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Hello,
My name is Rachel Morgan Theall.  I am working with high school students to
build exhibits through an NSF Division of Chemistry funded grant called
Discovery Corps Post Doctoral Fellowships.  This is the first year of my grant
titled Science in the City.  I am working with three Tucson area high schools. 
One is a small charter school that I meet with twice a week, once for 30 minutes
and a second time for 3 1/2 hours.  The other two schools meet for one hour,
once a week, as after school clubs at the schools. One of these schools is a
science magnet school and the other is a high school with mostly Hispanic
students.  The exhibits are to be based on some aspect or issue concerning
science in the students' community and they are to be bilingual.

I am finding the opportunity to work with these students to be a great deal of
fun but, I am finding it difficult to get the students motivated to choose a
topic for their exhibit. The exhibits created must be able to travel because
the local science center, a partner in the project, will be closing for a time
to plan for an expansion.  Also, the local center, Flandrau Science Center, has
only focused on astronomy.  So the creation of these exhibits will be an
expansion on their focus as they plan and build their new center.

I'm sure that planning an exhibit with a group of adults is difficult enough,
but I'm working with high school students who are not necessarily motivated by
the same things as adults.  I have never built an exhibit so I am new to this
process as well.  I thought I would ask for advice from anyone willing to give
it on how to tackle the planning process in such a way as to motivate and
excite the students.  So far, we have brainstormed possible exhibit topics but
the students are still very centered on things they all ready know about, which
tend to be very personal, rather than community oriented.  And, because the
topics are so personal, getting the groups of students to agree on one will be
a challenge.  The plan at most of the schools this week is to provide some
experiences that the students can draw on - either by visiting a local business
that designs and creates exhibits or by setting up a bunch of opportunities for
students to interact with science things.

This is a full year process for these students and I hope to be able to come to
this community for advice and guidance as we work on our exhibits.  Thank you
in advance for any input or comments you have.

Rachel Morgan Theall, PhD
University of Arizona, Department of Chemistry
PI Science in the City
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520-626-0544

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