This year, most of my instruction focused on longer form outreach via the PEOPLE program and GPU program. Through PEOPLE and GPU, I was able to spend lots of time with the same people, which I think was a unique opportunity. In contrast, with science expeditions, I was able to reach a lot of people via tabling, but it was often very short. In fact, there were many times where a kid wanted to stay longer and ask all these questions, but their parents whisked them away since they had somewhere to be. With programs like PEOPLE and GPU, the participants are able to fester with what we have shown them over multiple days and come back with more and more questions to be answered. I see it as the demonstration is the spark of interest in physics, but the longer form outreach of inspiring more questions and thoughts is the kindling on the fire.
I found the PEOPLE program to be particularly fun to participate in because I really got to know and form a connection with the students. For example, when we would do physics crafts at the end of a unit, such as the polarizer art, I noticed that specific students which I had helped out throughout the week would seek out me to show off their art. They would get so excited to show me what they had made. For an even more physics example, some students would come up with extremely good questions or ideas about relating the physics we were teaching them to the real world. They would again seek me out to see if their ideas are correct with a lot of excitement when they often were. Seeing these moments of excitement about physics is what I love about the PEOPLE program. I can really see the deeper impact I am making first hand.
I am very glad I did outreach this past year. Outreach is important for many reasons, but I think one often overlooked reason that inspires me to do more outreach is that outreach broadens and grounds my perspective of the people around me. Often throughout my physics career, from undergrad to graduate school, I have been surrounded by other physicists. We have spent years and years just learning physics. It is very easy to forget that a lot of people have not even taken a physics mechanics class in their life, much less an electricity and magnetism class. Working with people who really want to learn the physics concepts of the world around them helps me get better at understanding the perspective of someone who hasn’t spent half their life learning physics. I find that this translates directly to everyday life more often than one might think. One common example is the flushing of a toilet. To me, the mechanism of the toilet flush is very simple, and so if there is ever a problem with the system inside the back of a toilet, I will try to open it up and fix it. I have learned when living with my roommates, that others have zero understanding of how the toilet works and need a plumber the moment something goes wrong. At first I may think calling a plumber would be stupid because it is likely an easy fix. However, things like outreach help me realize that they likely have just not had the opportunity to learn the physics behind a toilet. Overall, I think outreach activities like PEOPLE truly help me understand and better interact with the people around me during everyday activities, such as fixing a toilet.