Hi Pat,

We arrived back yesterday and I thought I'd give you a quick summary of the
trip and who we met with and what we did.

As you know, we flew in Monday, and had enough time to catch a late dinner
and call it a night.

Tuesday was very exciting--
We went to NSF and met with:
Margaret Tolbert (Program Director for current class of STC's and on NSF's
Diversity Committee)
Rich Lane (NCED's Program Director)
Jill Karsten (Program Director for Diversity and Education, Geosciences)
Michael Ellis (Program Director, Earth Sciences)
Joseph Reed (Program Director, Division of Research on Learning in Formal
and Informal Settings)

They met with the students, had time to find out about the students and
their future career interests, hear about the students' involvement in Water
Planet (or H20=Life) and heard from myself, Holly, and Lowana about the
project and how they might help us mentor the students.  The program
directors also gave Holly, Lowana and I some ideas for potential upcoming
funding opportunities.  We spent over 2 hours at NSF.

After this, we went to the National Academy of Science in the Keck building,
which is near the Capitol Mall.  We found the security here much more
daunting than at NSF even, so that was quite interesting.  Anyway, we met
here with Stephen Parker, who is the Director of the Water Science and
Technology Board.  He gave us a nice presentation on water that talked about
global water supplies and shortages, ways of purifying water, and ways of
conserving water.  We talked about the importance of water on a global
level--how water might lead to conflicts and even wars if supplies become
even tighter in the future.  I think he gave the students a good, motivating
talk and they seemed really excited.  They asked good questions (for
example, one asked if there was so much sea water and there were ways to
purify it for drinking, why that couldn't be a solution to all the water
issues on the planet).  We left with more resources--Dr. Parker gave us a cd
of the web site we had been reviewing in his presentation and an annual
report from the Water Science and Technology Board which has information
about all of their current programs.

After this we went to the Smithsonian Native American museum until it
closed, took pictures on the Capitol (sadly, no time to get over to see the
Lincoln Memorial though), and then went to visit Rich Lane at his home.  He
showed us his really fabulous collection of Plains Indian art, which
absolutely covers the walls of his home--Sheri and he have been collecting
these works since the 1960's!

On Wednesday we took the train to New York.  We had little time to see any
of the city, but at least walked the students through Times Square.  Then it
was on to the Natural History Museum.  We went through the exhibit for over
an hour.  Val Ross, who is the student who takes the most notes in her
journal, says she only had time to get through half the material!
Fortunately, the contact you sent us, John Whitney, who I understand is a
writer for the H20=Life exhibit, sent us the entire text of the exhibit (for
in-house use only as there are copyright issues that mean it is for our eyes
only).  He met with us after the exhibit and we camped out in a less-busy
area of the museum and talked about the exhibit room by room.  He got
feedback from the students, and they got to hear about the challenges of
boiling down the tons of research you do for an exhibit like this into a
well-focused and easy-to-understand exhibit.  He has invited the students to
write to him as they begin to pull together their work into an exhibit.  The
students are going to prepare a summary powerpoint and report of what they
saw and learned at the exhibit and present it to the Youth Science Center
students this weekend at Fall Camp.  They are also doing the evaluation your
staff found for us.

We had dinner at Penn Station and then hopped back on the train to
Washington, where we got back at midnight!

On Thursday, we just hustled the students over to the airport and flew out.
We were exhausted, I think the students more tired than Holly, Lowana and I.
Maybe.  Anyway, thought I'd send you this summary so you know how the trip
went.  Diana


Diana Dalbotten, Ph.D.
Director of Diversity
National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics
University of Minnesota