All Categories - REBECCA VARNEY

Letters to a Pre-scientist, and Strange Selfies

12/6/2019

Each year I participate in Letters to a Pre-Scientist, an amazing program where you are paired with a younger student (5th-12th grade), and exchange 4 rounds of letters facilitated by their teachers. The letters have themes like "overcoming obstacles", but you also just talk about their goals and struggles, and try to encourage them to dream big. It's a super inspiring thing! My current pen-pal is passionate about math, dancing, puppies, and pizza.

But my pen-pal asked how big a supercomputer was. So I did the sensible thing: I emailed and got special permission to go into our cluster and take a picture. I have probably done stranger things for outreach, but this definitely was one of the weirdest. But now I can tell her "yes, bigger than a desktop".

I'm grateful to be working at a university that would embrace the chance to make a child laugh and learn at the same time.

And for the record, supercomputers are kept very cold. I'll be here with my hot tea.

Learn more about Letters to a Pre-Scientist, and sign up to be a pen-pal yourself, here:

https://www.prescientist.org/ 🤣

ArBOOretum 2019

10/28/2019

Each fall the UA Arboretum hosts hundreds of children on a trick-or-treating adventure through the woods. This year a trail of candy led them to a fun-filled pavilion with Education Stations, where participants could make pipe cleaner spiders, look at local bugs, color, and even see strawberry DNA! We had a great time handing out treats and tidbits, and saw some fantastic costumes!

Happy Halloween!

Homecoming 2019

10/26/2019

It was muddy and rainy, but we were out there with our giant isopod! Had a fantastic time sharing our love of the ocean with the general public. Best face of the day was a young boy who asked me if people ate giant isopods (they do!). The Biology tent also boasted magic berries (turning sour into sweet), plants from around the world, Cellfies, fishes, skeletons, and much more.

Hope everybody stayed dry and had fun!

SkypeAScientist- 5th Graders in Arizona

10/24/2019

I had an amazing time visiting a class of 5th graders in Arizona today! Their amazing teacher did a great job organizing the class (those sticky notes are their best questions), and we had a fun time talking about the ocean, and sharks, and the cool critters in my aquarium. I feel like I get better at doing this each time- I was prepared with videos and pictures this year. Best questions included:

"If we've only explored 1% of the ocean how do we KNOW there isn't a shark bigger than Megladon?"
"Why is the ocean salty?"
"How big is the computer you work on?"
"How many different ocean animals have you met?"

That last one was overwhelming to answer, as I thought about all of the chances I've had to visit oceans around the world in search of the weird critters within. Seeing their faces light up with curiosity was such a joy!

TideBite Featuring My Research!

9/4/2019

Honored to have been featured in a University of Washington Tide Bite!

Check it out here: http://depts.washington.edu/fhl/tidebites/Vol73/index.html

Skype a Scientist - 4th Graders from Colorado

3/12/2019

Skype a Scientist is a program that matches scientists with grade school classrooms all over the country, facilitating science outreach!

Today I got to chat with an amazing class of 4th graders! We talked about how starfish regenerate, how some snails live on land and others in the water, and how much college you need to be a marine biologist.

The students were amazing. And me? I learned that I really need to brush up on my Sponge Bob!

Night at the Museum 2019

2/20/2019

2019's Night at the Museum was DINOSAURS!

Hundreds of children and their parents came through, and were met with a true-to-life "how tall of a dinosaur are you?" poster, a station demonstrating how fossils are made with Play-Doh, a timeline of "living fossils" and when they evolved, and some amazing fish from our collections. Our room was made even more excited with the addition of the Museum Collections, with live bugs and some highly-questionable Cajun-flavored crickets.

As always, talking about science to the general public was a blast!

Meiofauna Interview

10/30/2018

While at Carmabi Research Station, Kevin and I filmed an interview introducing children to the idea of meiofauna. Ellie Mackay was an inspiring host whose genuine enthusiasm and wonder at our tiny critters made the ordinarily mortifying experience a fun one. That is not to say I plan on ever watching the video, but you can find it here:

Coral Live Interview 2018

BioBlitz 2018

4/21/2018

The annual BioBlitz is an Earth-day related event that lets us share our science with the public. This year's was held at the UA Arboretum. It provided a beautiful setting for plant walks, bug walks, bird walks, and butterfly catching. We also had tables where people could learn how to mount an herbarium specimen, look at bugs under a microscope, and have artwork created by black soldier fly maggots. I think my maggots did a great job!

Science Olympiad 2018

2/24/2018

Today was Science Olympiad! I volunteered for the Herpetology event, and learned a bit more about lizards and snakes than I knew before. The competitors ranged from 6th to 12th grade, and performed incredibly well. The exam required them to identify specimens, answer questions, and use binders that they had prepared themselves.

It's always enjoyable to participate in this event, where scientific knowledge is celebrated among a group of peers and their parents. And some teams came in hilarious t-shirts: my favorites were "Reaching Our Potential" with a picture of an action potential graph, a picture of chemicals labelled "We have all the solutions," and "Fe-Man".