This weekend the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science in Coconut Grove will be hosting its last Scientist Sunday at its current location before moving to its new home in downtown Miami next year.
The events are held on the first Sunday of each month and feature scientists who are doing research in the community through the museum's Science Communication Fellows Program.
"It's specialized training to help scientists learn how to talk about what they do, why it matters and why the public should be interested in what they're doing,” said Angela Colbert, a science curator at Frost who oversees the fellows program.
Since it began in 2013, 25 Miami-based scientists have gone through it. Sixteen of them are women.
This comes at a time when more women are being encouraged to go into science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM fields. Colbert says the program's emphasis on communicating scientific ideas to the public seems to resonate with women in the field.
“That fascination about how to better communicate is something that really interests a lot of female scientists,” said Colbert.
Colbert has a PhD in meteorology and physical oceanography from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. She encourages girls with an interest in science to pursue it as a career.
“If you love it, you go for it,” said Colbert. “You will succeed, and you will do wonderfully. All it takes is some hard work, a little bit of sweat, and you can be whatever you want to be. If you want to be a scientist, you can really make that happen. It’s not scary and hard and terrible like some people make it out to be.”
The scientists taking part in Sunday's event will give hands-on presentations on everything from seagrass to Internet safety. The program is free with the price of museum admission and runs from 1 to 3 p.m. See a list of Sunday's participants at miamisci.org.
