National Youth Science Camp^®

The National Youth Science Foundation and Governor Joe Manchin III of the State of West Virginia are excited to announce the 2009 edition of the National Youth Science Camp. The 2009 NYSC will again be held at Camp Pocahontas in the Monongahela National Forest near the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the eastern mountains of West Virginia. Delegates will arrive in Charleston, WV, the State's capital, on Wednesday, July 1, 2009, and will depart on Saturday, July 25, 2009. More information is available on the NYSC web site at www.nysc.org/2009.

Its All About the Delegates!

The National Youth Science Foundation is pleased to announce the 2009 Class of Delegates to the National Youth Science Camp. Students from across the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago will convene for 25 days of learning, conversation, outdoor adventures, and special events. Follow their adventures here. Read more about the participation of international students.

Dr. D.B. "Zoon" Nguyen

First Annual Martha Gaines Wehrle Opening Lecture

The National Youth Science Foundation is pleased to announce that the First Annual Martha Gaines Wehrle Opening Lecture for the National Youth Science Camp will be presented by 1979 alumnus Dr. D. B. “Zoon” Nguyen. The lecture will begin at 6:00 PM on Wednesday, July 1, in the Grand Lobby of the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences; a light reception will follow. Dr. Nguyen's lecture is titled, Keeping Secrets: The mathematics, physics, and social implications of encryption technology.

Dr. Nguyen grew up raising chickens and escaped the Communist takeover of South Vietnam as a boy in 1975. The boat that Zoon was on with his mother, brother, and sisters had run out of food and water when his family was rescued by an American freighter crew in the South China Sea. During his senior year of high school in Washington, he took mathematics and physics courses at the University of Washington, discovered a way to visualize four and higher dimensions as a delegate to the NYSC, and received a scholarship to go to Harvard where he graduated magna cum laude. He went on to obtain an M.D. and Ph.D. from Dartmouth, complete post-doctoral training at Yale, and become a NATO Fellow to Denmark where he learned Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish as a guest professor at Aalborg University in Aalborg, Denmark. Dr. Nguyen completed his internship and residency at Yale and is a diplomate of the American Board of Radiology and a diplomate of the National Board of Medical Examiners. He is currently a radiation oncologist in Mansfield, Ohio.

In a recent article in the San Jose Business Journal, NYSC alumnus Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Services at Google, recalled that Dr. Nguyen stood out among the other presenters because of his unique problem-solving puzzles. “The counselors said – and I remember this because it sounded like a parable – 'It's not what Zoon knows, it's how he thinks,' ” she recalled. Ms. Mayer credits this perspective with leading her to study symbolic sciences at Stanford University where she combined logic and philosophy in the field of computer science, ultimately preparing her for a leadership role at Google.

The Opening Lecture is named in memory and in honor of Senator Martha Gaines Wehrle, Foundation Trustee Emeritus, former West Virginia Legislator, and well-respected civic leader.

Trustee Emeritus: Senator Martha Gaines Wehrle

excerpts from The Charleston Gazette, November 2, 2007

Martha Gaines Wehrle, a civic leader and philanthropist who served in both houses of the West Virginia Legislature, died October 31, 2007 at Charleston Area Medical Center Memorial Hospital. She was 81.

U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller said Wehrle and her late husband were among the first people to befriend him when he came to West Virginia 43 years ago. "She was equally at ease with the most privileged, and the least privileged, in our West Virginia family," Rockefeller said. "At a time when community service was much more rare, Martha graduated from Vassar College, came back to Pax in Fayette County, and spent two years teaching children who desperately needed her guidance and friendship," he said.

"You find people in life periodically who have such class, such style and are so smart, you just recognize it," said former state Senate president Keith Burdette. "When I went to the Senate - just a kid really at 27 - I met all these bigger-than-life figures," Burdette said. "Then I met Martha Wehrle. She never made a fuss over herself or her position."

The daughter of L. Ebersole Gaines, a Republican lawyer, and Betty Chilton Gaines, who was related to Democratic U.S. Sen. William Chilton, Wehrle grew up in Fayetteville with talk of politics from both sides of the political spectrum. While she was in Boston getting a master's degree in education at Harvard University, her father mailed her a voter's registration card with an X in the slot marked Republican.

