is it forces you to not rest on your laurels basically of, well, I've got this cool microscope in the lab. I can show to people." You have to then be a lot more intentional about how it is you're trying to design experiments or design activities. And also just know that you are in someone else's domain basically now and you have to be sensitive to what it is that they're interested in, because it's just not going to make a lot of sense if you come to an event and you bring something that's way out of left field and they're like, "What is this? Why are you doing this?" Unless you're doing it because they ask for it because they think it's interesting because the kids showed interest. So at least it shakes you a little bit and it reminds you that you got to be a little more intentional than you may have initially thought if you were just bringing somebody to your lab.

my involvement in the program, It showed me two primary things. I think that one is that this type of approach that is centered around relationship building can work and not having to put STEM first. And number two, how to move forward with this type of approach. Not only thinking about this, even just in my head, but also knowing that others are doing this type of thinking and how to move forward with improving it. I feel I've made just a ton of revelations from all the way back when we started until now. And I think continuing to ruminate on it, trying stuff out and not being afraid to not put metrics first is going to be hugely important in the way that I move forward thinking about outreaching and practicing.

I can't help but point out that Rick's approach has been amorphous from the beginning. And I think that's something I really appreciated. And I remember reading his ... We had a competitive application process to decide on sites. Rick's proposals was like, "We have no idea what we're going to do, but we're going to go to this many meetings one at a time." And I was like, "That sounds really interesting to me. That's process over product." I mean, you really did come at this without a predetermined sense of like, "Well, we're going to have to have this event on that." I remember having conversations with you and this is, I'm now influencing the conversation a little bit, but nothing's objective anyways. So you received funding to participate for doing the project. And it was just a set amount for every site. And you were like, "Well, I'm having trouble spending this money." I remember having a conversation with you where I was like, "Well, you can buy pizza." And you're like, "Really?" I'm like, "Yeah, you can buy food. Or if somebody needs something, bring pizza to the next community meeting you go to or whatever people are eating." And I don't know. There's something that I've found. It's funny to me that you're still struggling with the fact that it's amorphous, but to me in a weird way, maybe that is actually a great strength.

This certainly didn't happen overnight. So I've been working with Dwight for the last couple of years and I've actually seen specifically my relationship with Dottie become stronger and stronger as I've been more and more consistent. As like, she's seen me around these events, she actually knows that I actually care about the community because I live here and because I have an interest as well with science, and I think that's right. If I came in wanting to be an insider trying to be buddy, buddy, always trying to bring science activities to every single thing that Dwight was doing, then it would have felt a little forced, it would have been very clear to someone as sharp as Dottie that it's more some sort of ulterior motives as opposed to me being willing to just come and pick up trash and come to the meetings regularly and listen to the neighborhood's upcoming events and issues and initiatives to where Dottie was actually, the woman who asked me during the summer, she said, "Hey, I've got a bunch of kids that are run around the neighborhood, and I think it'd be really cool to invite you guys over for a barbecue and just have some science activities have some hot dogs and stuff like that." She was the one that pitched that to me out of nowhere, and so this sort of relationship building, seeing me as an insider in at least some way, but not because I asked for it, or invited or told my neighbors like, "Hey, what if I came to your backyard with some science, what you think about that?" I think that that's something that I hadn't actually consciously thought through, but just tried to be intentional about not being overbearing, or having some sort of savior mindset and just showing up to meetings and saying, "Hey, we're here if you guys want us to come bring some events, and if not, I also just happen to live here, and I want to be involved in some way."

I mean that to say that you come into a setting with your own sort of perceptions with your own background, how you think about certain things, you come in with a ton, a ton, a ton of assumptions. So I think as an ethnographer, as a sociologist, it's about being mindful, as you're stepping in about turning off those assumptions and listening, and truly just listening to what people are saying, to what people are saying that are similar, to what people are saying that are different. So I think oftentimes it becomes rendering exactly what you're hearing from the people that are there, and I think the important thing to know is, it is not always going to be what you think you should hear or what you even want to hear it, it's usually going to be something that's just organic to that community.

if there's an outcome or recommendation that we can glean from those experience is, if you want to do genuine community engagement, ditch STEM altogether and just find ways to participate in the process of the community itself.

you need to understand, yes, access and inclusion in STEM and in the tech field is a barrier that communities of color face, but it's also like within and embedded within so many other barriers that intersect each other. So it's almost like the best way I could explain it, is as somebody who was working in government, was doing a policy portfolio around advancing equity and outcomes for women and girls of color, working on a number of different issues, from criminal and juvenile justice reform to other education related issues, like exclusionary school discipline, like how black and brown kids are being suspended and expelled at disproportionate rates, to prison pipeline, to other educational barriers that they face. It is truthfully hard to think about their access and inclusion into science and what we're including in the classroom in terms of science, access and inclusion, when there are so many other just baseline when you think of like a hierarchy of needs. So many other baseline structural inequalities that are happening. So for me having that lens when I walked in from the moment, and I was kind of thinking about how I was going to go into Saturday, did I have to put on some special science lens or science hat? I said, "No, just go in as the researcher, as the ethnographer, as the sociologists that you are." That gravitated me towards just thinking about the community first, before I was even thinking about how folks would touch upon science that day, I was just looking at the neighborhood looking at, how folks were interacting with the fire department officials that were there, looking at what moms were talking about, were they talking about doctor's appointments? Were they talking about having to buy school supplies? Looking at the housing, the government assisted housing that was right across the street from the middle school. Looking at all of these other pieces that made this community what it was because you if you're going to understand how these folks, how kids, how families are interacting and engaging with science, or are included or excluded from science, you need to understand the context of all of these other systems and systemic barriers that they face on a day to day.

