My family lives in a culturally diverse neighborhood here in West Laurel. We also have easy access to some of the area’s most popular and
My September 2025 column for The Laurel Independent newspaper.

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My family lives in a culturally diverse neighborhood here in West Laurel. We also have easy access to some of the area’s most popular and
My September 2025 column for The Laurel Independent newspaper.
There’s something special about the fall season between the glorious mornings of pinkish sunrises and the amber glow of fading sunsets: It’s
The Laurel Independent newspaper shares my November 2025 column online.
Maryland STEM Festival 2025
“Go Outside More: Mathematics & Citizen Science”
Science Center West Room 317, Montgomery College, 51 Mannakee Street, Rockville, MD 20850
Saturday, September 27, 2025, 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Honoring my son, Joseph, who celebrates his birthday today, with an online newspaper feature. Happy birthday, dear Joseph! Enjoying twenty years of family food adventures with you and dad!
By AGNES PASCO CONATY My husband, Austin, my son, Joseph, and I have visited many affordable eateries local to Laurel, and I’d like to share
Ready for the Chesapeake Baysox STEM Event, Prince George’s Stadium, Bowie, MD. We expect 3000 students!
Watch the NASA documentary, "Cosmic Dawn: The Untold Story of the James Webb Space Telescope" on Youtube, the revelation of the first astonishing images taken from deep space of which Joseph and I had the fortune to attend at the Building 8 Auditorium, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, on July 12, 2022, when Joseph was a NASA intern. Incidentally, on this day in history (July 29, 1958), NASA was created:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSMGENDH_QI
My Laurel Inner Space Column & Laurel Squirrel Cartoon for The Laurel Independent Newspaper's July 2025 issue
The Long Hall of the Trinity College Dublin Library contains artifacts of the Book of Kells as well as the Gaia, a giant, slowly-rotating sculpture of Earth using high-resolution NASA images. Here we are given a tour by Book of Kells Visitor Experience Supervisor Sharon Power.
One of the places we visited in Ireland was the MET Eireann, the Irish Meteorological Service. We had a tour of the building, which has a unique pyramid shape. Austin showed the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) website to their weather forecasters. Grateful to Dr. Klara Finkele, MET Eireann's soil moisture scientist, for the tour.
The Laurel Inner Space Column of The Laurel Independent Newspaper June 2025 Issue
Nurturing a sense of curiosity and wonder
By AGNES PASCO CONATY
Now that school’s over and we’re welcoming the emergence of summer, there are creative ways to continue learning — although informally and less structured.
In my family, I try to instill a love of learning by providing a spark of curiosity and cultivating a sense of wonder.
The creek in our backyard teems with opportunities to explore — no lab required. Nature provides a variety of experiences. After rain, we observe fungi among barks of oak, silver minnows swimming by the stream, frogs darting along rocks and animal prints on muddy grounds.
Have you tried looking underneath rocks? There, a quiet frenzy of living creatures in a tiny square-inch area coexist to create a rich study of ecosystems.
Plants by the creek lean toward the light, sometimes as if dancing in rhythm with the wind, reaching for the sun. With its many moods and nuances, the West Laurel creek offers some quiet science: Sometimes the water is at standstill, and you can see the sheen of sunlight reflecting a hue, almost dazzling like silver. After a heavy downpour, the water level rises, eroding the banks and giving the creek a different personality.
We get visits from deer, foxes, groundhogs, squirrels, raccoons, chipmunks and rabbits. Sometimes, we just see their footprints or their scat. Last year, all our tiger lilies and hostas became salad bars for wild animals. This year, we have not seen too many animals explore our yard yet. Perhaps there is enough food in the woods this year compared to last year?
I observed the late blooming patterns of our lilacs, azaleas and wisterias. Engaging in our garden’s seasonal trends is an informal way of studying phenology, which is the study of patterns in nature.
After the Main Street Festival last month, my husband and I visited Riverfront Park for a peaceful getaway from the crowd. We watched the flow of water that would eventually end at the Patuxent River. When the water is still, you might see mosquito larvae wiggle to the surface. If you have a container, collect a sample to observe. Take pictures of the larvae and identify them with the GLOBE Observer app. By participating in citizen science, you contribute valuable data that may be useful in identifying types of mosquitoes that may bring diseases.
Closer to home, hike through the Rocky Gorge Reservoir area to skip stones, observe the flight of geese, or to identify birds with the Merlin app.
Looking up the Laurel skies, study cloud patterns and formations, from low stratus, to middle altocumulus and high cirrus ones. My family is interested in towering cumulonimbus clouds which may bring some thunderstorms. My husband, who is a meteorologist, looks forward to observing nature’s grandeur and majestic display of lightning and thunder. My son took after his dad and does not mind walking in the rain. I observe clouds with the GLOBE Observer app, take pictures, identify the type and share my data.
There’s endless possibilities in exploring the whys and hows of everyday nature during summer — and all the other seasons for that matter. All we need is to have an open mind, be curious and have a sense of wonder.
Photo: Joseph reacts to the overpowering smell of lilacs in our front garden.
High Bridge Foundation, Inc. 13th Annual Awards Program, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC. Happy to be part of the Scholarship Selection Committee of the High Bridge Foundation, Inc. for 13 years!
SSAI Semi-annual Employee Meeting & Luncheon 2025, Building 8 Auditorium, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. One take-away among many: See challenges as great opportunities! Thanks, SSAI, for your support in these challenging times.
Supporting the Chesapeake Baysox Baseball in Education STEM Day, Bowie, MD. It's a doubleheader game, with the Chesapeake Baysox vs. Akron RubberDucks starting at 11:05 AM ET. The stadium was packed!
44th Annual Laurel Main Street Festival 2025, Laurel, MD.
Supporting the Washington Mystics STEM Game: Part 1, CareFirst Arena, Washington, DC. We had around 3000 middle school students.
Celebrating Cinco de Mayo 2025, SSAI Headquarters, Lanham, MD. Thank you, SSAI, for hosting Cinco de Mayo with sumptuous lunch of Qdoba!