She changed her registration to Democrat after she married Russell Wehrle in 1954. He was chairman of the family-owned McJunkin Corp. and a man heavily involved in civic activities. A lack of Democratic candidates in 1974 prompted party elders to ask Martha to run for the House of Delegates. "At first I thought I couldn't," Wehrle later said. "Then I thought maybe I could." She won and stayed in office 10 years, often leading the ticket, then retired in 1984. Her five children were on their own by then, and she wanted to spend more time with her husband, whose work required constant travel. She stayed in private life until 1989, when Gov. Gaston Caperton appointed her to fill an unexpired term. Wehrle then won the seat in the general election. Russell Wehrle had died of a heart attack in 1987 at age 60. "For a while, I was in shock," she recalled years later. "You act like you're doing well, but you're not. But when [returning to public life] was suggested, I thought why not."

In the House of Delegates, Wehrle sat on the Finance and Judiciary committees, voting for progressive social issues like women's rights, while endorsing more moderate business issues. Six feet tall with a big shock of silver-gray hair, Wehrle made an imposing figure, but she showed such interest in people that they rarely found her threatening. "She was a person who seemed to be able to do everything and do it well," Caperton said. "And she did it with a big heart. She was a good listener as well as a good speaker. She treated everyone no matter who they were with kindness and respect and love."

"She was a gracious, brilliant woman," said Clay Center President Judy Wellington, upon whose board she served. "She had great intuition and wisdom. She had a sense of community and a sense of how important a cultural institution can be for a community." Her remarkable energy and zest for life drove her involvement in civic and charitable life, said Newton Thomas, a former Clay Center chairman. "Martha always, always had an exaggerated compliment for everyone she knew or just met. To paraphrase Kipling, she walked with kings and queens, but never lost the common touch," said Ted Armbrecht, a friend who served on several boards with her.

"It was an honor to be her friend," said Sarah Drennen, who belonged to the same book club as Wehrle even after Drennen moved with husband William Drennen to Shepherdstown. "Martha was one of those amazing people who had a combination of huge intelligence, grace, charm, energy, and diplomacy. "She understood the art of courtesy and the art of compromise," Drennen said. "She was very astute politically and very astute about human nature. She could keep her eye on the prize and achieve the goal.""I'm not the kind of person who is confrontational. I'm not a person to fly off the handle at somebody," Wehrle once told a reporter. "It's just the way I was brought up - to be conciliatory and to compromise."

Foundation Hires Director of Development

The Foundation recently hired Ms. Lynne D. Schwabe to serve as its Director of Development. Ms. Schwabe was owner of Schwabe-May of Charleston, West Virginia; operated her own marketing consulting firm; and is a nationally-recognized motivational speaker. She has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and has appeared on CNBC's Power Lunch. In addition to the traditional fund raising activities of the Foundation, Ms. Schwabe will coordinate the capital campaign for the National Center for Youth Science Education.

You may contact Lynne at the Foundation's Charleston office (304-342-3326), by cell phone (304-552-2717), or by E-mail to lynne.schwabe@nysf.com.

Twitter

The National Youth Science Camp is now using Twitter! Follow all our activities and updates at twitter.com/NYSCdotORG . The five most recent updates are also posted on the Foundation's homepage.

Staph of the 2009 National Youth Science Camp

The National Youth Science Foundation is pleased to announce the Staph of the 2009 National Youth Science Camp. Infection enthusiasm and specialized skills makes this year's staph among the best ever. For a complete list click here.

Fund Raising at the Foundation
by Lynne D. Schwabe, Director of Development

No one likes to talk about fund raising, but financial contributions from individuals, the State of West Virginia, the federal government, and corporations are what sustain the important science education programs planned and operated by the Foundation. The Foundation is extremely fortunate to be able to continue the tradition of  bringing delegates to the National Youth Science Camp free of charge, and if you made a contribution to the Foundation this spring, it is greatly appreciated!

In the coming months, Foundation staff will attempt to contact you individually to discuss your personal contribution to the NYSC as well as ways that you might be able to help the Foundation raise awareness (and yes, money) in the corporate world. It is hugely impressive that every alum I’ve talked to about NYSC has said something to the effect of, “Camp changed my life. I am where I am today because of my experience that summer in West Virginia.”

