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Cycle for Science

We're biking across the country and teaching science along the way!

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Cycle for Science

Cycle for Science

Cycle for Science

Cycle for Science

Cycle for Science

We're biking across the country and teaching science along the way!

We're biking across the country and teaching science along the way!

We're biking across the country and teaching science along the way!

We're biking across the country and teaching science along the way!

Cycle for Science
Cycle for Science
Cycle for Science
Cycle for Science
2 Campaigns |
San Francisco, United States
$7,885 USD by 134 backers
$7,765 USD by 130 backers on Mar 20, 2015
Highlights
Mountain Filled 2 Projects Mountain Filled 2 Projects

DISCLAIMER: Since our goal was surpassed (thank you so much to all contributors!!), we have closed donations on this site. Click here to donate or visit our website. All funds raised after April 29, 2015 will go towards gear, food, and lodging for the trip.


Hi, welcome!

Thanks so much for dropping by. We're Elizabeth and Rachel, and this spring and summer we're bicycling from San Francisco to New York City.

As we pedal east, we plan to teach hands-on lessons at middle schools and summer programs using the Sol Cycle, a miniature, 3D-printable, solar-powered bicycle we are in the process of designing. We’ll also be profiling science educators about innovation in the classroom and curating science lesson plans to create a repository of accessible, engaging activities for parents, kids and teachers alike.

Cycle for Science begins April 17 -- and we need your help.

Cycle for Science is endorsed by:
  • The North America Association for Environmental Education! Go check out their amazing work to bring the world to the classroom, and the classroom out into the world, at www.naaee.net.
  • Rock the Bike, the bringers of bicycle powered concerts!
  • The American Physical Society (APS) Education and Diversity Division

Who are we, anyways?

We met while studying physics at UCLA. But neither of us entered school thinking we'd be scientists. Rachel arrived, trombone strapped to her back, set on a career in music. Elizabeth signed up to study English, hoping to side gig at the student newspaper. Curious about physics, we both enrolled in the same one-unit seminar on "The Arrow of Time" as freshmen.

A couple years and one backpacking trip to the Alps later, we found ourselves burning the midnight oil together in a particle physics lab. Now, we're both headed toward careers in science: Elizabeth applied to graduate school in engineering last fall; she’s still figuring out where she’s going to go. Rachel is researching materials science and solar energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and applying for her PhD next year.

On our trip, we hope to show the students that scientists aren’t all old white guys with calculators growing out of their beards, who spend 24/7 in underground labs and have been tinkering with circuits since preschool. We hope to demonstrate how creative science can be and how much it already impacts their day-to-day lives.

Seriously though, diversity and engagement are two of the most pressing issues in science education. We don’t think we can solve these problems (at least not yet!) but we hope this trip will spark conversations, inspire a few kids to become scientists, and create lasting resources for educators to use in their classrooms.

Want to read more about the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)? Check out the 2010 report from the American Association of University Women.


Here's our plan

Biking across the country, we have three goals:

  1. Teach classes at 10 middle schools about physics, engineering and renewable energy. To do this, we need the Sol Cycle and a variety of lesson plans.

    • We are in the process of prototyping the Sol Cycle, a toy-sized bicycle that runs off a solar-powered motor. This is where the bulk of the campaign funds will go. Manufacturing and shipping are expensive -- per unit, about $60 to print and $10 more for the solar panel and motor -- and there will be additional costs for delivery and shipping to us on the road. We printed our first draft at the Sacramento Public Library, and are now working with CITRIS Invention Lab at UC Berkeley. Membership there is a little costly, but their resources and expertise will help us turn the Sol Cycle from dream to reality.


    • To design the lesson plans, we are talking with teachers and working with BASIS, a science role model volunteering program run by Community Resources for Science in Berkeley, to ensure our plans for the Sol Cycle align with Next Generation Science Standards and are feasible and implementable. And before we leave, we will be teaching lessons in Berkeley middle school classrooms to get feedback.

  2. Interview teachers at each stop about their experiences and challenges, and celebrate their work in the classroom.

    • How did they get started? What kinds of lesson plans do kids find most engaging? Does the community they live in affect the way they teach certain subjects?

    • As of the beginning of this campaign, we have already interviewed three educators and have already been deeply inspired by their grit, ingenuity and love for their students. We can't wait to share them with you.

  3. Curate these stories and lesson plans in an online collection, freely available on our website www.cycleforscience.org for anyone to use.

    • On our blog we'll be sharing video interviews and highlights from our trip, as well as other inspiring science education projects from across the globe.

    • Plus, we are going to release the digital files for the Sol Cycle, so anyone with access to a 3D printer can make their own.


