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Jordana Bloom stands in a darkened room
Jordana Bloom (Page lab)

“Outreach is one of my favorite parts of science, tangential to the actual research. You can help nudge people who might be interested in the right direction. I think exposure is very important, to give people a chance to figure out if working in science is something they would like. I'd never met a scientist before going to college, and if I hadn’t met scientists in college, like my biology professors, I still would be in the dark about what being a scientist even means. In the outreach work that I have done since, I have seen how big of an effect exposure can have. For example, I worked with a program that encourages middle school aged girls to stay interested in STEM fields through a day of workshops and experiments, and I really enjoyed seeing how the students’ engagement changed over the course of the day. They are sort of hesitant in the beginning, maybe thinking the workshops are going to be lame. But by the end of the day, they are really excited, asking what the next activity is! It’s really cool to watch that transformation, and see the students realize that you can have fun exploring questions that you don't necessarily know the answer to or that don't necessarily have one answer."