Tag Archives: IPSEC

Celebrating science and some nano Haiku too

There’s a special pre-conference for people involved in science events and festivals  just prior to the 2011 AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) annual meeting. The special pre-conference meeting is the 2011 International Public Science Events Conference (IPSEC) from Feb. 16-17, 2011. Both the IPSEC and AAAS conferences are taking place in Washington, DC.

From the 2011 IPSEC conference website,

This February the first ever International Public Science Events Conference (IPSEC) convenes for two days in Washington DC. From multi-million dollar citywide festivals, to intimate cafe meetings at the corner pub, new public science events are popping up across the globe. Join professionals from around the world to trade ideas and inspiration, forge new collaborations, and consider what is next for this rapidly growing field. And it is all timed to lead into the annual meeting of the world’s largest general scientific society: the AAAS.

Registration is free and there are a limited number of places.

I got my December issue of the NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) newsletter a few weeks so the information isn’t quite as timely as it could but here we go,

There’s a NISE Net Content Map available. Now, I was expecting something along the lines of a map with visual representations of data that I would click on for a text description. This map is a text document with (from the newsletter),

key ideas for our educational experiences, including programs, exhibits, and media experiences for informal science education settings. It presents key content knowledge for engaging the public in learning about nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. The document was created by the network’s content steering group, with input from many people throughout the network, as well as a group of external advisors and reviewers.

2011 is the International Year of Chemistry (IYC)! You can find out more about that here. They provide a world map that features local representatives. Naturally, I looked for the Canadian ones. Information about your own local representatives are available from the map or in a standard list format. Here’s the portion of the map that features IYC Canadian representatives.

Finally, the monthly nano Haiku, or, in this case, Haikus:

From the future
Evil nanoscientist
Will he conquer us?

by Keith Ostfeld of the Children’s Museum of Houston. This Haiku was inspired by the play Attack of the Nanoscientist which can be found in the NISE Net Catalog.

Inspired by the consumerism surrounding the holidays, Luke Donev submitted the following Haikus about branding nano:

Oh nano branding:
we seek to educate but
compete with Apple

It’s NaNoWriMo!
(National Novel Writing
Month) More brand Nano.