MTCC VISTA DEANNA LINN BRINGS NANOTECHNOLOGY OUTREACH TO MSU

December 1, 2015

Deanna Linn is a Montana Campus Compact VISTA serving with the Girls STEM Collaborative at Montana State University. She began her service in July 2015. Below is a press release about the amazing work Deanna is doing at MSU.

BOZEMAN, Mont.—An annual Halloween festival for children received an infusion of nanotechnology when an AmeriCorps VISTA member based at Montana State University brought science outreach activities to the university’s Family & Graduate Housing.

FGH hosts an annual Pumpkin Festival near Halloween, and Deanna Linn, who serves via Montana Campus Compact within MSU’s Extended University, recruited undergraduate and graduate students from MSU’s Chemical and BiologicalEngineering Department to volunteer at the Oct. 17 event.

The team presented several hands-on science activities to approximately 115 children and their families who attended the event, which also included a costume contest, pie-eating contest and pumpkin catapult along with pumpkin bowling, pumpkin painting, bean bag toss, arts and crafts, sack race, tic-tac-toe, cookie decorating, science experiments with bubbles and dry ice, and face painting. This is the first time the annual event has included a NanoDays outreach component. MSU Extended University is part of a national program that helps the public better understand nanoscale science and engineering

Families from around the world live in MSU’s Family Housing complex, where children range from newborn to 18 and who hail from all backgrounds: single-parent families, low-income families, military families, etc. Many countries are also represented, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, India, China, Japan, Nepal, Lebanon and Brazil as well as families from around Montana and the U.S.

The partnership was a success and has opened up possibilities for future NanoDays and other STEM outreach projects between MSU Family and Graduate Housing and MSU Extended University. Linn shared information about the partnership with the national project, the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network, to inspire other organizations to partner with their local Family Housing complex.

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Great work, Deanna! We can’t wait for our next check in to see what all you have accomplished. Keep up the amazing work!