Entering the Home Stretch...

Six weeks have flown by since my last update, and now I have just 2 months left of my fellowship and time in DC. It has continued to be an awesome and enlightening learning experience, but I am ready to come home. Much as I have come to love it here, the returning humidity reminds me why I would have great difficulty being here permanently. I am a cool weather person at heart!

The spring has been absolutely gorgeous though! Flowers of all kinds in bloom everywhere, (unfortunately, so are my allergies!) The White House Garden Tour got us up close and personal with the tulips and the West Wing!

In the last few weeks of April I was very busy at NSF with a new round of IRES proposals to manage. I also  went on a site visit of Jefferson High School for Math & Science (U.S. News and World Report #1 ranked HS in U.S.) That was impressive! The scientific research that the 9th graders conducted was college level. 22% of the teachers there have PhD's and all the rest have Master's degrees. They have no supervision in the halls at lunch where the kids eat on the floor! And, the students put their packs and belongings right out in the open...honor system at work. The labs were remarkable for a high school. I will be bringing back lots of information to share with interested folks in Lincoln County.
At the end of April I went on a brief 4 day cruise with Don on Megan's ship, and it was great to see her loving her work. Her best friend Luana was on the ship as well!

The very last week in April and 1st week in May was filled with events honoring the Presidential Awardees in Math and Science Teaching. All of the Einstein Fellows were invited to all of the events, the most exciting being the formal dinner at the State Department, where we saw the desk that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration on, and the Original Treaty of Paris! There are beautiful antiques everywhere and even the men's and women's lounges were sites to see!

Earlier in the month, I was a presenter on a Senate panel on Nanotechnology in Education for Senator Wyden, and I later had a quick meet and photo op with him. He is much taller than I expected!

May has been busy in the office with what is now my normal work, and outside briefings and panels continued as well.

 I did a presentation on what it is like in the classroom with my Einstein colleagues at the U.S. Dept. of Education, attended several STEM panels and technology events, and served on another panel at NSF for the IGERT program.

I continue to meet folks from Oregon here in DC that I would never meet in Oregon! Hopefully these contacts will result in some cool partnerships for LCSD when I return.

This past week, Betsy Wilcox and Tom RInearson came into town for the Einstein Fellowship Poster session and reception. Betsy came a few days early, and she and I  went to the Capitol Memorial Day Concert, where we saw Gladys Knight, Gary Senise, Sara Brightman and Idina Menzel.

Then Tom arrived and they had a chance to do some whirlwind touring of the Capitol and Memorials.

I was so proud to be the only one whose superintendent and principal came to the Reception to support them. We had a good turnout of people to see our posters summarizing our accomplishments, projects and plans after the fellowship. We all went out to dinner at a Capitol Hill landmark restaurant, The Monocle, where on any normal night famous (or infamous!) elected officials are dining. However, this week Congress was in recess, so no celebrities were in evidence, other than the photographs adorning the walls. We tried to get the owner to put up a photo of all the Einstein Fellows, but he wasn't interested...

On Friday, we had our last Einstein Professional Development day. We went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD and were given a tour and a 3 hour ship ride, 4 miles out into the Chesapeake Bay, where we conducted some water quality testing. We toured the chemistry and physics labs at the academy. The oceanography professor who took us out on the boat runs The Maury Project, where middle and high school science teachers come to Annapolis for oceanography professional development in the summer, so he gaves us a taste of what the summer program teachers do, and now we all want to do the project!

Don arrived Friday evening for a quick weekend visit. The weather is turning hot and humid with thunderstorms, but we managed to BBQ out Friday night. Saturday we had a neighborhood gathering for brunch and then went out on a "date" to dinner and to a really cool event: Artomatic. Each year in DC they take a brand new high rise, office building that is completed but not yet occupied, and fill it with an art show for 3 weeks. 12 floors of all kinds of  media, with entertainment, and the winners of the Washington Post's "Peep Show." These are diorama's made of Marshmallow Peep's. Yes! Very funny!

So, now Don is on his way back home, and I am really feeling blue...ready to come home and be  with him all the time, and  see all my family and friends as well.  I still have work to finish up at NSF, but am already starting  to plan and teleconference with folks back in the district. I will be the Project Director for our Oregon Mentor Grant now, along with other duties of my new position as a TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment.)

I am also off to Albuquerque next Sunday, June 8th, for 3 weeks to go back to the DOE ACTS program (Department of Energy Academies Creating Teacher Scientists.) If you go back in this BLOG, you can read about my experiences there last summer focusing on water science topics. This summer, we focus on Alternative Energy, and I will be likely working in a research lab on hydrogen fuel cell membrane research.

So, I will do my next BLOG in a few weeks from Albuquerque!  Then, when I return to DC, July 1st, I go back to NSF for a week before going to Mexico to  attend the International Mathematics Congress in Monterrey. I will spend my final 3 weeks back in DC with Patty Hunter and Evelyn Smith coming to visit, and Don will come the last few weeks to hang out and help me get moved home on the 31st.

It has been a great experience, and as it winds down to the end, I am a little sad to be leaving this wonderful city and the people I work with at NSF. I hope you all have had a great year. I really encourage my colleagues in science and math to apply for the Einstein Fellowship next year, as well as any of the outstanding professional development programs out there for teachers. I will share much more of my year when I get home- in person.

See you all soon!

Ruth