The JILA-PFC pursues educational and outreach activities that strongly impact young researchers and engage the general public in the excitement of science. Our engagement includes the training of AMO graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates and the JILA-PFC public outreach program that connects JILA researchers with K--12 students in the Partnership for Informal Science Education in the Community (PISEC) afterschool program. This program promotes diversity by encouraging excitement for science in predominantly Latino communities. Additionally, we will host summer research internships at JILA and implement a hands-on quantum science education program through a partnership with Florida International University, which was recently funded by the PFC PREP program, as well as in collaboration with Q-SEnSE, a NSF Quantum Institute, and the CU Boulder SMART program.
The JILA-PFC also includes development and assessment of a project to connect undergraduates at less-resourced institutions across the US to JILA science by providing guided inquiry activities working with a remotely controlled cold atom apparatus. We also sponsor topical workshops for the scientific community and host visitors via the JILA visiting program sponsored by NIST.
Please use the links below to further explore some of these activities.
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Partnerships in Informal Science Education in the Community (PISEC) |
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Education Research |
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Community Outreach |
The Physics Frontiers Centers (PFC) program supports university-based centers and institutes where the collective efforts of a larger group of individuals can enable transformational advances in the most promising research areas. The program is designed to foster major breakthroughs at the intellectual frontiers of physics by providing needed resources such as combinations of talents, skills, disciplines, and/or specialized infrastructure, not usually available to individual investigators or small groups, in an environment in which the collective efforts of the larger group can be shown to be seminal to promoting significant progress in the science and the education of students. PFCs also include creative, substantive activities aimed at enhancing education, broadening participation of traditionally underrepresented groups, and outreach to the scientific community and general public.