Saturday, June 23rd, 10 am to 4 pm Albuquerque Convention Center, Main Lobby A fun, FREE event for students and families. Download the FLYER!!! How do I get there? For questions, contact Hillary Smith, 505-665-3953

Exciting science demonstrations and hands-on activities!

Free t-shirts provided to the first 200 attendees ages 15 and under!

Sponsored by PAC07 and PPPS07 

Why should I come to Science Weekend?

To have fun! This is a one-day science carnival that will have plenty of hands-on activities on cool demonstrations for children of all ages and curious adults. 

Tell me more about Science Weekend.

The attendees of two science conferences, the Pulsed Power and Plasma Science Conference and the Particle Accelerator Conference, are joining together to create this outreach event. In addition to general science demonstrations, there will also be displays and activities relating to plasma science and particle accelerator physics. Scientists from both conferences will be in attendance to talk about what exactly plasma and particle accelerators do for science and why they are interesting. 

Anything else I should know?

Science Weekend is one-day only, Saturday, June 23^rd in the main lobby of the Albuquerque Convention Center. The event is free and designed for students and families. We will give away free t-shirts to the first 200 attendees ages 15 and under.  

About the demonstrators: 

Can you pick up a bowling ball with a vacuum? How does an earthquake collapse a building? How can you make a really loud sound? If you’ve ever wondered about the answers to these questions, then you need to come see Mike Thuot at Science Weekend. 

Mike Thuot
is a science educator in the Santa Fe Public Schools and a retired Staff Member of Los Alamos National Laboratory. He will be giving three 45- minute demonstrations at Science Weekend. During Mike’s demonstration, you have the opportunity to participate first-hand in exciting and educational science demonstrations of buoyancy, air pressure, sound and resonance. You will discover the scientific basis for picking up bowling balls with a vacuum, the vacuum bazooka, submarines, earthquake collapse of buildings, natural sound amplification and more!

You can reproduce many of Mike’s experiments with materials found around the home. Mike is a regular on the science outreach circuit, doing demonstrations for classes in Santa Fe and recently serving as a judge for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. He designs and builds all of the equipment that he uses in his demonstrations.

Do a hammer and a feather fall to earth at the same rate? 
Can a person lie on a bed of nails? What happens when you pull a table cloth out from under a glass of water? Can you make a screwdriver float in mid-air? Dave Schwellenbach can give you answers to these questions and more at Science Weekend. 

Dave Schwellenbach
is a champion of science outreach and a staff member at National Security Technologies. Dave will be giving three 45-minute demonstrations at Science Weekend. With plenty of help from his audience, Dave will de-mystify everyday phenomenon using science. His experiments will run the gamut from gravitation to electricity. If you have always wondered if scientists were telling the truth about a hammer and feather falling to earth at the same rate, then you don’t want to miss Dave’s demonstrations.

Dave recently returned from Casper, Wyoming where he spent a week doing science demonstrations at all of the local schools.

Gordon McDonough
is a science educator at the Bradbury Science Museum. Together with his dedicated staff, Gordon introduces science to school children all over northern New Mexico, either by interacting with them on museum visits, or as part of the Bradbury’s ‘Science on Wheels’ program that visits classrooms with free, hands-on science activities. Before joining the Bradbury staff, Gordon was a teacher in Santa Fe Public Schools. His hobbies include bicycling and making mechanical and wind-operated devices. Some recent projects include a gravity-powered catapult that can launch golf balls 100 feet!

About the exhibitors and activities:

James Morgan
from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) will be bringing displays and hands-on activities about plasma science to Science Weekend. James is responsible for a variety of science outreach activities at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and is a professional actor. James is dedicated to communicating current scientific knowledge about fusion energy science to the community at large through workshops and programs for students and teachers.

At Science Weekend, James will have panels of information as well as activities for children and students to experience first-hand what fusion and plasma science is all about. 

Hillary Smith
from the Neutron Science Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory will be bringing displays about particle accelerators and neutron science. Hillary works with scientists from all over the world who come to Los Alamos to use the particle accelerator and the neutrons it produces. Hillary will have panels of information and, together with colleagues from Los Alamos, will answer questions from visitors about how particle accelerators work and how they impact our daily lives. Hillary is the PAC07 organizing chair for Science Weekend.