Recognizing the impact of scientific community-based outreach on both the laying the foundation of next-generation engineering workforce and the development and refinement of 21st century career skills of the current workforce, CQN regards the development of a scientific community-based outreach initiative as an integral part of the EWD program, a crucial component of both CQN’s long-term recruitment strategy and workforce development plan.

Scientific community outreach is a mutually beneficial experience for both the hosting scientific community and the receiving general public.

Setting the foundation for a vibrant, creative, globally competitive and diverse next-generation engineering workforce, CQN spearheads the initiative SPARCQS – Sparking Curiosity in Quantum Science. The goal behind SPARCQS is to provide education and outreach to the public; and workforce development to CQN members.

Expanding the reach of a traditional outreach program, SPARCQS includes a mobile quantum laboratory bringing ‘hands-on’ quantum science experiences directly to schools and communities. While traditional outreach initiatives largely rely on the participants coming to the outreach providers to be educated and thus are often limited to urban populations, the idea behind the SPARCQS mobile lab is to facilitate meaningful outreach that does exactly that – it reaches out. To enable us to reach even populations that are ‘off the grid’ and can only be reached by vehicles with four-wheel drive—such as remote native American reservations in rural Arizona—we decided to implement the SPARCQS mobile lab in the form of a 6’x10’ trailer.