Editor’s note: This article is written as a reflection on experiential STEM education by a student who completed her Werner H. Kirsten internship in June 2015. Here, she advocates for incorporating hands-on experience into STEM curricula.

If the only way for high school students to learn science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is through textbooks, then count me out. But how then do you get students to learn STEM outside of the classroom? The focus of this article is to advocate for high school STEM education through experiential learning.

Tom Freston, one of the founders and the chief executive officer (CEO) of MTV Productions, said in an interview in Men’s Journal that “innovation is taking two things that already exist and...

To be gratuitously loquacious will probably obfuscate.

Huh? Oh, sorry. Let me try that again. The unnecessary use of flowery language is likely to confuse the listener and interfere with understanding.

Was that dumbing the message down? I don’t think so—it took a few more words, but it was probably clearer.

Not only did the year 2000 mark the start of a new millennium, the beginning of the Human Genome Project, and the opening of the International Space Station, but it was also the first year that the Scientific Library held its annual Book & Media Swap. Starting Nov. 12, the 15th annual Book Swap is open to all NCI at Frederick employees.

Your challenge is to correctly identify the item and its location from the picture. Clue: It’s somewhere at the NCI campus at Frederick or Fort Detrick.

Win a framed photograph of the Poster Puzzler and have your photo featured on the Poster website by e-mailing your guess, along with your name, e-mail address, and daytime phone number, to poster@mail.nih.gov.

All entries must be received by Friday, February 12, 2016, and the winner will be drawn from all correct answers received by that date.

Good luck and good hunting!

The current Poster Puzzler image shows the top of Building 560, where a new supply air handler was recently installed by Facilities Maintenance and Engineering (FME) staff, as part of lab renovations in wing 1, floor 1. FME staff enlarged the attic of the building to make space for the air handler. Building 560, the largest building at the NCI at Frederick campus, houses about 120 labs and has 19 air handlers.

A supply air handler draws in outside air, filters it, cools or heats it, and adjusts the humidity to provide clean conditioned air to the laboratories. The Building 560 air handler weighs approximately 22,500 pounds and moves 22,000 cubic feet of air per minute.

NCI and Leidos Biomed employees took to the fields at Nallin Pond for the third annual slow-pitch softball games on August 26. The series attracted 54 employees who were divided into four teams, Red, Blue, Gray, and White, and they were cheered on by about 40 enthusiastic spectators.

In the first set of games, the Gray team defeated the Blue team, 15–8, and the White team pulled out a win against the Red team, 17–15. After a brief rest, the two winning teams and the two losing teams faced each other in a second set of games.

On Field 1, the “winners” match-up of the Gray and White teams was a nail biter, with a close score throughout the game. Daylight was a factor, however, and the team captains decided to call the game for safety reasons. With a lead of 15 to 13, the Gray team was declared the overall winner.

Platinum Publications are selected from articles by NCI at Frederick scientists published in 42 prestigious science journals. This list represents articles published during the time period shown above, as generated from PubMed.

Articles designated as Platinum Highlights are noteworthy articles selected by Dr. Craig Reynolds, associate director, National Cancer Institute, from among the most recently published Platinum Publications.

Scientists at the Frederick National Lab have produced three crystal structures that reveal a specific part of a protein that can be targeted to fight the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which causes an emerging viral respiratory illness.

Senior Investigator David Waugh, Ph.D., Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, has solved the structure of an enzyme known as the 3C-like protease (3CLpro), which, if blocked, can prevent the virus from replicating...

Collection has begun for the 15th Annual Book & Media Swap sponsored by the Scientific Library. NCI at Frederick staff can use this opportunity to clear out personal book and DVD shelves of unwanted materials, donate them to the swap, and then receive “new” materials in return.

The library staff will collect materials through Tuesday, Oct. 27. Kick-off day for the event is Wednesday, Oct. 28, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., in the lobby of the Conference Center in Building 549.

Having trouble finding a Poster article on a specific topic? Don’t know where to look for the Poster Puzzler? Want to comment on an article that you especially liked?

Now you can learn how to navigate the Poster newsletter by viewing a video that walks you through all the features of the newsletter site.

The video shows you how to use the menus and submenus across the top of each page, and where to find links to content on NCI at Frederick’s website, as well as links to social media, important dates, the Poster Puzzler, and other popular information.