My past post detailed my journeys to Oklahoma and Washington DC.  This time, I was back in Washington DC, and then back to Oklahoma!

My trip to DC was double-duty.  First, I was at the headquarters of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).  AGU is an international organization with over 60,000 members not only in the field of geophysics but the broad disciplines of Earth and space science.  I recently was invited to join the AGU Meetings Committee, a group that oversees the entire meeting portfolio of the organization.  The Fall Meeting alone brings together over 20,000 presenting scientists in San Francisco every December, so you can imagine the scope and importance of this conference alone.

You can read more detailed postings about my time in DC with the AGU Meetings Committee on my AGU blog: Pre-meeting, Day 1, and Day 2.

Yes, I had Captain America items to help draw people to my presentation and activity! Photo taken by NOAA Teacher at Sea program, used with permission.

My time in DC wasn’t quite finished, as I headed over to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History to be a part of the “Expert Is In” program in their Q?rius lab.  The NOAA Teacher at Sea program was looking for someone to do an afternoon of education and outreach relating to hydrographic surveying, as July 21st was World Hydrography Day.  I enthusiastically agreed to help. and used an interesting strategy of tapping in to the latest release of The Avengers: Age of Ulton and titled my session, “The Search for Captain America Began with Surveying the Ocean!”  I wrote a full blog post over at my AGU blog about the experience and what I learned as a scientist doing outreach and engaging museum visitors.

One of the many pieces of art on the University of Oklahoma – Norman campus (but it can’t compete with the original in Love Park in Philadelphia!)

The following week, I was off to Oklahoma for the annual business meeting of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR).  I’m an elected councilor in the Geoscience Division with CUR, and the councilors from across all of the divisions gathered together at the University of Oklahoma – Norman to discuss items ranging from the organization’s strategic plan to national & international conferences for undergraduate researchers to volunteer and service awards.  In the Geoscience Division, we discussed our work at the Geological Society of America Fall Meeting coming up in November in Baltimore (we have a booth in the GSA Exhibit Hall and give out a mentoring award) and future projects and initiatives.  I also serve as a division editor for the CUR Quarterly, the journal of the Council on Undergraduate Research, and attended a meeting with CURQ and learned of some exciting things to come in the future of this publication.  Overall, it was a quick trip but full of great conversations, an incredible level of productivity, and a great opportunity to reconnect with my geoscience colleagues that I never get to see enough of during the year!

But the summer travel is just beginning!  At least I’ll be expanding my geographic reach for my next conference – the Earth Educators’ Rendezvous in Boulder, Colorado.