Tomoko Matsuo is a strong advocate for underrepresented minorities in science, engineering and mathematics. She is passionate about math and science education for girls and women of all backgrounds. Some of her outreach activities include:
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Boulder Valley School District Science Fair, annual regional science fair for middle and high-school students. Tomoko and her undergraduate student mentored a student on research involving citizen science auroral sighting data for the 2021 BVSD Corden Pharma Science Fair.
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Remote Sensing Day, a one-day STEM summer camp program on remote sensing for high-school students as part of the CU Science Discovery Mountain Research Experience. Tomoko and her graduate and undergraduate students spent a day at the CU Mountain Research Station in the summer of 2019.
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Remote Sensing Summer Camp, one-week STEM summer camp for first-generation precollegiate high-school students offered in collaboration with the CU Science Discovery and Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement. Tomoko and CU graduate students co-developed an outreach program composed of hands-on activities that traverse the entire arc of remote sensing and in-situ data collection, analysis, and modeling in the summer of 2018.
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Expanding Your Horizons conference, to encourage 6th, 7th and 8th-grade girls to study math, science, and technology by allowing them to interact with women who use these disciplines in their careers. Tomoko has been presenting hands-on experiment workshops (e.g., liquid nitrogen experiments, electromagnetism experiments) at annual Expanding Your Horizons conferences at CU's engineering center from 2007 through 2014.
- Earth Explorers, to introduce science and 21st century skills by educating and mentoring underrepresented youth, using video and new media technology. Tomoko has participated in Earth Explorers' programs in 2012 and 2014 (Watch Earth Explorers students' video from 2012).
Remote Sensing Day at CU's Mountain Research Station in 2019
What's New
She is launching a new summer STEM camp based on her graduate coursework to intorduce high-school students to remote sensing in collaboration with CU Boulder Science Discovery Summer Programs
Would you believe that most of the world around us is invisible to humans? Did you know that bees can detect ultraviolet light, which allows them to see flower petal patterns that people can't? Did you know that some animals can even perceive heat as infrared light? In a similar way, scientists and engineers make special instruments for airplanes and satellites to track hurricanes, spot wildfires, predict the weather, and collect science data to learn about the environment. In this summer camp, you are going to build your own multispectral camera with a solar powered Raspberry Pi microcomputer. Learn about the invisible world, and go out and see part of it for yourself.