Upcoming Opportunities:

• Boy Scout Weather Merit Badge sessions: We will be participating in the 'Boy Scout Weather Merit Badge' to be held at Holy Cross again this year. The date for this event will be held on March 5. For the event, there are a total of four sessions during the day with each class lasting 2 hours. The scouts have an opening ceremony at 7:15am and the classes will begin at 8am.
  WHEN: Saturday March 5th 2011
  WHAT: four 2 hour weather merit badge sessions at Holy Cross
  HOW MANY PEOPLE DO WE NEED? We'll probably want 3 people presenting in the morning (8-12), and 3 in the afternoon (1-5). Those willing to stay from 8 - 5 will be served lunch.
  The sessions are as follows: Session 1: 8-10am
  Session 2: 10-Noon
  Session 3: 1-3pm
  Session 4: 3-5pm
  (There is a break between 12-1pm for lunch, which will be provided in the cafeteria.)
  DUTIES: The powerpoint slides and packet have already been created. We may need to meet once to look over them and print the packets
  

Annual Opportunities:

Our goal is to take a more active role in participating in the community this year, from assisting with the regional and state Science Olympiad as mentors and test writers/proctors, to visiting local schools and volunteering in local clean-ups of public areas such as highways and parks.

• Science Olympiad: We have the opportunity to work with either Mike Spinar ( mspinar@uiuc.edu) or Eric Snodgrass (snodgrss@atmos.uiuc.edu)  to help write exams for Science Olympiad to be given on 28 Feb 09. If you're interested, please contact them directly.

Past Events:

November 2010: Leaf Raking for Charity. In what is becoming an annual SCAMS tradition, we raked lawns in Urbana for donations for the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and the AMS Scholarship Fund.

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November 2 & 16, 2008: Leaf Raking for Charity. Jason Keeler, our VP, organized a Leaf-Rake Fundraiser for the AMS Scholarship Fund and the Red Cross. SCAMS members raked leaves and collected donations to be split evenly between the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and the AMS Scholarship Fund. We worked with Home Depot to get a donation of rakes and leaf bags and were lent other rakes by faculty/staff from the department. Signs advertising the event were posted in Urbana, and an ad was placed in the calendar section of The News Gazette. The fundraiser was very successful, especially for the first year, we've "raked" in $240 ($160 on 11/2 and $80 on 11/16)!

November 15, 2008: Climate Connections with the First Lego League. First Lego League (FLL) offers kids 5th-8th grade the opportunity to work and compete with the Lego Mindstorms NXT systems, building robots and trying to accomplish various missions with those robots.  There is also a science investigation portion each year, and this year's topic is "Climate Connections".  In this investigation, the students are supposed to find out a little bit about climate change, how it might affect their local area, and then come up with a way to help alleviate or ameliorate the negative affects of the change. SCAMS volunteers gave a presentation to the FLL Holy Cross team and interacted with the kids, answering their questions about the basics of climate change.

September 27, 2008: Weather Watch. Allie Jones and Marile Colon-Robles organized a badge program for Junior Girl Scouts called "Weather Watch." We invited area junior Girl Scouts to campus to get their weather watch badge.  The event involved activities, demonstrations and lots of interactive learning on weather basics, severe weather safety, and weather trends. The event was planned and staffed by many SCAMS volunteers and we got a lot of positive responses! Information for volunteers can be found here, official volunteer flyer here.