CER News:
CER researcher recognized for more than 5 years of participation in Expanding Your Horizons.

7 March 2012

On February 8, 2012, CER scientist Rick Moyer was one of a handful of presenters recognized by San Diego Expanding Your Horizons (http://www.eyhsandiego.org/) for more than 5 years of participation in the San Diego Expanding Your Horizons workshops. On Saturday, March 3, 2012, Rick led a team of 9 presenters on "The Hottest Stuff on Earth: Fusion for Sustainable Energy" as part of the 10^th San Diego EYH Workshop. This was Dr. Moyer's 7^th year participating on behalf of the Center for Energy Research in this outreach event.

Expanding Your Horizons is a national organization (www.expandingyourhorizons.org) that provides workshops and activities to motivate young women to consider careers in science and mathematics. Middle school girls from across San Diego county spend a day in 3 hands-on 1 hour activities in a range of science and mathematics topics. Dr. Moyer's activity introduces the girls to plasmas as the 4th state of matter, and guides the students toward understanding how to run a computer simulation of a fusion power plant. The girls work in teams to try to put the most electricity on the power grid. Winners received 3-inch USB port powered plasma balls, and all the girls received certificates acknowledging their success in putting net electrical power on the grid.

On March 3rd, Dr. Moyer was assisted by a team of 9 scientists, engineers, and technical support staff from 3 institutions, including:

• Peter Manz, Dmitriy Orlov, Ray Seraydarian, and Saikat Thakur: Center for Energy Research, UC San Diego
• Francesca Turco: Columbia University
• David Pace, Joe Rauch and Andrew LeBlanc: General Atomics

The Physics Department at the University of San Diego also provided demonstrations and space for this event.

Over the eight years that Dr. Moyer has led this science education outreach activity, 14 presenters, including undergraduate physics and engineering majors, graduate students, postgraduate scholars, and research staff from UC San Diego, General Atomics, University of San Diego, UC Los Angeles, UC Irvine, Columbia University, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Engineering, and the University of Toronto have participated in this valuable science and mathematics educational outreach event.

For more information on CER participation in EYH and other science education outreach events, please visit the CER outreach website (http://cer.ucsd.edu/pages/outreach.shtml) or contact Rick Moyer at: rmoyer@ucsd.edu.