$3,000, Tour of Penn State's Breazeale Nuclear Reactor Facility

• The transportation grant enabled the costs to be lowered significantly, maximizing the amount of students who could participate in this unique, educational and inspiring field trip.
• 49 students (juniors and seniors) visited Penn State University on Feb 19th, 2026, touring both the Breazeale Nuclear Reactor Facility and the Earth & Minerals Sciences Museum. This trip was designed to engage all students in nuclear energy, nuclear facilities and education into the use of nuclear power in America. Touring this amazing facility enabled students to take a close and interactive look into a cold fusion reactor and be guided through by Penn State faculty and postgraduate researchers. This field trip embodied what science should be, providing experiences to cultivate curiosity, learning and educational experiences.
• The student responses were unanimously positive and could not wait to go on the next field trip.

  
  

$2,748.59, Nuclear Science Week and Rolla Scouts Merit Badge Program

• On July 6, 2023, the Missouri S&T ANS chapter received $2,748.59 from the George A. Ferguson Motivational Grant through ANS. This funding significantly enhanced our ability to conduct independent outreach events by eliminating reliance on borrowed departmental equipment.
• With the grant, we purchased key educational tools, including a cloud chamber, two GM detectors, a GM test card, a super spinthariscope, and later, two needle sources, five radioactive disk sources for shielding demonstrations, and fiestaware for radiation demonstrations. These resources allowed us to create hands-on experiences that engage students and the public in nuclear science.
• We also invested in outreach visibility by acquiring a large banner for Nuclear Science Week and a retractable banner printed in Spring 2024. To ensure safe and accessible storage, we established a dedicated, locked outreach cabinet within the Nuclear Engineering building, complying with Environmental Health and Safety requirements.
  Outcomes:
  • Increased independence and flexibility for outreach events.
  • Enhanced educational impact through interactive demonstrations.
  • Improved visibility and engagement during Nuclear Science Week.
• This grant empowered Missouri S&T ANS to expand outreach capabilities, strengthen community engagement, and promote diversity and inclusion in nuclear science education.

$2,370, 2024 STEM at the Museum event

• Cost of printing the ANS Atoms Family Activity Book

$1000 - STEM outreach program at the Santa Fe Indian School

• The funded educational outreach activity was a presentation and exploration of nuclear technology for high schoolers at the Santa Fe Indian School, a boarding school that provides education to children from many surrounding Pueblos. The event took place on Thursday, April 20, 2022 during an after-school program called Café Scientifique. This café meets about once a month and provides a full dinner to the attending students while they hear about opportunities in STEM from a guest

$4,800 - K-12 Nuclear School Visitation Program and the Puerto Rico Nuclear History Awareness Program

• The funds from the Ferguson grant helped the ANS UPRM Student Section launch Puerto Rico's first ever K-12 Nuclear School Visitation Program (K-12 NSVP).
• The pilot project actually ended up consisting of six workshops distributed between two different visitations to two local bilingual schools and impacted a total of 238 students. The schools impacted during the 2021-2022 academic year were Winnies Active learning Kids School (W.A.L.K.S./W.E.B.S.) and Escuela Especializada Bilingüe Alcides Figueroa.

$2,200 - From the Atom to the Outlet Project

• Over fifty students at the Hollidaysburg Area High School benefited from the project activities. The students used virtual experiments as well as other instructional activities to learn about nuclear stability, radioactive decay, and the processes of fission and fusion. They also became adept at balancing nuclear equations and making calculations regarding the amount of energy involved in nuclear reactions. As part of the project, Advanced Placement students visited Penn State's Breazeale Nuclear Reactor and received a tour of the reactor control room and the reactor bay. During the reactor visit, the students used Geiger counters to record decay rates of low-level radiation sources and used cloud chambers to observe and compare different types of radioactive decay.

$5,000 STEM at the Museum

• This funding was used for the STEM at the Museum (SAM) event October 12, 2022. STEM at the Museum, now in its 4th year, is an interactive event full of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics presentations, workshops and demonstrations for students and the community. Both young, and young of heart, will learn how fun and exciting STEM can be and what it means to be a part of careers that can change the world. The event held hands on workshops and presentations for K-8 students in chemistry, medicine, physics, robotics, nuclear energy, space exploration, computer simulation, and much more. A varied field of presenters from INL, the Idaho Section of the American Nuclear Society, Idaho Falls Zoo, Nuclear Space Battery and NASA, and many other STEM contributors were on hand to show how extraordinary and fun STEM education can be. Some of the workshops included hands on chemistry and radiochemistry projects, how explosions work, how robots are used in surgery, the physics of light, how a nuclear reaction works, and nuclear batteries that propel NASA missions to Mars. Students from K-8 Eastern Idaho schools were invited to become Scientists and Engineers for a day, (complete with lab coats and name tags of famous STEM pioneers!) to explore and learn about STEM in interactive and fun sessions throughout the day at the Museum of Idaho. Along with interactive stations, online programs such as the ANS K-12 nuclear and technology education “Navigating Nuclear: Energizing Our World” were introduced to students.

