SCC Tech Talks 2014 is an event where Maricopa faculty, staff, and students gather on Scottsdale Community College campus to enjoy be a series of live, 18-minute presentations about technology and the learning/teaching process with the end result being a morning of inspiring, entertaining, and touching stories with the power to change student success outcomes. The format will be like the highly acclaimed TED talks. The idea is simple: We want to gather Maricopa's leading innovators, its risk takers, its most interesting idea makers and offer them an opportunity to share their stories, ideas, and insights about technology and the teaching/learning process. Speaker Sian Proctor, SMCC Geology Faculty The NASA Mars Project Dr. Proctor is a geology professor at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona. Throughout her adult life she has pushed herself to take on new challenges and to learn new things that she can bring back into the classroom. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science, M.S. in Geology, and a Ph.D. in Science Education. Both her masters and doctoral research involved the use of technology to understand how individuals learn. She is continually developing new ways to engage her students and to present scientific information in interesting ways. She has a strong curriculum development background, has traveled and taught around the world, was a finalist for the 2009 NASA Astronaut Program, and was on the Discovery Channel reality TV show called The Colony. She recently participated in a 120 day Mars analogue mission called HI-SEAS (hi-seas.org) as the education outreach officer. The HI-SEAS mission was a NASA funded project studying food strategies for long duration space flight. Sian's experiences during the HI-SEAS mission and on The Colony have taught her how to live in unique environments with limited resources. She believes in life-long learning and tries to instill this mentality with her students. During the year 2013 Dr. Sian Proctor had the unique opportunity to blast off to another world. She spent four months in a NASA funded Mars simulation called HI-SEAS. The mission objective was to research food preparation strategies for long duration space flight. The HI-SEAS project consisted of six crew members living for 120 days in isolation as if they were on Mars. Dr. Proctor was assigned the role of Education Outreach Officer. Her mission was to document and disseminate life in the habitat including the food study. She created an outreach program that included a web page (HI-SEAS.org) along with the social media outlets Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. While in the habitat Dr. Proctor was under contract with Discover Magazine to shoot exclusive photos for an article written by the crew journalist Kate Greene. She also developed and produced an online cooking show called Meals for Mars. As a result of her experience, Dr. Proctor has gained a new perspective for the use of media and social networks for education and outreach. Her photos and videos have been published around the world. To learn more about SCC TechTalks: http://showcase.scottsdalecc.edu/scctechtalks/ Thank you to Maricopa Colleges Television (MCTV) for filming the event: https://www.maricopa.edu/mctv/

• published: 17 Mar 2014
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