an event is so much bigger than the actual day of the event, the actual event itself. It's so much bigger in the hype leading up to it. The documentation that comes after that. The conversations you have later. The quotes you receive while you're standing in the crowd and listening, the kids that talk about it, who are involved in the parade or participating by being a spectator. All of that is meaningful. It's not just about the two hours that you're actually walking through a parade. It's so much more important than that and so much bigger, and a lot to consider.

What was profound to me is that it was so clear how much the Flagstaff Festival of Science and science itself is such a part of the fabric of the community. We were kind of looking at it when we went in as the Fourth of July parade is this thing and we're this thing. Is this going to blend? Does this make any sense? Is this going to be weird? We're not a marching band. We're not demonstrating something with dancers. We're not jumping around necessarily. We're showcasing something else where ours is more of an imagination of the mind, a journey of the mind, perhaps, and if you go that deep with the Science, but if you bring it down to what excites kids, you get there. You get there with what is fun to showcase but I think my takeaway from this would be and something that I believe the board of directors would back me on this in the festival is that it's important to be part of the fabric of the community. We're not just as other thing. We're integrated heavily into this community and it's not a surprise that we're in the parade after all. We should be in the parade. People are happy to have us in the parade and may well expect us to be in the parade in years to come. It's not just a fringy thing to do just because somebody likes parades. It's something that shows support for the community, shows how integrated we are in the community and offers a lot of visibility to the general audience. The general audience includes people from outside the Flagstaff area. It can include all ages. It includes families who can walk down the street go to this parade and don't necessarily have the background or a family support of being taken to be exposed to science events. For all those reasons, it seems so right and not a tough sell anymore when you're talking to other festivals or you're talking to festival board members or donors. It just makes sense and you can make that case for why you need to show up in places like this.

Well, this happened after the parade. And it was so profound to me, it was emotional. And it was felt by the filmmakers who happened to be there, it was felt by board members who happen to be there, and it was felt by me. And there was this profound moment when you realize that there's this kid who had been told that college wouldn't be for him that he should think about something else, and was not encouraged really, until he came connected to a hook and the hook was robots. So, you've got this kid who didn't necessarily have the science capital in his background, in his neighborhood, in his family to lead him to a STEM career. And you see him talking to a middle school student, a younger student from Kayenta and Kayenta is a good three-hour drive, at least, from Flagstaff and you see the two of them engaged. Oscar, the young Hispanic teenager is handing over the controls of a robot that he was part of designing and building and is now demonstrating. And this beautiful young lady in middle school has got her traditional braids, her traditional jewelry, the traditional clothing and footwear of a beautiful young Navajo girl, and she is smiling. The two of them are looking at each other. She's making a robot move. And this is all happening right in front of this historic telescope dome. The same place where Percival Lowell believed that he could see and study canals on Mars. So, you've got such a blending of cultures, tradition, history, and in generations and science, all coming together in one moment. And it just happened. It was something we didn't plan on happening. It just came together. And it was absolutely an emotional beautiful experience.

You feel like a rock star in that moment. Imagine what a boost that is for these kids. And you have to remember, I interviewed a number of these coconuts and robotics team kids. And they came into this whole robots thing not knowing anything about it, not feeling confident about what they could ever hope to do, not being extroverted by any means in a lot of cases, and yet we're asking them to perform, to be on stage and they are loving it. And it just encourages them to do more of that and to speak out and it makes them feel so good that people really respect and value what they're doing, what they're saying, what they have to offer. It's such a powerful reinforcement for these teenagers who this is kind of new to them and it's so encouraging.

You have to have a commitment of people who will get involved in the planning, the preparation for the demonstration, or whatever it is you plan to do and be on hand to staff the event, the event and engage with others. You also want to make sure you've got the right kinds of people. We have a lot of brilliant scientists who may not be the right kinds of people to put in the mall and talk about what they're doing. You have to think about who's giving the presentation. They may be great in creating the idea of what to use and what the learning takeaways are but are they the right people to be out in front.

at one point in the parade, I went up on a balcony in one of the downtown hotels and I wanted to catch what was going on from a bird's eye view when our float came through. It was amazing. Our float was crawling so slowly because the kids wanted to be engaging with the crowds so much. Our festival board members were doing what they did. They showed up. They were very organized. They're handing out stickers and they were holding the banner but the kids were the one that connected with the crowd and brought smiles and cheers and just had a really great heartwarming feel.

What's really important to the Festival of Science is being able to show people like themselves involved in pretty amazing things. It seems to be important and important hook if people can engage with scientists or see themselves as scientists or see themselves in the lab coat or in a situation, in the field research station, in the laboratory, in the observatory, that seems to be really important to see somebody like themselves doing science. That was our real angle this time in the festival parade.