The Impact

We have spent the last year saving up for this trip. We have the bikes, the bags, the lights, the seats. So, basically, we need your help funding what's important: the Sol Cycle, the lesson plans, the teacher's stories, the good stuff.

Plus, female role models have been shown to play a part in the retention of women in science. By funding our project, you're helping put female scientists in the classroom and showing your support for a more equal, diverse and innovative STEM workforce. 

Rachel teaching circuits to curious kids with our homemade bicycle generator that powered lights and a radio at Explore Your Universe Day, an annual event at UCLA.

We chose to model and 3D-print the Sol Cycles to help highlight the educational potential of emerging printing technology. Designing functioning models requires careful engineering, applying skills like trigonometry to conceptualize, create and test ideas. At the same time, it also has almost unlimited possibilities: from fossils to musical instruments, students can make almost anything they imagine.


Estimated Budget

  1. Sol Cycle (x20)
    • Prototyping -- $300
    • Materials (solar panels, electronics) -- $500
    • Manufacturing (3D printing, assembly, packaging) -- $1,500
    • Shipping -- $150
  2. Additional building and lesson plan materials: light sources, multimeter, pyranometer, wires, soldering iron etc -- $500
  3. Video Gear
    • Tripod -- ~$50
    • External Hard Drive -- $100
    • Microphone -- $150
    • Adobe Premiere, for video editing -- $20/month for six months
    • Photoshop -- $10/month for six months
  4. Travel costs for the extra days due to teaching
    • 10 classrooms and summer programs (15 additional days) -- $400/per person
Total: ~$4,400
(The additional money will be used to fulfill the perk orders.)


Perks

Stickers (colors may vary)

    

    

T-shirt

Water bottle (Customized with logo, color may vary)

Coaster

Bike jersey design coming soon (will be similar to t-shirt)


Why us?

Elizabeth Case

As it turns out, Elizabeth did get that gig at the student newspaper -- and spent four years producing radio, web and news stories for it. She worked at The Oregonian in 2013 as an AAAS Mass Media in Science and Engineering fellow, traveled to Mexico to report on injuries in the lobster-and-sea-cucumber trade, and just wrapped up her job at the Davis Enterprise, a small newspaper based in Yolo County. Curious about her work? Read the Putah Creek Legacy, a 10,000 word story on the success of a contentious environmental lawsuit.

She decided to apply to graduate school in engineering because she loves to make stuff. In her free time, she builds things like shelves and bike-mounted phone cases and jewelry and sometimes maps and websites. On Tuesdays, she plays Ultimate Frisbee. On Wednesdays, she hangs around with Code for Sacramento.

Rachel Woods-Robinson

Rachel is a scientist. At work (which she bicycles to every day, zooooom!) she synthesizes and studies new transparent conducting materials to use for solar energy conversion. In addition to her current love affair, solar energy, she's researched geothermal energy and the Moon (turns out it gets down to -250ºC in some parts, that's some ~brrrrrie~ if you're itching for a cheesy pun).

She's dedicated to spreading science beyond the lab through community outreach. In college she founded Ecochella, a now-annual concert with sound powered entirely by bicycles connected to speakers, in order to educate students about fun renewable energy solutions. She built her own bicycle generator to use at the first Ecochella, and helped initiate an engineering competition (now a staple of Ecochella!) so that student teams design their own generators for the concert.

Teaching Experience

We both have experience teaching and understand how incredibly difficult it is to teach good science while meeting state and federal standards. In high school Rachel taught music and trombone lessons, and since then has applied these skills to science to tutor high school and college students and teach renewable energy and lab classes in Bay Area classrooms through the Community Resources for Science. Elizabeth has organized statistics and data journalism workshops, tutored physics and math to elementary and high school students, was a counselor at a science and arts camp, and served an A.V.I.D. mentor her senior year in high school.
And we're both proudly nerdy about physics and incredibly passionate about the need to ensure every kid knows he or she can become a scientist.

Our Route

Our route is approximately 3,800 miles and will take about three months. The exact roads we take, and the stops we make, will vary depending on road and weather conditions, the locations of the classrooms, and other unpredictable variables. But this is about right (updated 4/30/15):
 
CA → OR → ID → WY → SD → NE → IA → IL → IN → OH → PA → MD → DC → DE  NJ → NY


Risks & Challenges

This campaign hinges around a three-month long bike trip. Many things could go wrong: we could get injured and have to stop or shorten our trip. We might have to start later than anticipated to wait out the snow melt. We will be training for the next two months to ensure we're in good shape for the road.

While all the educators we are in touch with so far (two in Sacramento, one in Idaho, two in New York) are excited about having us stop in their classrooms or at their summer programs, it's always possible other teachers will be less enthusiastic about our proposal and there's a small chance we wouldn't be able to find 10 classrooms to stop in. We have reached out to a variety of teacher associations, and many have agreed to reach out to their networks and put us in touch with teachers along our route.

