Last night, I participated in a NASA-sponsored education and outreach activity. We went to a Madison Mallards game and set up some booths with materials from the UW Geology Museum. Our goal was to bring astrobiology to members of the public who might not ever be exposed to the field otherwise.
In all, we had about 6 tables:
1) Banded-Iron Formations (BIFs)
3) Zircons (Radiometric Dating)
Prof. John Valley telling a mother & son about the oldest rock in North America (the big, grey one on the table)!
Running through the pre-game spiel5) Friends of the UW Geology Museum
6) Free Stuff from NASA (bookmarks, CDs and extremophile trading card packs)
*You can get the CD contents yourself here!
Free NASA Stuff Bookmark (left), CD (about extremophilic microorganisms) and Trading Cards (about different types of extremophiles).By far, the BIF table was the coolest because we had cool hats and "build-a-BIF" blocks.
These were supposed to be for the kids to wear, but I think the grad students spent more time in them than the kids.
This was the "build-a-BIF" activity which consisted of two kinds of small blocks, oxygen (white) and iron (grey) which together, fit under the large hematite box (black). The red box represents chert and may alternate with the black hematite bands as the BIF is deposited on the ocean floor (built). 
Again, I think the grad students played with the blocks more than the kids did...Since this was my first NASA outreach activity at UW, it took me a while to hit my stride. At first, I wasn't really sure what to say. I mean, when you're used to talking to other scientists,
how do you break the ice with kids? My friend and fellow grad student, Jason Huberty, regularly helps out at the UW Geology museum so I watched him give his speech a few times before trying it myself. At first, I tried to mimic what he said but soon realized that I'd be better off coming up with something that was uniquely my own. After all, our backgrounds were different so it only made sense to change my approach to suit what I was familiar with.I found that the best way to attract kids to our table was to lure them in with a challenge, "Who wants to try and lift a really heavy rock?" Gently, I placed the smallest rock we had into each little hand that crossed our table and encouraged them to pick up the others as well (see photo above). Once the rocks were in-hand, it was easier to hold their attention as I explained why some had stripes and others didn't, some had straight stripes and others had squiggly ones... Even parents seemed interested in the idea that Earth didn't always have an atmosphere rich in oxygen like we do today. Many had never heard of hydrothermal vents and I even had one religious question that tested my abilities. I also thought it was nice that my colleague could explain BIFs to some of our Spanish-speaking visitors in their native toungue (something I could not have done since I was raised in Canada where Spanish is almost never taught in schools).
All in all, I think everyone had a blast and we certainly introduced astrobiology to a lot of new people. I hope we get to do more of these sorts of activities. Who says a scientific education must be confined to the classroom?
Jason Huberty with the Madison Mallard (mascot)UPDATE: For more about this activity, visit the following websites...
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