I really enjoyed seeing some of the people that I knew were from that neighborhood come out and experience Cascade Road in a different way. And it was good to see some of the families come out and have some leisure time and be able to interact with their neighborhood in a way that like I said, at the beginning of the call that they don't normally get the chance too, because its such a busy thoroughfare. And also because it's a place where between the grind of going to work, going to school X, Y, and Z, you never stop to think, "Okay, how beautiful is this neighborhood in this street?" And the history that's on this street is so important to black Atlanta as well. So for me, I always respect... Like the hashtag says respect, cascade. And you think about, it's a very strong community there that is under assault in some ways, but also was very strong and has lots of resources that are there. And I think in many ways, if partners could look at those neighborhoods like that and think about, "Okay, what are the strengths of this neighborhood and how can we build upon those particular strengths that exist here and then rather than figuring out, "Okay, what's lacking here? How do we meet that lack?" But more so how to we be with working here and how can we contribute the most working here? I think that'd be a cool way to think about different initiatives in this particular neighborhood and similar ones like it.

I would probably go and figure out what are the times and places of any kind of community organization that meets like at a community center, if it's group of elders in the neighborhood, if it's some bingo players, if it's a church that has something recreational for kids to do, I'd figure out, "Okay, what institutions are within the neighborhood first?" And then just go visit and show up. So for example, doing research in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, it was really about going to churches and meeting people in church. And then from there snowballing it to, "Okay, now I met you at church. So now I'm going to get an invitation over to your home for dinner or something or a barbecue." And it just rolls into that. That's how we do our work. It's network-based, but you create a purposive sample of this. That means, you're trying to go to a particular place trying to find 10 people. And then from there, it becomes a snowball sample of, "Do you know someone who you think would be good to bring into this program or talk to about the particular topic."

I think part of the approach, particularly from anthropology and cultural anthro, and so it's always... I know that for science and big science, the idea is to scale up. How do you scale this up. I think for us, we like to scale down a bit and think about, "Okay, on the level of the neighborhood, on the level of the community, I didn't think about institutions that are meaningful to a wide variety of people that live in these neighborhoods. So I think for example, you have to figure out what your approach will be to understanding what the community is and what the politics are in the neighborhood. I think if you go to churches, for example, you'll get one perspective from going to different churches. If you go to different public schools, for example, the different perspectives on what the neighborhood is and what it means, what the limits are of that neighborhood. But I think generally it's just the way to tap into a neighborhood or community is a slow process and it only happens with the same engagement. There's no checklist on best practices, there's no real easy way to do it. But I will say that by putting in that time with particular neighborhoods and institutions within neighborhoods that I trusted within those neighborhoods, it pays [inaudible] dividends for you when it's time for a big event like this, because people will want to come out and want to support. Because they know that you've been there for more than just a particular event. From my perspective, and do a research in neighborhoods events similar to this and being from this neighborhood, I think going through some of the key churches, maybe on Sunday and when they have the announcements part of church, just being there and talking to the congregation and saying, "I'm from this organization, they're doing X, Y, and Z, we'd love some input from the community. If you want to talk to us [inaudible] and that can help keep the ball rolling. In that cliff neighborhood churches will be central to doing that. But I think, figure out what the solutions are trusted and valued by the people who lived there. And then sourcing those to figure out, who are your key people, people who be like " Center people for you to do your work into... We've got the other folks and bring people in together to the particular event.

I think my position on it was twofold in a way in terms of how I experienced the event because on the one hand I was an observer of it in an official capacity, but also that's the neighborhood where I grew up. I told Jonathan I worked at a place that was right there. I went to that [inaudible], so that was really my neighborhood. I think I have emotional ties to the areas where it goes beyond just my observations. When I pulled up to the event and I saw everything I thought about just how rapidly that corridor is gentrifying. And I thought about how, "Wow, this really can seem like a colonial event where there's these outsiders who are coming in and they block the entire Cascade Road. Even though there was a big turnout of people who were from the neighborhood, there was a lot of turnout for folks who are not from that part of town. And probably have never been to that part of town before who were there for the event. So I think that on the outside looking in, not knowing the event...outside of Atlanta, just the Streets Alive initiative itself. I think that the way it flat down in that neighborhood, as somebody who's from there it read to me like, "Wow, okay, they're gentrifying this neighborhood. It's like a pilot test for, "How do we make this street more safe?" Because now they're justifying Café Corridor because that intersection has been dangerous. I didn't even know it though, because I never heard anybody say that before. But apparently it's been dangerous for a long time and nothing's happened all these years and now would it be different by and Belt Line is right there. Now Street Alive comes and now you have this cycle Atlanta Fest. And because I'm outside the neighborhood, I'm not coming. So it can read like, "Oh my God, these are outsiders coming in and what are they doing here?" And that was my initial emotional response to the event.

Well, two things I would say that I've learned along the way through some fits and starts is always when chatting with people, and if they're open and interested as you're wrapping up the conversation and setting up a time to talk more, it's always ask, "Who else should be a part of the conversation?" And let them think a little bit about what other entity or group just like Justin was doing, who would be interested. And then see if they're willing to make that introduction. Because a lot of times I'm not the right person to go into a community and start trying to reach out, but finding people who are willing to be a part of it is great. And then the other thing that the whole term of "reaching out" is loaded. Like I noticed, and I fall guilty of this. When I say I talked to someone, I'm mind typing with my fingers, which means I emailed them. And did I email them? Did I show up? Did I find a time that was convenient for them? And again, you probably did all this, but I think it's important to think about, and to document that building those relationships, there's a lot of shiny objects that get dropped into different places and then they disappear and go away. So sometimes thinking about how much you can actually show up and show up in person, which I think the currency of in-person has gone up as much as the currency of digital and perhaps even more so. So I think getting into the right meetings and thinking about the different neighborhoods, communities, community leaders, stakeholders, organizations, non-traditional beyond the cultural institutions, like informal learning places, but certainly your churches and community centers are big. So thinking through some of those places and finding those connectors, is really key. And I'm probably not saying that anything you don't know, it's just who goes to bandwidth? Because you try it with one and then get pulled away on 17 other projects and initiatives. So being really intentional and committing to it, is key.

