News From Student Sections

Duke and Southampton Chapters Announce Plans
for Online Outreach Resource

by David Banks, Co-President, Southampton OSA student chapter

A key goal of the OSA Foundation is the advancement of science education for young people. Every year the OSA Foundation distributes $1000's to student chapters and local sections around the world to enable them to achieve precisely this goal. Outreach programs play a key role in this strategy.

For the uninitiated, Outreach is a collective name for the activities held by OSA -sponsored groups dedicated to bringing science to children. Example activities include school visits or hosted events where a variety of displays are set up that introduce children to important scientific ideas in a fun and, if possible, interactive way. For an example of an Outreach show, see " Southampton Chapter Reports Massive Success with Latest Outreach Effort " elsewhere in this issue of Focal Point.

Setting up an Outreach program can seem like (and is) an enormous undertaking. There are displays to design and constructs, promotional work to advertise the program, incidental extras such as setting up and maintaining a website to report on the program's successes, and applying for funding. But help could be at hand shortly with an idea for an online resource dedicated to Outreach.

The idea initially came from a conversation between Bradley Bower of the Duke University student chapter and Chris Dean, who was one of Southampton 's Outreach officers last year, and has also been discussed at OSA headquarters. The plan is for an online resource where members can post ideas or construction guides for demonstrations, report on shows they've held, and generally share their Outreach experiences. Hopefully the resource will provide a forum where chapters wanting to start an Outreach program can find helpful instructions and advice, and where existing programs can exchange ideas to expand on their shows.

Setting up such a resource will be a big job and so we would like to take this opportunity to appeal for any assistance other OSA chapters would be willing to offer. In the very near future we will look at setting up a committee who will coordinate construction of the website. This committee will be comprised ideally of a mix of OSA student chapter representatives and Foundation/MES Council members, and will deal with all aspects of the project from layout design through to content selection and website coding.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about or suggestions for the project, please contact myself (dpb@orc.soton.ac.uk) or Brad ( bab15@duke.edu); any help, from content suggestions through to volunteering to help out on the committee will be gratefully appreciated.