Connections, connections, everywhere!

On Friday evening (April 20th) in celebration of Earth Day, the Nature Research Center opened its doors in downtown Raleigh.  As a co-founder of Roots & Shoots at NCSU, I volunteered for the event in the civilian science section, but I was able to explore freely and met some amazing people while I was there.

The Civilian Science Section

You will have to go yourself to see how amazing the place is, but I really enjoyed myself there.  I had taken a tour of the Nature Research Center with the Jane Goodall Institute and the director, Dr. Meg Lowman, while it was still under construction.  During the tour, Dr. Lowman told us about the Daily Science Cafe that also contained a bar.  She was so excited that the NRC was across from the legislative building as she exclaimed, "and when the legislators come to have a beer... they won't be watching sports, they will be watching science!" It really goes to show the amount of pride and involvement the NRC hopes to have with the community.

The day before the opening, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, the founder of The Smallholder's Foundation and a Rolex Laurete, came to speak in one of my classes.  Dr. Lowman, mentioned above, is a panel judge for the Rolex Awards and invited a few of the award winners to the opening of the NRC.  He spent the week in Raleigh going around to various classes to do a presentation, and my class with Dr. Bob Patterson was one of them.  He spoke about his foundation, which started with him having the first educational and agricultural based radio show.  Now it has grown into garden schools and micro loans.  He mentioned during his presentation that Nigeria did not have many libraries which was one of the inspirations for starting the radio talk show.  Not everyone had books, but everyone had radios.  I spoke with him briefly afterwards, and we agreed to meet at the Nature Research Center opening.

Long story short, my friend Carley had spoken with him too, and I wanted my friend Sara (who is in poultry science) to meet him, and we all ended up meeting together with Tom LaRock of Safari Professionals.  It was a great small talk, and each of us in our own way were able to have a connection with him.

I emailed him afterwards, and again, long story short... I will hopefully be helping to start a library in Nigeria in the future, and hopefully as a graduate school project.  I will be applying for graduate schools starting in December and will be bringing up this project in my interviews to see what school would be able to give me support.

So, the title of this post is "Connections, Connections, Everywhere!" so let me show you the map of connections.

This does not even show the depth of the connections, nor the connections that branched off of them, such as now the connection between Nnaemeka and Sara or Carley, or many more connections such as Dr. Patterson's vested interest in Roots & Shoots.

Really, the map is just meant to show how things, sometimes very unrelated, come together well. Roots & Shoots is an animal conservation club, through which I ultimately was able to speak with Nnaemeka and start a library.  Dr. Patterson, as a wonderful professor, made the initial connection, but it would not have been possible with Meg Lowman.

Moral of the story: start connecting with everybody!