The moment that I reflected on the most on my time on Saturday was just a pull-aside conversation that I had with Dottie Green and realizing the many, many connections we had just around the work she's been doing for decades and work that I'm interested in researching and doing policy work around. It turns out that Dottie was a principal in several jails and correctional facilities across the state of Connecticut. So it's like the exact nexus of a lot of the research I do around the criminal juvenile justice system around the education system. So I just remember having that conversation with her wanting to connect with her afterwards, and then just spending a lot of time just reflecting on this conflict between who does sort of this broader scale programming and policy on the institutional level or on the national level, on the government level. I just thought a lot about how much of an expert somebody like a Dottie Green was, and all the time she has spent in jails and correctional facilities, and her time spent in middle and high schools and then as a principal within these facilities and how much she's an expert on the change that needs to happen, whether it's in education or whether it's in different systems reform, and just thinking about different rooms that I've been in with policymakers and in government where nobody has that expertise that Dottie has.

those who are facing the obstacles or challenge are closest to the solution and know best the solution. So being somebody who feels like a little bit of an outsider to this science outreach field, in some ways, or in a lot of ways. So I guess the one thing that wasn't spoken about in this dialog was, and maybe it's because there's just knowledge of it beforehand, but it's a big problem that we're trying to solve for, it's how to get science out into communities and received by different communities. I think that I would approach that in centering the voices of those who are at the end of that solution. So the young people in the room who should have that access to sciences should be gaining knowledge of science. So I just think about how much as we think about like, what does this look like when it's scaled or expanded or replicate this outreach? I think a lot about not just thinking, just trying to listen to the voices of the young people and how they react to this sort of outreach or just more broadly like where... I don't know, Rick, if this happened to anywhere along your process, but have you ever sat in a room with kids from the Dwight community, or from the New Haven community and just ask broad questions about what are the best ways to engage you around science? Is it coming to a fall festival? Is it coming into your classroom? Is it doing something in the neighborhood? Really centering those voices because that's the solution that you're solving for.

how do you not just be a flash in the pan? I don't know. I think you do that through organic relationship building, but I don't think that the goal is to be, maybe your goal is not to be a flash in the pan, but your goal certainly isn't to be within that community in the same way. At least that would be the case for me. So me moving into a Dwight community I think it would be a building relationship, but those relationships are going to be different than Dottie's relationship with the 80 year old woman and I should never expect it to be the same. So I think it's a little bit of balance, not wanting to be just as quick in and out peace, but also realizing that it takes work to be part of a community. It takes that time, it takes not only relationship building, but experiencing common experiences together. I think this happens a lot too often in research, where folks on the outside, where researchers go in and they think that six months of relationship building is going to make you this ingrained part of the fabric of a community and it's not, and I think recognizing that and being okay with that is good because I think someone like a Dottie can look at somebody like Rick and say, "You are part of this community in this way." With knowing that it's like you weren't with us 20, 30 years ago when X, Y and Z was happening. So I think it's being realistic about how to what extent you will fit in within the community and being okay. I think sometimes it's pitched as the goal is to become an insider. I never think that the goal should be to become an insider. The goal should to be, to build a relationship as an outsider.

I think it goes back to sort of just narratives and dialogue in the field of just social justice and community change in general around this savior mentality of how much can I go in and really just change or impact the community? I think especially how much can I do so as an outsider of that community, and there are so many different levels to what it means to be an insider or an outsider of a community, right? I think you can in many ways, be bold, you can be somewhere on that continuum. So I know for myself even though I looked more like the people in the room as a black woman, I was not from the Dwight neighborhood or Dwight community like Rick was, for example. So it's a lot about thinking about how much the change has to come from within, how much is that nexus of control really, in that organizing body of black women in the Dwight community who for the past decade has been pulling together these events, have been doing work in the community, and how much can actually be impacted by a Yale or whatever organization, or even a really great community or a really great outside activist who has just good goals and intentions in mind,

So the main focus is not in a lot of these events, actually, especially with this street organizer has not been, let's see what really fancy and cool science activities we can do, but more so how can we help enable the sort of activities that you know that the community that you live in can benefit from, how can we help enable those and also partner if we think it's appropriate to have science activities there?

How do you know that someone's really the right person to be speaking to and not just the person that happens to be willing to speak or lonely? Well, I think that's a cool strategy because I think that when you come into a new place, the person that most likely would talk to a stranger is the person that's more gregarious and that's more outgoing naturally. So I think that keeping that in mind, knowing that, "Okay, this may just be the one person that nobody wants to talk to. That's why they're so willing to talk to me." But also just talking to that person and seeing their personality and seeing what they say about the neighborhood, how they feel about the neighborhood, how they [inaudible] back into the neighborhood. And then I think that's how I come to turn up, is this just an outsider or an insider? Based off of their connections, the depth of their experience within the neighborhood, and also how they feel about their neighborhood, because folks who are passionate about their neighborhood, those are the ones who I really want to talk to. Those are the ones that have the memory of the neighborhood. Keeps a memory of wherever they are, and they can give you the insights into who the key players also. The ones who are really passionate about, "I'm from this neighborhood. I'm from here, I love this area." The whole respect cat cable, for example, I think those are key people that can be reached out to. And you're going to say, "How can an event like this work in this particular neighborhood?" Or, "How do we align our aim with your aim?" It's like this is the best event possible.

How complex these things are, how nuanced, and how much time it takes is something that I think is maybe given short shift from a planning perspective, from the science engagement folks side, but also from the philanthropic side. No one wants to hear, I think about a four-year thing to get to know people and then do a one-off whatever, when you don't want it to be a one-off. So that came up to me about how complex and how great it was that Rick, that you were there invested, and Sarah and company were there in Atlanta working through some of these partnerships

When you first are asking you start to realize that you're going to be demanding so that you will asking somebody for a chunk of their time and for their attention and for them to build something of a trusting relationship with you. What is important to you in going into that relationship? I think Being honest and just being upfront about the fact that I am an academic and this is helping me to get my dissertation and this is actually helping my career. It's helping me financially doing this project. So I can't act as if it's just for the love of the research topic. And of course I'm passionate about the issue, but also this helps me... This is my job, my career. So I think being honest about that and thinking about what my goals and aims were and trying to make their relationships feel as least exploitative as possible. That's what I just try to do. Because I know there's an imbalance in terms of resources from off the top. I just try my best to mitigate that by just being honest about it and also just doing what I say I'm going to do for people being on time and showing up in those key ways, and having that face time with them. I think that's really the only way because people have to decide whether they want to trust you or not. And I think they can only decide that after getting to know who you are and say, if you're consistent and you show up and you're honest, I think that lets people start trusting you and then they want to support you from that point forward. That's been my experience. I love how these conversations tend to go. They get deep and thoughtful and often times some of the answers as you get deeper, start to sound very straightforward. Show up on time. That's thinking that actually... I think behind that is a humility in a sense of your place in the relationship. I agree with you, Ben. That's why I do it.

