On Thursday, March 13, some of the PyIU Organizing Committee members participated in the Spring 2025 Statewide Engagement Institute hosted on campus by the Center for Rural Engagement (CRE). This full-day conference focused on community engagement and interdisciplinary work, student opportunities, and service to the state, and it featured keynote speakers, a panel, a poster session, team collaboration, and interactive brainstorming sessions.
Pictured here, PyIU organizers Brandon Radzom and Sarah Popp presented a poster on their program titled "PyIU: Python Workshops to Forge Future Astronomers in Indiana". PyIU aims to lower the barrier to entry in STEM research by offering a series of coding workshops teaching Python, the most popular programming language in the physical sciences, through the lens of astronomy and physics. Their poster detailed PyIU's rapid growth since its inception in Fall 2022, and their strategies to continue this growth not only on IU - Bloomington's campus but also across greater South-Central Indiana. Specifically, the PyIU team is aiming to bring this educational opportunity to rural communities in Indiana that otherwise wouldn't have access to them, such as high schools without astronomy or programming classes. IU's CRE is just one of many key partners that will help make this expansion possible.
The College of Arts