USA Science and Engineering Festival
Want to keep the fun going after the festival? Get lesson plans, games, and more!
EPA Celebrates Science and Engineering at the 2012 USA Science and Engineering Festival. Come visit us at booth #1745 and learn how EPA uses science and engineering to protect the planet!
Some Demos for the 2012 Festival:
- Lung Capacity Challenge where visitors can compete in the lung capacity challenge and learn how air quality impacts every breath we take. Learn about the Air Quality Index (AQI).
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Fun with Chemical Reactions (aka "baggie science") where booth visitors can learn about how to observe, experiment and make inferences (all important concepts in science) while discovering the potential issues of chemical mixtures. Recreate the baggie science (PDF) (4pp, 56KB) (About PDF)
experiment. Learn about EPA's Design for the Environment partnership program. - Making the Invisible Visible:
- Do you know the air is full of tiny particles? A condensational particle counter can tell us how many particles are in room air and detectable in candle smoke. We'll also test whether a common home air filter is able to lower concentrations.
- Will have an informative poster about particle emissions and concentrations in the atmosphere.
- Festival goers will be able to enter data on a graph over time of "room concentrations" and different "smoke concentrations" with/without a filter.
- "One fish, two fish, safe fish, new fish"
Go fishing and learn about the science behind fish consumption advisories, bioaccumulation, exotic species, habitat degradation from point and non-point pollutants, and environmental sampling in wetlands.
Want to keep the fun going after the festival? Get lesson plans, games, and more!
See How We Celebrated in 2010
The 2010 USA Science & Engineering Festival was the country's first national science festival.
The Festival included a free, two-day Expo (10/23 and 10/24) on the National Mall and surrounding areas that featured over 1,500 fun, hands-on science activities and over 50 stage shows and performances. The Festival was a grassroots collaboration of over 500 of the nation's leading science organizations.
Photos from 2010
Tweets from the 2010 USASEF
The 2010 activities at the US EPA booth demonstrated what kinds of research EPA scientists conduct across the country and what their research means for the public. These stations were available during the entire Expo:
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Drinking Water Filtration Demo, which demonstrates the engineering principles behind safe drinking water. Learn about EPA research on drinking water.
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Permeable Pavements Demo, which explores stormwater runoff and the importance of engineering in creating sustainable communities. Learn more about EPA's green parking lot research.
Other modules rotated throughout the Expo, including:
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Meet the Scientist/Engineer where scientists talk about their interest in the sciences and how they apply that knowledge to the mission of the EPA.
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Water Stream, aka "Getting Bugged about Water Quality" that shows environmental indicators and what bugs can tell us about our water quality. Learn more about EPA research on water quality.
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Green Chemistry, a nature-inspired green chemistry experiment, in which visitors to our booth can design their own eco-friendly light-sensitive films using thymine (the DNA nucleotide), ultraviolet (UV) light and food dye! Learn more about green chemistry.
2010 USAEF Kickoff
EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) Assistant Administrator Dr. Paul Anastas helped kick off the Festival at the Marian Koshland Science Museum . Read his Science Wednesday blog post about children's health and sustaining our future.
Opportunities
- Jobs and Internships at EPA
- OnCampus ecoAmbassadors Program
- Grants and Fellowships to Support Environmental Education
- Careers: Opportunities for Students
- Environmental Careers Program
- EPA Research Job Opportunities
- EPA Science To Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowships For Graduate Environmental Study
- EPA Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) Fellowships For Undergraduate Environmental Study
- President's Environmental Youth Awards (PEYA)
Visit the USA Science and Engineering Festival website for more details.
Read the biographies of the Nifty Fifty speakers