I think it's the layers that become complicated when we try to integrate an event. It feels like a problem sometimes with the festival also where we're like, we want to go and we really want to have a wide swath of geography of our giant city covered, but we have to find people who are engaged around the big city and who are excited to do this work so that we're not just slapping a thing into a place that wasn't already interested and engaged. We want it to evolve organically. And as you say, that takes time. But I do think that's definitely one of the challenges when you're bringing your thing into somebody else's events and the assumptions that you make about how they're doing their events can be complicated.

It's a very complicated. It felt complicated obviously from the beginning., one of the things that struck us as we started looking at trying to think about organizations, we went through the math and really tried to look at all the businesses so that we could talk to the people at the businesses to see if they wanted to be included. We wanted to talk to people about the science and put science facts at the different restaurants. And then all of a sudden I was like, "It's Sunday." As I made a map and a list of the businesses that were on the route, 75% of the businesses are closed. Which I felt like, "Did anybody think about that?" Like you're not necessarily even benefiting the businesses that are there by choosing to do it on a Sunday versus a Saturday. And maybe that's more complicated with closing the road and whatnot, but I do think that there was just inherent... And obviously, this is a bigger conversation of which we, I feel like would always like to do our part, to participate in it in a way that is productive and while also being aware. It felt like the whole enterprise was itself complicated and we had to figure out how to be part of that. But I think also living in a city like Atlanta that's part of the way things happen. And we're really eager to figure out how to participate in the changing nature of what's happening in Atlanta. But to do so in a way that's a little bit more conscientious and we certainly were very aware of that as we got more and more involved.

I think the other layer here is the whole thing with, it sounds to me, and just because I'm the outsider. So tell me to shut up, is the whole issue of gentrification with that part of Atlanta. And so the Streets Alive event coming there's an undercurrent to all of that, that you're tangentially just swept up in a little bit, with this event. So even if you were doing some of that, if you met a few eye-rolls or some guarded folks, I think that would make a lot of sense from their perspectives. So you have to... You were thinking about that too, but I do think it's important to maybe discuss a little bit of that for this effort

I wonder if there might be a way to build those connections, I think if there's a way to team up with organizations and see ways to make this something that's usually beneficial. So it's not like we're just volunteering and giving a bit of time to this event, but are there certain partnerships that can be built that can extend beyond particular events, and is beneficial to them? Maybe it's probably about just figuring out, particularly in a neighborhood where the resources aren't as bountiful and people are stressing in terms of capital, resources, time, energy. I think about ways that maybe partnerships can be made, it's usually beneficial so the people don't feel like, "I'm going out and giving out my time on a Sunday, when I could be at church. Or I could be doing something else with my family." Where they feel like, "No, I'm doing this because I'm getting from it as well, I'm not just volunteering and get getting more side effects of doing this, but I'm helping to advance my organization, or my classroom or something like that, in some way." Maybe that could mitigate that feeling, "I'm always asking people to do something." But in fact we can just build a relationship and go from there.

it turns out, that's a huge struggle for them too. So I guess part of what I am really interested in trying to pull apart, as this is a learning experience, is this tension between being an organization that can think globally and curate something that is really well integrated because we can think on that global scale. But at the same time, really trying to dig deep into the community and get people excited and motivated to come out and think with us about how to participate in that. So that it really does strike both of those

I think the theme that I keep coming back to is this idea of layers. I keep thinking about that. How there's just a lot to unpack with the ambition of this event on top of the ambition of the event itself on top of the historical cultural context of where it was. So it was really cool. And where I'd start though is actually just thinking about science festivals in general and public science, because as I was coming in this late driving into town, I was just flipping through radio stations and being reminded when you're in a big city, you get a lot of radio station options, while I'm thinking about this big festival event I'm going to, and everything on the radio was about the Atlanta Falcons because they had a home football game and then I parked and rode the train in and it's packed with people wearing Falcons jerseys. And I'm just reminded about how in big metropolitan areas, how much competition there is for people's time and attention. And I know the Atlanta Streets Alive thing is a big deal. But I would be surprised how many people on this train had any idea that was going on. And then to get out into the neighborhood and see it start to set up, was really, really cool and exciting from my perspective. And then I was really interested to meet Justin knowing what his research and expertise was in. So just the setup of it and the ambition of it, was really, really intriguing and compelling to me.

I think actually listening to Kalisha tell the story about how there was like 40 people lined up out the door, and they were kept out until they mentioned to Dottie that they're with me and with Science Haven, and that they were ushered in right away. Just the reflection, as I was hearing that today made me feel really rewarded for the fact that it's not just I have science activities and that's what they are for and that's really our only connection, but knowing that there seems to be something deeper with what we've been doing with Science Haven and the Dwight community to where someone that is intensely protective, and rightfully so over her community sees us as part of it and just willing to sort of light up her face and smile whenever she knows that someone's with us, made me feel really good and feel like maybe we're onto something with the way that we're trying to approach this project.

I really enjoy being able to explore my neighborhood in that way. And I think that because it's such a busy thoroughfare, because the beltline is right there, in Atlanta, you can easily just go around all the mats. And I think that it was wonderful and I think that it just made me want to spend more time in my neighborhood and want to spend more time walking down certain streets that aren't major thoroughfare. Just beautiful roads and go to some parks in my neighborhood. It just made me want to just get back into the infrastructure of where I'm from in ways I never had before, because I think that it's all about the car and then getting there and then these aren't easily backable areas either. So I think the event opened my mind up to different ways of experiencing my neighborhood in ways that are really affirming ways to experience my neighborhood too.