Contributors who have donated $700 or more between January 1, 2009 and July 1, 2009, will have access to the 2009 NYSC Program Calendar, the 2009 NYSC Pressbook, and the 2009 NYSC website. We are also encouraging potential major donors to visit the NYSC this summer to become more aware on a first hand basis of the excitement generated there by the campers and their exposure to the nationally preeminent faculty.

If you have ideas you’d like to share about fund raising, or would like to help us get your company involved in NYSC, please give me a call at 304-342-3326. We are also trying to put together materials that will better explain camp to people not familiar with it. If you’d care to share your insights about your camp experience or the impact camp had on your life, you can send E-mail to me at lynne.schwabe@nysf.com.

Science Camp Goes Digital: Pre-Camp Online Community Enhances Camp Experience
by Ryan Edel, Assistant Director - Logistics

For several years now, the Foundation and the NYSC Alumni Association have increased their visibility on the Internet. Simply typing “National Youth Science Camp” into Google yields thousands of hits, and networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn feature growing networks of NYSC alumni.

Recently, we've expanded our use of technology to not only keep in touch with each other after camp ends, but to also build relationships with delegates as they're getting ready to arrive. Andy Blackwood, the Foundation's Executive Director and Director of the NYSC, uses Google Groups to bring together staph and delegates in the months leading up to camp. Each day, delegates from across the U.S. and around the world exchange messages their soon-to-be fellow delegates.

I admit that I was skeptical when I first saw Google Groups used for the 2008 NYSC. My initial reaction was along the lines of “what about the surprise of camp?” I felt that delegates should wait until arriving in West Virginia before becoming seriously involved in the science camp atmosphere. Granted, I am not the greatest fan of technology myself – I write science fiction in the hopes of producing a bestseller, at which point I'll hire someone to build a MySpace page. Philosophically, though, I was afraid that delegates becoming too technologically involved in the camp would lose the “live for today” mentality which comes with living and breathing Camp Pocahontas. They would focus on the idea of lifelong friendships before coming to understand why those friendships are so important, before fully understanding the uniqueness and diversity represented by each of their fellow delegates.

Yet technology has a way of outpacing our fears. Last year, even as I didn't like the idea of delegates imagining too much about camp before even arriving, they were forming relationships online well beyond the confines of our efforts to bring them together. Over the past few years, delegates on their own initiative have used MySpace and Facebook to find each other beforehand. A few, even, have formed close friendships even before their first meeting at camp. Among the staph last year, I was not alone in wondering “why?” To some of us, it seemed like the delegates were overly eager, that they were pushing ahead the same way they do in school – always raising the bar, always achieving more than necessary, networking even before they have the friends for a network. And I've always seen science camp as an escape from this, a chance to meet people outside the constant striving of work and school while still surrounded by the sense of scientific discovery that fuels our dreams. The camp philosophy offers a kind of time machine for delegates: going back in time – living in a rustic setting, losing track of e-mail and deadlines – allows us to get in touch with our real dreams.

Slowly, I realized that the delegates would talk to each other beforehand whether we encouraged it or not. It took me longer to realize that these conversations before camp actually enhance the program. On most days, a delegate or two will pose questions for staph, often basic questions regarding what to pack or how to prepare. Andy fields most of these, with other staph chiming in with discussion about hobbies and which musical instruments to bring. Although the answers to most of these questions could be found in the printed packing list or with a quick search on the NYSF website, the question-and-answer format reassures the delegates even before they arrive at camp. Much of the camp is built on surprise, yes, but the joy of surprise depends on comfort. The delegates need to feel safe and realize that even though we may not inform them of next week's schedule, we will always care for their needs.

Further, the conversation between delegates and staph fuel an atmosphere of discovery even before the start of camp. Although much of the pre-camp online discussion is focused on introductions, many of the conversations center around the interests that make each participant unique. Rather than focus on achievements earned or colleges to come, the delegates mention these topics and then move on to seminars they themselves would like to try. They respond to each other, looking for common connections. Although the staph contribute, we are not the dominant lead on the Google Group. In keeping with the camp philosophy, most of the topics are delegate driven, encouraging them to explore their own interests and seek out their own bonds with each other.

