At the end of April, Let’s Get Healthy! traveled to Washington, D.C., to represent the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at the USA Science & Engineering Festival. The festival was a grand showcase of the wonders of science, health, technology, and engineering. There were hundreds of exhibits (including a full size jet and a magic school bus!), and tens of thousands of members of the public visited the festival over the course of three days.
Let’s Get Healthy! was invited to be one of the NIH exhibitors at the festival in collaboration with the Health Sciences and Technology Academy (based out of West Virginia). This invite was quite an honor for us! Our 200 square foot booth packed a punch: attendees were able to take a computerized survey on cardiovascular disease risk as well as visit a body composition station to learn about their body mass index and body fat percentage. As at our other events, these stations allow members of the public to learn about their own health while also contributing their anonymous data for scientific research.
Hundreds of people stopped by our booth, with 760 of them participating in one or both of the health education and research stations. In addition, nearly 1000 people took a photo in front of our new cutout photo board—including the Let’s Get Healthy! Associate Director (Lisa Marriott) and Program Coordinator (Adam Lipus)! After the event, we sent the photo board to the NIH visitors’ center in Bethesda, MD, where it will fly our banner of health education and research on the east coast.
Submitted by Adam Lipus, Let’s Get Healthy! Program Coordinator
About Let’s Get Healthy! We are an interactive education and research exhibit based out of CROET. We seek to educate the public about health in a fun way while linking scientists, students, and communities together in collaborative health research. Attendees of our events can visit various stations to learn about their own health (e.g. diet, sleep quality, and body composition) while also contributing their anonymous data for scientific research. The program started in 2007 and has held three dozen events (with nearly 10,000 participants!) across Oregon as well as in Washington state, Kansas, and Washington, D.C.! To learn more, visit our website, follow us on Facebook, or check out our video!