One thing that jumped out to me that I thought was really cool when listening to the Atlanta conversation was there was a part about discussing Clif bars and REI came in and it was talking about REI was an obstacle course. And I was like, "Wow, that sounds a really cool thing." But then the conversation was around this isn't reflective of the neighborhood or this store isn't here or something like that. And I may be misspeaking on that, but it was interesting because we had a previous year, a rock climbing wall at a similar event at Dwight whenever we were there for the fall festival, I believe. And I was like, "It's interesting because this is from the parks and rec department, which these kids are already super familiar with and they know these people because they bring in movies in the park in the summer as well." So I was just thinking of really similar amenities that we brought, but really being important by who in the community is bringing that in and how it's received.

I mean, I have a very small, quick vignette. I think being in that space reminded me a lot of my own childhood. So I did feel like an amazing amount of nostalgia when I was there. I grew up in the Bronx in a pretty under served, under resourced neighborhood, and I really could appreciate and my neighborhood was also the kind of neighborhood where all of the people knew each other. My mom would look out the window and see who was outside and then determined whether or not we were allowed to go outside because everybody who was there would have parented your children for you. I saw a lot of that in the Dwight community, and it kind of made me nostalgic and it made me miss home, miss my friends, miss my neighbors. So I don't know, I found that really moving, and I'm also saying this as someone who was completely an outsider to the Dwight community, I was like one of the only white women, just like walking around trying to be as small and unintrusive as possible. But it was clear I did not belong. So it was balancing this amazing the nostalgia especially when the woman broke out with a baton, and I was just thinking about how we used to have choreographed dance routines with batons in our courtyard of our buildings. I also sort of said, I was waiting for them to break out the double Dutch rope because I would have been right there doing that. So I don't know, I loved it. I thought it was a wonderful experience for me in terms of just making me remember being a little kid again.

as soon as people hear you say you're from Yale, it's an immediate off switch almost, people don't want to hear what you have to say, which I'm not trying to say that isn't like what was me, but it's just knowing your audience and not obscuring things but meeting people where they are and knowing that to get the most out of the things, the really cool things that you have to do interact with them with, that you may not want to talk about your pedigree coming from, I'm a graduate student at this prestigious institution, because that's not who we are at that event. I'm just a neighbor that happens to have a table with some slime.

The science that was happening behind that table was really cool and there were a lot of complex concepts behind it, but it was not rocket science, not to say it in a cliche way. It was thinking through density, thinking through molecular stuff, this is like middle school level science that folks that are familiar with. You don't have to be getting your PhD in neuroscience or biology to be able to engage in this way, right? So it could be folks from the [inaudible] department, the sociology department. It could be folks from across the university who could still engage with young people in this way, and there are a lot of people in sort of the social sciences that care about equity and inclusion, and a big piece of that is equity and inclusion of people of color in STEM and in tech because we know that that yield different educational opportunities, different job opportunities that eventually address some of the economic disparities that communities of color face.

the families and the young people interacted in a really positive way. I think the step further to that though is justice. You could react in a positive way, you could have great engagement, it could be fun, I did science I learned something new but there is this sentiment and I just share it personally as a black woman who was a black child of being able to see and experience things and look across the table and say wow, that person looks like me and is doing science, or wow, that person looks like me and knows all these things. There's more of a I can do that, I can do this, I can be this when you're able to see people who look like you.

I was in a meeting where we realized that the stakeholders in our group, they didn't agree and when we were two years in and we just found out that some people thought that we needed hard numbers and we needed a pipeline and convert everyone to scientist like Rick was saying. And other people were like, "If I go to a music festival, I don't go in thinking I'm going to have to learn how to be a musician. I don't go to an art museum and I think, Oh no, I gotta be an artist." He's like, "It's only science educators who put all this pressure on themselves to raise scientists." And he was being a little bit facetious, but his point stuck with me. And so I think some of this tension about one-offs, short-term engagements, some of those matter, some of the most important events of our lives are one-offs. There are things that happened once.

So just to center community in this piece. I think there is a perception and I think it's important to know that Yale is "bad." I heard to both Dottie Green and then another mom kind of reflect on, I think another organizer reflects on New Haven's relationship with Yale and it came about not in thinking about Science Haven and their park there, they were just talking about this other community, about the upcoming mayoral election, about politics and really this idea of like, literally, which mayoral candidate is here for Yale, and which one is here for the community? So there is this tension that I know, Rick, you know, I know, I know, I know, I feel. I at least feel it when I go out into the community to do research or to engage in any way, but I say that to say there was still such a warm invitation towards Rick and his volunteers and the Science Haven space at this event. So I think that just speaks a lot to the relationship building. So I want to name both, that there is this tension with Yale, but what success looks like when you're intentional about building strong relationships.

I think the way that the Science Haven table operated, it was very fluid in terms of the space that it occupied and how the volunteers were like sitting on the floor with the kids and it was inviting, and it wasn't like just a bunch of scientists sitting behind the table making it seem like there was an awesome them and there was certainly a lot of interaction, a lot of moving around, a lot of getting comfortable with the kids, which was really cool to see. So I don't think that the table stuck out in any way, in terms of the theme and the overall atmosphere of the festival itself.

