This blog will serve as an addendum to my latest effort at recruiting people to our outreach program: a letter to Education Week. You don't have to read that article first, but it couldn't hurt.
What's interesting is that I wrote that letter almost two months ago, and rereading it now inspires new thoughts:

1. Bill Nye really has had a formative impact on a generation not unlike Mr. Wizard himself. For proof, take a look at a fan website, any of 536 YouTube videos, a Facebook group... I myself am especially fond of his appearance in the "Universe of Energy" attraction at EPCOT.
2. I get tremendous satisfaction from showing students all about our lab and turning them on to nuclear science, but my work pales next to real K-12 science teachers. They are in the classroom every day, committed to each student's science education. I spend a couple hours with their kids, but teachers are in it for the long haul. They contend with budgets, standards, administration, parents, and kids who sometimes would rather be anywhere else. I have the deepest respect for teachers, and that's why I will do everything possible to make their task easier.
3. I really do dream of myself as a latter-day Mr. Wizard. Cool demos are my bread and butter. My favorite is the Ruben's tube (visual demonstration of standing waves in a pipe), thanks to my acoustics background.
4. The Michigan Math/Science Summit really brought together some illustrious company, including Leon Lederman, former director of Fermilab. The way he casually and effortlessly captivated his audience struck me as how Feynman may have been in person. At any rate, the biggest point of his address (see the visual notes from his and other presentations) was to question the order of sciences in most high schools, with biology first. How can you learn biology effectively without a basis in chemistry, which requires an understanding of physics? Shouldn't physics be taught first (after suitable math, of course)? This is a topic for another blog, though.
5. NSF Director Arden Bement, Jr., and I have a common interest: seeing teachers and schools make use of the resources that are waiting at national laboratories. I'm doing more and more promotion, but I definitely feel we can make more of an impact, especially for the local community. I get a real thrill from every kid who asks how they can get a job here in the lab. They have a certain look in their eyes. I want to see that look in more eyes.
6. I've already had an email from the director of the Wyman Center in St. Louis, wondering how she can plug the 10,000 kids she hosts every year into the excitement of science. Now that is a thrill.
7. My thanks to Geoff Koch, who came up with the idea for this article and made it happen.