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13 What you learn about kids is that they are curious. Any time I meet a kid who is curious at all about what I do I tell them about the science that I do that I get to work with bugs and have you heard of germs Well there are real names for germs. They are bacteria and viruses and I study these things and that is super cool. Something else I focus on is letting people know that you do not have to be some sort of super genius to be a scientist. You just need to be curious. Make science accessible . . . I study microbial communities that are host associated and I am interested in host microbe interactions that lead to changes in the immune system. That is not something I am going to say to everybody. It goes back to the idea that there are these things that you know of as germs. Here is how they interact with your body. Everybody has a body. Everybody has a microbiota. I coordinate a course that is funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and we start students in genuine research as freshman. Its hugely important for STEM educators that if you have high school students going into college make sure they ask about research opportunities. If you have a curious high school or middle school student get them involved in research. Get them involved with that university professor down the block because we love talking about our research we love having students come into our laboratories for what we think is the coolest thing ever. Dont be afraid of scientists. We really do want to help and love to have people take part in our research. We need to keep young people not only competent in mathematics in third fourth and fifth grade but also confident in math so they can enjoy it. No one can do that better than those who practice it because they can bring relevance. The first thing we have to do is find out what the students are interested in and we could build a whole curriculum around that. If you are interested in fireworks theres a lot of science in fireworks. If you are interested in baseball we could do that as well. Seasoned engineers and scientists can bring relevance to that young person. But the first step is finding out what they are interested in. When I was at IBM years ago the company had a partnership with Junior Achievement. I spent a semester teaching economics to a seventh-grade math class which gave them an opportunity to understand why they were learning the math and how it could be applied. There are other opportunities for a school to welcome a professional to give a demonstration and to make it exciting. Thats the advantage of having seasoned engineers or scientists bringing their experience into the classroom. They can make it exciting by linking the course work to something the professionals have mastered. What To Do What To Do Courtney Robinson Curiositys Cool Karl Reid Fireworks and Baseball Image courtesy Blonde Photography FOR VIDEO GO TO www.carnegiescience.Edu