$1,696 Conversion of Nuclear Energy to Power Space Exploration Program

• The funds were used to purchase thermoelectric generators, alpha, beta, and gamma source set, a Geiger counter, and bus transportation for a field trip to tour NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Approximately 60 student, grades 9-12 had an amazing time- many of whom had never even been on a field trip before since COVID has taken the last two years of their high school experience.

$1700 - Nuclear Merit Scout Badge workshop

• The purpose of this grant was to provide funding for Georgia Tech’s annual Nuclear Merit Scout Badge workshop. Funding was used to purchase supplies and materials (scout patches, dry ice for cloud chamber experiment) to host this workshop for Georgia-based Girl & Boy Scout troops from 2019-2022.

$1,250 - Scout Workshops

• The ANS University of Wisconsin Student Section regularly hosts day-long workshops for Boy Scouts and other young students. Over 1,500 Scouts have completed their nuclear science merit badge requirements at the student-run events. Recent workshops were held February 23, March 23, and April 20 with the help of student volunteers. “We had just over 150 Scouts attend six workshops throughout the year,” said Kendall Barrett, president of the student section.
• Student section members can earn points by participating in public outreach, student section planning and committees, and community service and professional development. Through points, section members earn benefits such as T-shirt discounts and funds for travel to ANS conferences. Three to five students typically volunteer to spend their Saturday morning at a Scout workshop, and at least three more volunteer in the afternoon. “This allows for flexibility with the students in their schedule because being a student is hectic, but this also makes it easier to have student-Scout interaction to help bring home the topics of the workshop,” Barrett said. The Scouts discuss nuclear science topics, build models of atoms, view cloud chambers, tour facilities, and participate in time, distance, and shielding experiments. With the university’s nuclear reactor under maintenance and unavailable for the Scouts to tour this spring, tours of two other facilities were arranged: the UW–Madison Cyclotron Lab and the UW–Madison Symmetric Torus. “The kids love the cyclotron and the shielding experiments the most,” Barrett said.
• If it weren’t for the ANS NEED Committee and their generous grant, these workshops would not have been as successful as they were. By the end of the year, ANS-UW was able to award around 150 merit badges! We hope to continue this tradition of bringing in a large number of scouts and youth in the future.

$1,175 - Future Trek and Greening Your Future

• “Future Trek” and “Greening Your Future” STEM activities were held throughout the 2019-2020 academic year for middle and high school students in the St. Louis area at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Commerce Bank Center for Science Education. Over 500 students attended these events. View Video
• Our chapter’s leadership has built a good relationship with the St. Louis Academy of Science and other local outreach groups involved in STEM activities for middle and high school students in the St. Louis area. In particular, we participated in multiple events entitled “STEM Future Trek” and “Greening Your Future” in which around 100-150 middle school students would rotate between 4 different professionals in STEM fields, learning about what each career path involved. These activities were highly successful, and when we introduced a policy of handing out candy for asking or answering questions, we noticed a significant rise in student involvement. Our presentations focused on showing simple models of the atom and explaining fission on a level which the students could understand. We also bring our cloud chambers, which typically are an effective way of ending our sessions with something visual and exciting. We also are able to talk about the advantages of nuclear energy as a green energy source. This was a great way to involve the parents and teachers, also in attendance, as many would ask questions regarding safety and waste. We were able to effectively address concerns and educate the public about nuclear and how often misconceptions misrepresent the actual reality of challenges associated with nuclear energy. Missouri S&T ANS over the last 2 years has talked to over 1000 St. Louis area children about nuclear engineering. We would also like to extend our thanks to the ANS national NEED committee for their financial support this year for these events.

$1,455 - 10 Year Anniversary - Nuclear Scout Workshop

• ANS UNLV celebrated the 10th anniversary of their Nuclear Scout Workshop. First offered in 2007, the UNLV student section has proudly provided more than 800 local scouts with the opportunity to earn their nuclear related merit badges and patches. In order to make the 10th anniversary celebration a success, the section applied for funding from the ANS NEED Committee as well as local community sponsors. As part of the celebrations the registration fee was waived for the workshop, and the provided swag bags to each scout who attended. Each bag contained their own personal electroscope, a tritium keychain, Particle Zoo plushes and pins, as well as other ANS and UNLV themed items.
• With the growing success and continued popularity of their workshops among both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, they’ve also been working to modify the curriculum and material to offer a self-study version of the workshop. Although the Scout Workshop is the pride and joy of the UNLV section, the space limitations of the facilities and limited time makes it difficult to meet the growing interest among local troops. As a result, UNLV is actively developing and beta testing the self-study version as a take-home option. The hope is that rather than discouraging troops or scouts who cannot attend a full day session, this will instead continue to bolster interest and motivate more scouts to earn their Get To Know Nuclear patch and Nuclear Science Merit Badges.

$5,000 TI-84+ calculators

• To support the purchase of 40 TI-84+ graphing calculators and provide them for free to high school students in the Big Brother and Big Sister of East Tennessee program. The graphing calculator was required for schools in Knox County.