We are in the midst of prototyping the Sol Cycle. We are confident we can get it running and manufactured by the time we embark on our trip, but printing errors and shipping delays could potentially postpone the trip or classroom visits. To avoid this, we will carefully review and test as many iterations of our prototype as we can. Additionally, they are toys -- they will likely be dropped and flung around, and run the risk of breaking. We will be bringing spare kits with us in case this happens. Although it is more expensive, we have chosen to use high grade 3D printing materials so that the Sol Cycle can be a durable, lasting educational tool.


Other Ways You Can Help

Other than donating to the campaign, there are a number of ways you can help contribute:

  • Do you teach along our route, or know someone who does? Get in touch with us; we'd love to talk to you about stopping at your school.
  • Send us your best lesson plan and a short blurb about you. We'll choose the best ones to highlight on our website.
  • Share our story on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Ello, whatever rocks your boat (your bicycle?).
  • When the Sol Cycle .stl file goes live, print your own at your local makerspace, and get the word out!
  • Make an effort to: recognize your own biases, encourage a girl to pursue science, explain a scientific topic to someone you love, or learn about a physics concept you were never quite sure about. Share your story with the hashtag: #cycleforscience
  • Do you represent a business and like what we're doing? We'd love to talk to you about sponsoring part of our trip. Sponsors will have their logos listed on our bike jerseys and be highlighted in social media and on our website. 
Contact us at: wecycleforscience@gmail.com or check out our website at www.cycleforscience.org.

In Conclusion

We think this trip will introduce us to some pretty extraordinary folks: teachers inspiring their students to look harder and deeper at the world, kids who have their own impressions about science, researchers and educators who have studied pedagogy in depth.

And so we need your help distributing the Sol-Cycle, documenting our trip and building an online resource around the tools and lessons we learn about.


Acknowledgements

We would like to extend a super special thank you to everybody who's helped us and inspired us so far, to our science teachers who have made our education possible, and to our friends and family who have put up with our scattered brains during the sleep-deprived days leading up to this campaign. Thank you! In particular:

Sponsors/Endorsements

Rock the Bike

The North American Association of Environmental Education


Organizations

Sacramento public library
CITRIS Invention Lab, UC Berkeley
Sasha and Elise from Community Resources for Science, Berkeley
Rock the Bike, Oakland

Educators we’ve spoken with so far

Becca Rolon (Cambridge, ID)
Maria Aguilar (Sacramento, CA)
Robert Bajor (San Francisco, CA)

Video Credits

  • Filming and editing - Mara Woods-Robinson
  • And more editing - Rachel Woods-Robinson

  • Music (in order of appearance):
    • Cold World - Free Food
    • Clarinet Marmalade - Original Dixieland Jass Band
    • Miss - Jonah Levine
    • This Land is Your Land - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

All logos and graphics designed in-house by Elizabeth Case and Rachel Woods-Robinson


FAQ

1. Where will you guys be staying?
We plan on camping, couch surfing, and occasionally staying/showering in hotels (especially before we teach).
2. Why are you going north?
Honestly, to see Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. There's a small chance snow's going to push back our start date, but a lot of our teaching will be at the beginning of our trip, so we'll be moving north slowly.
3. But schools end in May/June!
Yep. That's why we'll be making most of our visits at the beginning of the trip, and why we are also talking to summer schools and programs in New Jersey/New York, which start in late June.
Looking for more information? Check the project FAQ
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Choose your Perk

Postcard from the trip

$15 USD
Name a state, and we'll mail you a postcard with a little note about our day on it. A piece of America, delivered right to your front door. Delivery date depends on which state you pick. (+$5 for international shipping)
Estimated Shipping
June 2015
14 claimed

Custom photo

$20 USD
One custom 5" x 5" square photo from our trip, printed on high quality paper. It could be Yellowstone, the open road, a schoolhouse -- let a moment from our trip inspire you to keep on looking toward the next adventure. We might even sign a little note on the back. Think real life Instagram, or the Polaroids you can't buy anymore. (+$5 for international shipping)
Estimated Shipping
September 2015
9 claimed

Fender Blender Universale

$400 USD
What do you get when you blend together renewable energy, education, pedal power, fun people, and of course strawberries/bananas/etc? A bike blender from Rock The Bike! Includes rear rack, Fender Blender base, Oster-compatible pitcher, and attachment pieces (all you need is a bike) more info at: http://rockthebike.com/store/products/9-fender-blender-universale.html (Bay Area only)
Estimated Shipping
August 2015
0 out of 1 of claimed

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