We had those teenagers up on the float, some of them down on the street interacting with the crowd. That, to me, that youthful playfulness was so important. We have a lot of volunteers on our board and elsewhere for the Flagstaff Festival of Science who are scientists and educators. These are seasoned professionals. They're adults. They're serious. They bring an amazing amount of talent to the festival itself but what's missing is that youthful spirit that you can only get as a teenager or a young adult that these other kids bring. That was such an important element to engage with the crowd.

I think part of what was encouraging for the kids was that they felt really special, we spent a lot of time leading up to this. We visited them while they were building the robot. We were very interested in what they were doing. We wanted to hear their stories, get some time with them. So, they were comfortable with us. They were feeling pretty good about themselves and they're feeling pretty special. And they came out and they're wearing their crazy combination of socks and T-shirts and other things that identified who they were, and they were really proud to be who they were. So, I think it was a real, a big growth experience, because they had all this attention and reinforcement and encouragement, but it does take time. It's an investment of time and genuine interest and that's what they felt. And we made it safe for them. We explained how things were going to happen, what was going to be expected of them and encouraged them all the way. That cultivating is really important when you're dealing especially with kids, but I think that's true of any volunteers. A lot of people are happy to help, they just don't know what they have to offer and they don't know where they're supposed to be and what they're expected to do. That was really important it turns out for these kids because we didn't even give a thought of that these kids may not have ever performed before or maybe they've never been in a parade before. Maybe they're really shy and they just joined this club because they thought it was cool. We don't really know what we're dealing with. So, getting to know what you have to work with and making everybody feel comfortable and having a plan and making them feel valued and respected and proud of who they are and what they've done, I can only see it when the actual parade happens. And then when these kids are glowing and these kids went all day showing demonstrations and walking and talking. And this would have been a big day for an athlete and these kids went all day and their enthusiasm stayed the whole time and their interest and their personalities and their patience with other people and other kids. They just kept going and they were amazing.

I can tell you just from years of experience and from being in different settings and situations. The classroom experience can be great. A special performance can be great, but something where the stage has been set, the atmosphere, the excitement, if you put yourself in a parade setting, you're hearing bands, you're seeing horses, you're watching young people dance, you have people dressed up and ready to go. I mean, everybody's wearing crazy red, white and blue everything, and funny things in their hair and hats and eyes. And people are there to celebrate. So, yes, there is that element of enthusiasm and excitement and celebration that is already there for you and to be able to have that and add to it and feel it, you pull from that as part of a parade as a performer. You pull from that energy and it only gives you more. It builds up your own energy to throw it out back out at the crowd. So, it all feeds on each other. And yes, it's something that you don't maybe necessarily think about as you're building a parade for a float. You're very focused on the result itself, product, the people and place. Just making sure you've got tape and poles and banners and all those things that go into it, so you're very detail oriented. But you kind of forget about the energy that's already there, that you didn't bring, but you're adding to it, you're taking from it and you're giving as much as you can back out. And that in itself is a wonderful element to showcase something that a lot of people might think science is stuffy, not full of highs and lows, not celebratory and yet, here we are. And people are cheering and we're all excited and we can't wait to share when people can't wait to hear and see and be fascinated and be part of it, and to, especially for the kids, cheer them on, which I am sure can only be a boost in what they've done and what they continue to do as their students. So, yeah, there is that element that may not exist in other places where you bring science, too. To have that there and to be part of it and to use that is really magical.

It's always scary. It's like the first performance of anything, I would imagine. You learn a lot. You put yourself out there. You are, in some cases, putting a lot of faith into what you believe will transpire and convincing other people that yes, that's what's going to happen and this is going to be good for these reasons. Then, see it come together and it seems like when it does come together, it's even better than you had described.

I have this internal gauge that I know when I'm on the right path. I know when things are right. That's when I get chills. When I get chills, I'm overcome with such an emotion that I can't really describe it in words, but it's just, this is so cool. It's almost, it gets to your heart, whatever it is and when you're on paper and the thought behind it and you're going, "Yeah, these were put for these reasons," but when you're there and you're dealing with humans, you're dealing with kids that are so passionate about what they're doing, and are so generous to want to explain it to other kids, and then they tell you their reasons why, it just sends shivers throughout my body.

I feel like I've just got a real learning point from this in terms of practicality. I put that in bold here in my notes of the importance of doing this more than once because- Sorry. I mean, I've heard from, I think that in each of the recordings I've done with people about who've done this sort of a thing, like flags, sorry, St. Petersburg effort, they really stepped it up the second time. They kind of were like, we're ready for this. The first time, they're like, "I'm not sure why we're doing this. Where do we get a trailer from? How's this going to?" Well, yes. Then, the second time they're like, "Right, you know how this goes."