a hands-on invention-based program committed to inspiring the next generation of inventors. Through this program, students will create circuits like an electrical engineer, code like a computer scientist, and build an invention like a mechanical engineer.

Camp dates are from June 26th-July 1st. 
Contact for More Information: Donald Pizzullo
Phone: (540)-767-6102
Email: pizzullo@vt.edu
Apply Here: https://tech4good2022.questionpro.com

A Handbook for Supporting Today's Graduate Students 

CENI and CENI Partners in the News

• The focus for the 2022 Virginia School Boards Association Showcases for Success was Virginia Public Schools: Setting the Precedent. Several innovative programs from across Virginia are featured in this newsletter. Among them is Radford City Public Schools, recognized for their "Passport to Career and College- Oh, The Places You'll Go!" program. With CENI providing assessment for this program, P2C allows freshmen the opportunity to engage in career exploration activities, develop professionalism, and apply what they have learned in real-world settings.
  

• David Knight received an NSF grant to research the various mechanisms of funding- fellowships, teaching assistantships, traineeships, etc- that influence student's pursuit of doctorates in STEM fields. He and his team took a deep dive into understanding the differences in funding and how that impacts students. Working on his team is one of our own, Chelsea Haines Lyles, who has done tremendous work on the grant. Click here to read more about the research grant, findings, and what is next to come.
  

• Organized by ICAT and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the ACCelerate Festival's high-tech exhibits amaze visitors for the third time in a row. They inspire inventions and innovations to visitors not through simply looking at displays under glass, but through interactions and conversations. Read more about this year's event here.

• Three years after its debut in 2019 at the ACCelerate Festival, the Vauquois Experience Exhibit is finding a new purpose. Students get the chance to experience underground tunnels built in France during World War 1 through virtual reality. In a short video, Todd Ogle talks about his immersive exhibit becoming an educational tool for middle and high school students to learn about World War 1 because of its nontraditional way of teaching. Watch this video.

CENI Graduates 

We want to take the time to recognize and appreciate some of our graduating student staff. We have enjoyed working with you and are so proud of you! We wish you success in your future endeavors, congratulations on your graduation!

Haseb has worked with CENI since Fall 2019. He has been instrumental in facilitating the Virginia Tech Science Festival in all its forms - pre-pandemic festival, online scientist meetups during COVID, and school field trips as restrictions were lifted. His many skills in databases, marketing, social media, and communications have been put to good use. Haseb was recognized by the Pamplin College of Business with the Outstanding Pamplin Senior Award.

Cody Klein has worked at CENI since Fall 2019 and has continued to grow into his role as an evaluation assistant. He has been a consistent, crucial contributor to the center’s evaluation activities, preparing data collection instruments, assisting with data analysis, and preparing data visualizations for written evaluation reports. 

Sarah Howell has worked at CENI over the last year, first in her role as an undergraduate learning assistant for Dr. Chelsea E. Haines’ service-learning course and adding undergraduate research responsibilities to that role. She contributed to the service-learning course by leading class discussions, preparing class materials, and modeling STEM classroom outreach. Her outstanding contributions were recognized by receiving the center’s first Campus internEXP Intern of the Month in October 2021.

CENI Student Spotlight

Broader Impacts

Please keep CENI in mind for your grant writing and broader impacts evaluation needs. Learn more about our broader impacts and evaluation consultation services here.

National Science Foundation CAREER grant applications are due July 27, 2022. Researchers are seeking opportunities to share their research with public audiences. To include your summer camps and other preK-12 educational programming in CENI's menu of broader impacts, email Dr. Chelsea E. Haines (clyles@vt.edu).

CENI Educator Liaison Corner

Floyd County Public Schools 
Floyd Elementary School’s first graders are officially Super Programmers thanks to students from the ENGE 2984G: SS: Service Learning and Beyond class. During three in person visits, FES students were introduced to computer science vocabulary, programmed their "Robot Teacher" to navigate through the classroom, and composed and debugged algorithms on BeeBot to accomplish specific goals. Students learned cause and effect relationships, directional language, and early coding skills.

Looking for a way to communicate K-12 ongoings thru the summer? The FCPS webpage now has a “Community Opportunities” link that will keep families up to date on residential and day-long summer camps, reading programs, and various activities. Check it out! Informational links can be shared with Kim Keith, VT-PK12 liaison at keithk@floyd.k12.va.us. 

Radford City Public Schools
VT Mechanical Engineering students hosted a STEM exhibition at the VT Drone Park and introduced high school students from Radford and Grayson County to projects and technical applications of mechanical engineering and related STEM studies.  Students were able to see a variety of projects and demonstrations, ask questions of those who have worked on them, and interact with a number of the exhibitions.  Exhibitions included:

• Autonomous Drone – VT mechanical engineering student demonstrated what is required to build and fly an autonomous drone
• Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team – Members of one of VT’s car teams discussed what goes into making a hybrid electric vehicle
• LED Light Display – VT mechanical engineering student demonstrated programming though an interactive light display
• AutoDrive – VT AutoDrive team members demonstrated and discussed some of the technology that goes into making an autonomous ground vehicle, including lidar and GPS
• Fog Harps - VT mechanical engineering student demonstrated methods for harvesting water from fog

It was a wonderful experience for our students – many thanks to Al Wicks and the Mechanical Engineering department!

Virginia Tech Roanoke Center
STEAM Day 2022 is coming to Roanoke on Friday, October 28
https://www.vtrc.vt.edu/K12/steam-day.html. Roanoke STEAM Day is hosted by partners that include the Virginia Tech Roanoke Center, Virginia Tech Ware Lab, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Science Museum of Western Virginia, Taubman Museum of Art,  Virginia Museum of Transportation, Radford University Carilion, Clean Valley Council and Virginia Western Community College. Registration is open now for exhobotprs and those who wish to attend. 

Science Museum of Western Virginia
Dr. Ling Li and his beautiful children cut the ribbon on a brand new virtual reality experience exploring the architecture of starfish skeletons. Dr. Li was awarded a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation, and worked with CENI liaison Dr. Phyllis Newbill to design an effective broader impacts statement, secure letters of support, and facilitate the exhibit design. 

Dates and Deadlines

5/30: University Holiday (Memorial Day)
6/19: Juneteenth
6/20: University Holiday (Juneteenth observed)
5/20: University closed in observance of Juneteenth
6/22: Science on Tap: Building Soils for a Healthy Life
6/27-7/1: Thinkabit Lab Summer Camp
7/4: University Holiday (Independence Day)
7/27: NSF CAREER grants due
10/28: Roanoke STEAM Day 2022
11/12: Virginia Tech Science Festival