So one of the things we've noticed, for the people who may listen to this later, I work in North Carolina and I work on a statewide dispersed model of a science festival. I'm not even sure if we can actually be called a science festival, but we'd call ourselves that and Ben lets us do that. But we play a lot around with the space of bringing science content into non-science events and spaces and trying to build meaningful partnerships. So I was really curious to see this and how it played out. And one thing we've learned from our experience sometimes our presence can be a little bit jarring in that you're at for example, Northeastern North Carolina, there's something called The Potato Festival. And I thought there was some natural tie to sweet potatoes and there's no historic... They wanted to sell French fries. So they created this potato festival. So we hadn't done a lot of homework about what this event was. We just knew it was a big event. It's like a giant street carnival there's rides, there's vendors. And we're like, "Is it cool if we bring some science content?" So we had like three tenths of scientists come out to lead hands on activities. And we noticed right away that as people were walking up to it, it was just out of place. They were looking at it like a local realtor who's talking to them about how they can buy houses in the area and getting a business car. The next place is like a juice station. They can get a Turkey leg and then it's like, "Hey, do you want to learn about the exoskeletons of bugs?" And like, "What? Why do I want to do that?" So we learned that we needed to have some buffer stations or change the style of interactions because it felt out of place and it wasn't even customized to the event itself or to the people that would be at the event. There's one thing I would say that I do want to separate from the actual what was happening at these specific stations. But going along the route that Justin and I walked, and we walked the whole thing, it seemed like an entirely appropriate style of thing to happen at this big cycling event. So all the SciCycle stuff, the branding was on point, the fact that it was a place for people to hop off their bikes and do something hands-on or interact or look around, all seemed to fit really well with the overall vibe of the event itself, which is casual and informal and family friendly. So that's what I meant about how it was woven in. It didn't feel forced. It hit the right tone. And then some of the booths, the one that stood out that Justin and I, we've talked about a few times, there was one, a mechanical engineering group, a math group up near Hank Aaron Boulevard, I think was doing an activity that was right... The theme was about wheels and how important it is this things to be round. So like the activity itself was really appropriate for the style of event that the people who were attending it were expecting to see. So that's more what I meant about how well it's integrated into the overall event, this scavenger hunt felt. And I got to eat ice cream, which was good too at a science station.

I remember feeling it was just such an opportunity to think so differently about the way we construct those projects. And I remember feeling really uncomfortable and unsettling to us to try just being able to set it up that way. And I think that's one of these complicated things about the STEM piece of it, right? The STEM itself is supposed to be so data-driven and clear. And so then trying to put a bunch of people who have been trained to think in this very, data-driven way into a context that is itself so amorphous, I think the tension's really uncomfortable.

something like what you've been working on would have actually the greatest impact on those who are involved in sorting out how to engage with the community that they live in, that they found themselves living in as a as a graduate student. I mean, I think that takes a certain level of humility to understand that, that the learning and outreach isn't for the audience, it's for those that are conducting the outreach.

we constantly just feel like we're always asking people, we want to highlight the science of these organizations. We want the community to know that this is what's happening in their backyard. But what that means is that we asked them to come do stuff. And it always feels... And while what we're trying to do is call attention to the work they do, but that requires them to come out on a Sunday and set up a booth. And we offered to pay for people's materials. Like we tried to make it as easy as possible, but you still have to find people who are willing to stand in 98 degrees on the street, in the middle of the afternoon, on their Sunday. And it just is always this hard thing of, how do you make that sell? How do you get people excited to do that? And to not just constantly... I just feel like sometimes we constantly come up against this thing of feeling like we're always asking people to do things, even though what we're asking them to do is get before 50,000 people so that people can know that this is happening. But it is that tenuous balance always of feeling like we're asking something of them and we know that people are just so, so busy.

this experience made me want to ... I've been thinking about the deficit model and saviorism and wanting to come back and be able to tell the story and how we tell the story, because Sarah said about this lets us do the work. And is that about doing the work that's funding? Coming back to get more money, to do something like this. So we can come back and claim credit and show the pictures and whatever, what does that mean? And all this has made me realize that I want to do, this is going to sound weird, but I want to do less better. I don't want to feel I have to cover quite as much ground. I want to go build more meaningful relationships, be a better partner and do less better.

so much of our professional development exists in conference spaces. And sometimes there are moments where that's super, super, super helpful, but I also think that this intimate, you're observing me on my ground, in my space and giving you that feedback, it's a totally different professional development, but I feel it captures something the money spent in a conference space, never could. And I think that's a really, really important piece, especially I think for you Ben, because that's often where you sit and you do so many things, but I feel in just thinking about the balance of funding and attention and time and all that stuff, I think being able to have people support each other on the ground is hugely valuable.

I felt you guys did a really amazing job of really articulating what the strengths were and then really talking about the weaknesses of it as they related really to the systemic things that we were trying to think about. So I really felt as I said at the beginning, it's one of those things where you, especially because it's been so long, because the world's so weird and as Jeannie said, so much of this now feels even more heavy and important. That really I think that having an outside observer and obviously Justin, you were the perfect unicorn person to have to be that person and I don't know how that managed to happen, but it certainly felt you were a unicorn and the way that you brought your perspective, but just really putting language to these things that we were really struggling with. And I think having that outside perspective, lets you have more of the conversation around those sorts of frameworks and systemic issues and ways in which the specifics could try to chip away at those systemic things differently or ... So I felt aside from your just being a special unicorn who could have those observations and Jonathan, you're hugely important to our organization and its history. So there's all that lovely bit of it. But also just having a third-party who's invested felt so special. I just feel so often you're getting your feedback from some random dad or grandpa or somebody's cousin or whatever. And so it was really nice to just have such a thoughtful, careful conversation that really touched on the highs and the lows in ways that felt super respectful and really, really, really helpful. [inaudible]

I think that for me, it's about triangulation of different things. And I wonder if maybe in efforts to scale up if there could be some strategic and creative triangulation of different modes of evaluation and measurement, so that on some level, I think that it's hard to measure community impact. And I think that, like you said Sarah, what were the values that you set for yourself in doing this project? And if those values were I'm going to do no harm while I'm here, I want to leave something that they can hold onto afterwards and I'm going to follow up with them to extend the relationship beyond this one event. And those are the core values then I think that you can build something around that. I think that it's tough to grapple with scale when I think that so many of these things are so specific to a certain geography, to certain histories

how do you create a toolkit that's mostly about values, right? That's what's being passed on, I think in many ways. It's these are the principles and I think it goes back to meaningful, right? If I can articulate what the values were that drove my decision-making, then those can be concrete, but in such a way that they become a scaffolding for people to fill in in the circumstances, right? Because the other piece about the partnerships in ... Communities are different and you're going to have, if you're trying to meet people where they are and to build from the ground up, that ground is different. So I think and I'm not sure what that would look like but to think about how you might create a toolkit that is values driven as opposed to logistics or content or any of the other things that we would think of as being primarily in a toolkit of that nature.