The main effect of these online discussions is to encourage a sense of community even before the start of camp. I noticed some of this last year on the bus ride from Charleston to Camp Pocahontas, when delegates began forming friendships in large groups from the first day of the science camp experience. This may seem like a small achievement for the camp, but it helps us through expanding each delegate's comfort level. Rather than bring the delegates to a summer camp full of strangers, we invite them in to a community of interesting people, many of whom will become lifelong friends. The advantage of the NYSF-run Google Groups is not so much that we maintain any sense of “control” over this process. Rather, by inviting every delegate to participate, we further this communal atmosphere. The discussions are not limited to those who have MySpace or those who have Facebook or to those who are adept at using search engines. Anyone with an E-mail address can take part. Rather than encourage cliques of ready-made friends to isolate themselves even before the start of camp, we maintain the camp philosophy of openness and diversity.

Overall, I've found that this new use of technology has helped further the camp philosophy. Besides getting the delegates off to a good start, it also encourages the idea of fostering these friendships before camp. I remember well my own delegate year, before internet social groups were as prevalent as they are today. Aside from group e-mails which dropped off over time, we didn't have as consistent and reliable a way to keep in touch. Now, though, we hear about delegates setting up online cabin meetings soon after the end of camp, and group discussions that continue for months after the tearful farewells at Charleston's Yeager International. Although the 2008 Google Group fell silent in February, one can only imagine the effect the added months of community had for the 2008 delegates. Although it's still a little early to know for sure, I believe that this new technology of early outreach will build a stronger camp experience which leads to even more alumni interaction in the years to come.

NYSC Academic Program
by Desiree Henriksen, Assistant Director - Program

A strong academic program has been a core element of the NYSC since its inception.  This component aims to expose delegates to top scientific researchers and information from across the STEM fields.  The 2009 academic program will continue this tradition by incorporating new elements and strengthening those already in place.  In particular, this year’s camp will benefit from increased support from NASA and the newly developed directed overnighters.

Over the course of the summer, we will feature four NASA guests who will present on topics ranging from the International Space Station to atmospheric science.  Dr. Julie Robinson (an NYSC alumnus) will return for her fourth summer, focusing on scientific challenges related to space exploration by presenting both a lecture and a directed study.  Also leading a directed study will be first-time presenter Dr. David Brooks, who will introduce delegates to measuring the sun’s interaction with Earth.  Participating delegates will build pyranometers for measuring total solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface and two-channel sun photometers for measuring aerosol optical thickness at green and red wavelengths.  Another exciting NASA presentation will come from Dr. Steven Platnick, who plans to speak on NASA Earth satellite observations that allow for accurate future predictions that include the impact of human activity.

The longest-standing NYSC program element has been the lecture – in fact, this was the only academic element until directed studies were introduced about 20 years ago.  This summer will see another evolution in the academic program, as we introduce the directed overnighter.  This element will combine the hands-on field experience of the directed study while allowing for broader exploration outside of the camp’s physical location and standard time constraints.  This year, delegates will take greater advantage of the rich variety that West Virginia has to offer, including Cranberry Glades, Canaan Valley, Blackwater Falls, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.  For example, Dr. Steve Keating will lead delegates into the Canaan Valley and Blackwater Falls area to collect data and explore the secondary forests that have been slowly recovering since the extensive harvesting between 1880 and 1930.  

This year’s additional components will blend nicely with existing elements to expose delegates to an impressive breadth of information.  We hope to spark new interests that they will pursue throughout college and the rest of their lives, and we are excited about the opportunities and challenges that our delegates will face this summer! 

For more information about the 2009 NYSC Academic Program, please contact me at desiree.henriksen@nysf.com.

Please Donate to the Foundation

The 2009 summer season is just around the corner! Please consider making a contribution to the National Youth Science Foundation. Contributions help support the continued operation of the National Youth Science Camp and allow the Foundation to offer programs of similar focus for different audiences such as the Youth Science Leadership Institute and to further develop the National Center for Youth Science Education. The Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) charitable organization and donations are tax deductible as allowed by law. Contributions to the Foundation can be dedicated to general operations, to a specific science education program or initiative, or to the Adler Endowment Fund.

Click a button on the left to make a contribution through PayPal or Google Checkout.