FAU Continues to Create Community Outreach Opportunities

Florida Atlantic University makes a conscious effort to share their innovative research with the community in an effort to educate through activities for residents. And, despite the gobal pandemic, researchers are developing, sustaining and even enhancing many existing community outreach programs by transitioning or expanding them to virtual platforms.

In 2019, the Division of Research launched a monthly lecture series at the Boca Raton Downtown Public Library, where researchers would come and talk to community about their field of expertise. On average, the series attracted between 40 to 80 attendees. Amidst the global pandemic, the series went virtual and increased their presentations to weekly. The results yield between 200 and 300 attendees every week.

"The most popular topics are ones that affect people personally — including anything COVID-related such as sleeping well despite the pandemic," said Karin Scarpinato, Ph.D., senior associate vice president of the Division of Research. "I get emails from people saying, 'I always meant to come to the series at the library, and I just couldn't make it. But now I can go online.'" Research in Action will eventually return as a monthly activity at the public library while weekly webinars continue remotely.

In February 2020, Scarpinato and her colleagues launched the first Research Encounter, an annual event inviting the public to experience hands-on research-related demonstrations at set up at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The event, which drew more than 300 people, gave attendees an up-close look at research happening right in their backyard, everything from therapy dogs, to an opportunity to fly a drone to the chance to interact with Astro, a mechanical canine that runs on artificial intelligence.

Another annual program, the FAU Research Showcase, help at FAU's Tech Runway, brings the community in for two days of fun-filled research activities from a poster presentation that highlights new and innovative happenings to talks by top researchers in their field. This annual event, which usually happens in mid-fall, will most likely be rescheduled for 2021.

It's efforts like the Research in Action, Research Encounter, Research Showcase and other outreach programs that "help change the perception that universities are doing poorly in communicating the value of research," Scarpinato said.

In the past few years, community outreach efforts have ramped up throughout the university. Here's a look at a few others.

FRONTIERS IN SCIENCE

Frontiers in Science, an outreach program organized by the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, recently expanded to add an online platform. The organizers of Frontiers in Science invite scientists from institutions outside FAU to present talks and answer questions about their research.

"The speaker has to be doing research that's of general interest and must be experienced in giving public talks," said Ata Sarajedini, Ph.D., dean of the College and professor of physics, adding that by Spring 2021 semester, he expects to have Frontiers in Science in two modes — in-person and online.

Sarajedini also hosts the popular Ask a Scientist podcast, interviewing FAU faculty about their research. "I want more people to have opportunities to learn about research that we do on this campus, research that improves and informs our teaching mission," he said. "FAU already communicates effectively with the public through podcasts, YouTube videos, Facebook and other social media sites. In the future, remote methods will rise to even more prominence in our community outreach."

ASCEND

Inside FAU's Brain Institute, researchers have developed community outreach programs to connect with local youth as well. One example is Advancing STEM: Community Engagement through Neuroscience Discovery (ASCEND), which teaches youth, primarily middle-schoolers, about neuroscience. ASCEND was designed to support classroom and neuroscience lab visits, hands-on and virtual reality demonstrations and the development of digital and web-based lessons and other educational content. To help excite students about neuroscience, ASCEND taps graduate, post-doctoral and early-career faculty associated with FAU Brain Institute labs, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Scripps Research Institute and the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience.

But the COVID-19 crisis required some adjustments. "Our transition to online was surprisingly fluid," said Nicole Baganz, Ph.D., research assistant professor of biomedical science in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, and director of community engagement and programming for the FAU Brain Institute.

"We are planning for ASCEND to be online for Fall semester, and it will allow us to reach additional kids in the local community and beyond," Baganz said. "We will have virtual opportunities and access to our lessons for underprivileged youth and other populations interested in brain science."