I think scaling is a good thing, and I think it's totally possible, but I don't think individual things should scale to infinite numbers of people. Right? I think when we think of scaling and in the context of this type of engagement work, I sometimes think it's scaling to the point where here's the basic infrastructure or blueprint of what I did in my community. Take this and tailor it to your community. And keep it tiny, always keep it tiny. And I think that's, for me, how scaling would be most effective in this work.

I do think that this question of language, we started with meaningful and we talk about success. the idea of impact, right? I struggle so much with figuring out capacity building, but what's the capacity. And I just feel the language itself gets me tripped up and it needs to be the way in which we tell the story, right? Ultimately you need to have the language to tell the story to do the work. And sometimes I feel the language fails me and we just haven't quite figured out the right language to use to make these things make sense outside of our hearts. That feels so much what I felt like actually driving the other day. I was reflecting after listening to y'all's conversation in Atlanta and I was like, "Wow, what did success really look like? And what would success even look like for us?" I mean, let's just say that every single kid that came to one of these booths now became a scientist. That's not realistic, and that's also not what we're even shooting for, right? We're just trying to get people interested in science and liking it. And in my case, when I really distill what it is, why I'm doing what I'm doing, it's because I want to make Yale be less shitty and certainly even better. And that doesn't necessarily mean make every single kid in Dwight, a doctor or scientist, engineer, but it's more so just enrich their lives and the way that which they should be getting already from having Yale in their backyard. And there's no 200-year plan for how to make things more equitable... At least that I have mapped out or seen mapped out. And that's why I think that I have real difficulty with these metrics of success for do I have to, does it really mean that I did a good job if I hit 100 students versus 1000 students? Do I have to increase their math scores? Do I have to have a pre and post survey to tell them that, "Oh, they have two more science facts in their head now." But there is this gut feeling when you see a kid run up to you and remember you from last time and say, "Oh, what are we doing today?" And I don't think that any of our activities are necessarily going to be these eureka epiphany moments for any kid necessarily, but it's a layering of just more resources and capacity building and what you said as well. They get a chance to play with slime or they get a chance to learn about how their muscles turn a bike, but they also get a chance to be in a nice green space and have access to food and housing security and stuff like that. So I have no idea how to actually put it in the grant, because if you write that in the grant, they're just like, "What is this person saying?" Because also if you try to communicate to that somebody, especially who hasn't done this work, or hasn't put a lot of thought into it necessarily, it's tough to even articulate that in words,

what does success look like? Right? And when we are plugged into a super inflexible structure where we have to have X, Y, Z metrics, and it has to take place within this one or three year, whatever the funding cycle is, as you mentioned Justin, I think it's really hard for people to think about success as building capacity when capacity feels such an immeasurable entity. People just want metrics, they want numbers, they want graphs, and that's how you get your money to sustain your engagement work. And so we are pitted against what needs to be done just to survive. And I think that is highly, highly problematic.

I think the experience for me I was really ... I listened to the interview in New Haven and in Atlanta I saw similar themes across both, and I didn't expect that. And I think that there was some really good cross-fertilization that could happen between those two conversations. So I just look forward to getting into there with those connections where I'm seeing how we can learn from each other and how those two events, I think can really learn from each other and try out some ways and move forward strategically with do it in community as these events happen.

All of this happened pre-pandemic, and I can't think of another time where this would be even more relevant than it was in that moment in time. I did not expect for that to be the case. Rick and I have chatted several times, even on our own outside of Science in Vivo after this and we touched on a lot of this event really, I thought, helped bring us together around these certain philosophies. I still think about the time I spent in that space as one of the best integrated sciency community engagement events that I've seen in a way that felt super culturally sensitive. And I think was hitting on all of the right points and bringing up all of the gaps that we've always known existed, but being able to articulate those specifically was really powerful and hearing how Dottie and the other women who were part of this community were sharing their views on things and just reflecting on what they had to say and then also thinking about that in our new context that we are experiencing in 2021, was very powerful.

Surveys often are that way to collect data on outcomes, I always think about whenever I'm administering a survey, I try and think very carefully about how I am as a survey complete, or how I am as a person completing a survey. A person who is giving off those outcomes that people are trying to collect. So I think that while they can be valuable in many ways, I think that they're limited, and I think, especially when we're talking about this, when we're talking about what is happening or what happened on Saturday, it is so much more than outcomes, it's so much about process and I think this goes back to everything we were saying around the relationship building piece, the cultural competency piece, how you have to build those parallel strategies. If you are building those parallel strategies, then it's just not about sort of the outcome of what was learned, or how did you engage with science, it is about the process of how this event came to be. So something like an interview with a Dottie Green, or a set of maybe even like three or four qualitative questions that you could ask a subgroup of students or parents leaving the event. I think that is some of the data that should go hand in hand with some of those outcome metrics.

what if we said Saturday was so successful that we want to know next fall, go to a fall festival, similar fall festivals around the country and have volunteers come in and bring science to the community. So I think that the biggest takeaway for me is that every time there has to be sort of these parallel strategies. So it is sort of logistics of like, let's get science out there, let's get the volunteers out there, let's get the material out there. But, I a big question for me was how much of the success of Saturday was just based off of setting up that table and the volunteers and the science, and how much was based off of the relationship between Richard and then the community and the relationship and strength of the community itself? That is not necessarily going to be the experience in any place that you go into. So equally, if not more when I think about hierarchy of need again, I think below as the foundation of even coming in with science, it's really that piece of just what sort of just training around cultural competency and around entering communities are folks getting what sort of tips and tactics are there around relationship building? How does outreach look like to become a part of an event? How does relationship building with event organizers look like? Those pieces seem extraordinarily important, it was the reason when me and Jeanne were standing on the line of then 70 somewhat people outside and tried to sneak through the door, and we're very abruptly stopped by Dottie Green, and then we just gave Richard's name and she was like, "Go ahead, go in" with a huge smile. That can look very different, that could look like, I'm with Jim and no one knows who Jim is. So those pieces are really important, and so that's just something I really think about because I think oftentimes, when we think about taking something good and scaling it, we miss something, and that's why the scaling doesn't happen in the right way. So I would hate to see sort of strategy around science outreach take off, without clear strategy around sort of cultural competency and Jamie said, cultural humility and really this piece around building relationships and entering places as "outsider" in the right way.

