It comes as no surprise, but research is fun.
Research is fun because it helps people learn about their problems, which enables them to solve those problems.
It makes me happy that I can use research to help people solve their problems. Completing research for people who help others makes me even happier.
During the day, I help commercial companies understand consumer behavior, but on the weekends (and some nights), I use my energies to help Iridescent, a non-profit, understand the users of its program and ways the program can be improved.
Iridescent is a program that brings science courses to urban school kids in Los Angeles, New York City, and the San Francisco bay area. The program seeks to make science accessible to kids by having professional engineers and college students present a series of hands-on science courses. The ultimate goal of the program is to inspire these school children to pursue science classes, and careers in the sciences. Specifically, Iridescent seeks “to foster curiosity and inspire self-confidence in young people with limited access—unlocking doors to their future and preparing them to help solve the world’s most pressing issues.”
Inspiring urban children is no small feat. Luckily, they are in the very enthusiastic, very driven, and very capable hands of Tara Chklovski and her team. Her passion for the program is highly contagious. A week after meeting her at a Fourth of July BBQ, I had already volunteered to help her program assess their users and was starting to draft the first questionnaire. Besides Tara’s enthusiasm, I decided to volunteer because like the children who don’t have access to science, I knew Iridescent didn’t have access to a trained social sciences researcher. Through providing my research skills and experience, I hoped to help Tara in her quest to infect a new generation of kids with a passion for science and problem-solving.
If you want to find out more,
check out the website or the blog,
learn cool science experiments through video how-tos,
donate ($30 provides materials for all participants in a session to do experiments and build models),
or
buy a stylish t-shirt.
I imagine, I invent, I engineer.
