A visit to the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Anna S. Hillier

I always look for science meetings that might be fun to attend and that are near my residence. It helps to maintain a stress-free enjoyable event.

This years' annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was held in Boston, Massachusetts, from 14-18 February 2008. The meeting was multi-faceted. Included were Topical Lectures, Scientific Symposia, Science Career Fair, Seminars, Family Science Day, exhibit displays and Student Poster Sessions. Each track was selected for all age groups and seemed to work quite agreeably together within the same area. Besides the Scientific Symposia, most of the sessions were free or had specific entry or registration procedures.

Here I will briefly explore the Topical Lectures, Science Career Fair, Exhibit Displays and Family Science Days.

Topical Lecture: The Golden Age of Robotic Space and Earth Exploration: Challenges and Opportunities. Charles Elachim of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) spoke about how young people of today can help to send robotic instruments into space.

Science Career Fair Workshop: Communicating Science Tools for Scientists and Engineers. This workshop was in a small room, and attendance overflowed into the hall. There was a panel discussion.

Figure 1. This model of the JPL-NASA Mars Science Laboratory Rover was on display at the AAAS meeting in Boston. Photograph by Anna Hillier.

Exhibit Displays: JPL-NASA. Shown in Fig. 1, the Mars Science Laboratory Rover is scheduled for launch in Fall 2009 and arrival at Mars in 2010. From the JPL press release: "'. . . the Mars Science Laboratory rover, will incorporate many lessons from the current rovers,' said that project's manager, Richard Cook of JPL. 'The next rover will be much bigger to carry the instruments necessary for meeting its goals, but it would be laughable to consider doing Mars Science Laboratory without the experience gained from doing the Mars Exploration Rovers,' he said.

"The Mars Science Laboratory rover will weigh about four times as much as Spirit or Opportunity. 'There's no way we could use an airbag landing,' said JPL's Rob Manning, chief engineer for the future rover. Instead, a rocket-powered hovering stage will lower it to the surface on a tether. Lessons from Spirit and Opportunity will come into play when it starts driving, though. 'With the current rovers, we've learned we can trust the autonomous navigation technology to a level we never expected, so now we can include that as a capability in our mission design for Mars Science Laboratory,' Manning said."

Family Science Days--Science Club for Girls: This was well attended and popular with the teens. Some hands-on science activities were provided.

The Carnegie-Mellon's Women in Computer Sciences: An excellent 10-page booklet and brochure about Alice, a free program for computer programming that came with a button "I love Robots."

The 2009 AAAS Meeting. In 2009 the AAAS annual meeting will be in Chicago, Illinois. Assuming the format is the same or similar to than at the Boston meeting, it should be worth attending. The theme is "Our Planet and Its Life: Origins and futures."

This will be a good opportunity for local amateur scientist groups to exhibit or just attend.