having some kids play with slime is not going to fix a pipeline program or pipeline problem, or it's not going to increase, just by increasing exposure to STEM is not going to be solving any intricate and multifaceted problems, and I never thought that it would. I think that maybe this isn't an idea for a springboard, for how best to get... Like for instance, one of the main drivers of Science Haven was that I saw that all these graduate students that are from largely privileged backgrounds, are living in a neighborhood that is extremely secluded away from everyone else in New Haven, and it's just basically for Yale students. I was really bummed out about that and I was like, "Wow, these people aren't experiencing New Haven for what it is truly, they're just from one Yale bubble to another Yale bubble that's separated by New Haven." Which is like some sort of some sort of tunnel they have to go through to get to their job, and I think that's extremely problematic, because there's such a wealth of experiences that would be formative for them to better ground themselves and be able to use their privilege later on once they are continuing to earn more money, become more politically influential and things like that and they're not actually seeing New Haven residents for what they are and realizing that they are neighbors and that they're friends and just because they don't have a Yale ID hanging from their neck or from their belt loop doesn't mean that they're not supposed to interact with them. I am not really good at articulating these sort of ideas, but this is the sort of feelings that were bubbling up when I was thinking about this stuff, and it's not that I think that a VR headset is going to like, it's going to break down all the systemic barriers. Like, "Oh, this kid, he had a chance to see a VR headset and then he just loved science and became the next NASA director." But there's more to it to where I think that working together with people that have a lot more experience with this kid could help you know make this more of like a neighborhood development and leadership program, and like honestly just like soul searching for graduate students who are extremely privileged to be able to be paid to go to graduate school, and to do research to get a PhD, to where they could be interacting their community in a much more serious and important way for all society and not for what they get to put on their CV.

I don't need to get too defensive about it, but I've been thinking about this stuff for a long time and it bums me out that we are having to knock on doors for departments to do stuff like this, and that, even though it gets written up in science strategies from Yale, but they really care about science average in the community, I'm just not necessarily seeing it at the level that I think might be the most interesting and impactful, but it's all about bringing students onto Yale's campus to see exactly how cool and cutting edge stuff is. But it's not like, "Hey, Yale's actually situated in New Haven." It's not the other way around.

the emphasis on relationship building was first and foremost, because we have to have relationship between the graduate students and the neighborhood leaders to have repeated ways of getting out to the community in a real and genuine way. So it's more so just like teaching graduate students that they need to be thinking about outreach in a way that's not just, I'm going to take a Saturday afternoon go in front of my laboratories, my laboratories like lobby area and do some activities with kids who came here with their parents who are also professors or scientists or something like that. So it was sort of shifting the way that we think about outreach overall,

So I think in some ways, success is just figuring out how to have a real moment of engagement with a new organization or a new partner, with a new institution that feels meaningful. That feels like it serves their mission, which thereby serves our mission and that it feels like it's a relationship that means something. And that then potentially, has room for growth. And then sometimes I feel like those things feel so small and we have goals and as success markers and this is something we're all obviously struggling with too. It's like when you run a festival that reaches 60,000 people, it sometimes feels like not as meaningful to say that you had a really great several long hour event with 10 families. But I also think that, it's doing a little bit of different work.

think a little bit more about what's already happening and what are the ways that we can amplify what's already happening instead into what's already happening, as opposed to thinking more about, "How can we help you meet the next goal?" But rather thinking on a longer timescale, how can we help you do what you're doing next month, as a way to develop the partnership and the trust, and an understanding how you operate on a day-to-day basis or how you are readier during your public events or your family science nights or whatever to integrate there before moving to the next piece which is not necessarily the way that I had... It's certainly the way we... I come to understand how people are doing their work, but I don't necessarily try immediately to think about how to support them in the immediate future, but rather how to help them move to the next phase. And I think part of what I'm pulling away from this conversation that's really, really useful is how can I help you do the next thing that you already have on your calendar? And how can I make that easier for you as we develop this relationship? Before we try to turn that into something that's much bigger

I reached out to all these different groups. And there were a lot of people that either wouldn't respond. And I felt very sensitive as far as like, "Hey, I'm a stranger, can you do a favor for me?" I'm trying to build this relationship. And I felt excited at the fact that at least coming out of this, we developed a lot of relationships that I think we can build meaningfully and work on something together in the future.

I think one thing across the two conversations I saw connection was that is tough to do, I guess in the mandate is to go into communities that are underserved and do this work of creating awareness and adding resources or capacity building within those neighborhoods. I think it's the way that I guess the time constraints on it undermines the mission in a sense, because I think what we've determined from Atlanta and New Haven is that to really build that capacity and do that work that I think people are earnestly trying to do with it, it takes a long time because these are structural things that have emerged over a long time. I think that so much pressure gets put on people who put on these events to do X, Y, Z, and A, B and C. And I think that oftentimes when it's like that, it's hard to grapple with the reality of the everyday politics of just building rapport with people, as you're trying to actually communicate with organizers and events and then integrate with another ongoing event. You're really integrating into that with Atlanta, for example. So that made it so much tougher to even do all of that. And it was a hope that I think the other organization would do some community building work that they didn't seem interested in doing that kind of work. So I think that it made me think about how these initiatives are structured and how, I guess maybe funding cycles or grant cycles are structured and how many ways the structure of the grant cycle and the accountability measures of the short, measurable time grant cycle that undermines the overall mission of building capacity in neighborhoods and communities. And I think that maybe, with recovery to think about it is just alternative approaches to I think nonprofits or philanthropy efforts or whatever that I think that oftentimes there's constraints of budget, the timeline, get it done. And I think that if there's a commitment to trying to wither away at the structural inequalities, that won't happen in the funding cycle and that it's going to have starts and stops. And I think that may be an overall approach to this work has to change on that level too.