FUSE: After-School Science Nights

UCSB's CSEP group (The Center for Science and Engineering Partnerships) hosts afterschool science nights at local junior high schools every quarter via the FUSE program, run by Wendy Ibsen and created by Marilyn Garza, the 2010-2011 Teacher of the Year (SB Independent).
Families - including parents and younger children - work together on three hands-on science activities during the evening, in which each activity is 25 minutes, from various fields of science such as Chemistry, Biology or Fluid mechanics. UCSB Graduate students lead the activities, typically with 2-4 leaders in each room of up to 8 families.​

In 2016 we added a new module to the FUSE activity lineups called
​"Light-Pipes: Controlling Light", in which attendees learn how to control light and use it to send messages. Students complete the "Jello Waveguide Challenge" by cutting up gelatin blocks to get their laser to turn around 180°.​

---

In 2017 we created the new "Color Mixing" activity, intended to explain how a printer uses only three colors to produce every color we can see, and why those three colors are the strange "Cyan", "Magenta" and "Yellow" combinations. 
In 2018, we are leading the activity again. With the help of Amalu Shimamura and Yoko Hirokawa we have created a translation of the activity into Japanese!
​This activity is going to 4 local junior highs, led by UCSB graduate students.

---

See the FUSE website for all the activity handouts and this quarter's scheduled science nights. Also check out Wendy's CSEP Facebook page for photos of these activities in action!