#mbklabweek

Today at Brookhaven, we hosted hundreds of students from Long Island and New York City as part of President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative. The high schoolers got to do some hands on science and visit our world class facilities, and we took over the Department of Energy’s Instagram for the day to share their excitement.

One of our favorite moments happened at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, outside one of the clean rooms lit with orange light bulbs. A student asked, “Why is the room orange like that?” The scientist leading the group said, “Great question! That’s the most asked question we get at the nanocenter. Any guesses?” And one student, the one on the left in the uppermost photo, said, “Yeah, I know. You said you were looking at materials that respond to UV light. So you’ve gotta be filtering out UV to protect the materials, right?” 

Spot on. 

These bright, young minds have a great future in STEM careers ahead of them, and we were lucky to have them visit for a day. We’re looking forward to seeing them go on to be the scientists and engineers of tomorrow and to them helping us continue to solve energy challenges across the nation and the world.