Education

SFCC To Host Ask, Be Present, Connect – ABC Suicide Prevention Partner Class In Municipal Building Jan. 9

SFCC News:

If one of your New Year’s intentions is to lean into community, here is a great first step. You can make a difference by learning how to reach out to people who are struggling and strengthen community connections.

The first public class of the New Year is coming up at 9 a.m., Friday, Jan. 9 in the Los Alamos County Municipal Building, Room 330.

Ask, Be Present, Connect – ABC Suicide Prevention Partner Class is a 60 minute class that addresses how to prevent suicide. During the class you will learn about the common causes of suicidal behavior, the warning signs of suicide, and Read More

Community Invited To Tabletop Game Day At Mesa Library

COUNTY News:

The next Tabletop Game Day is 1-4:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 10 at Mesa Public Library.

All ages are welcome to bring their board games or choose from the more than 125+ board games the library owns. Members of the library staff and volunteers will be hanging out hoping to play games with people at Mesa Public Library mostly in The Zone on the lower level.

Free popcorn and drinks will be available in The Zone area.

This program is for everyone and anyone who wants to play tabletop board games. The library owns card and board games for kids as young as four and welcomes experts who want to teach Read More

Posts From The Road: 2025 Year In Review Part 2

Sheep Creek Bay: Sheep Creek is one of many contributors to Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Seen is Sheep Creek Bay, framed nicely by the red cliffs and hills, which is a part of the large and long reservoir. This is near Wyoming and it is easy to visualize how the reservoir is opening up and becoming wider as it exits the deep canyons to the southern part of Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com

Viewpoint: A group of hikers stop at a viewpoint near the Canyon Rim Campground to view the river and canyon below. The viewpoint is near the Red Canyon Visitor Center. The river is hundreds Read More

LANL Grad Student To Teach STEMarts LIVE CODING Bootcamp Kicking Off On Saturday Jan. 24

STEMarts Lab News:

STEMarts LAB in Santa Fe is kicking off the new year with its first LIVE CODING Bootcamp on Jan. 24 featuring Kelcey Davis, graduate student/LANL astrophysicist, who will be teaching students how to analyze data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to understand galaxies.

https://stemarts.com/2025/11/24/stemarts-live-coding-lab-in-2026/

More About STEMarts Lab Bootcamps:

  • Bootcamp 1, Jan. 24, 2026
  • Visualizing galaxy data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

This Bootcamp introduces students to astrophysics through data from the James Webb Space Telescope Read More

Jan & Jas. Mercer-Smith Mark 50th Wedding Anniversary

Jan and Jas. Mercer-Smith of Los Alamos celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the Getty Museum with their daughter, Dr. Alison Mercer-Smith, and her husband, Joe Gu. The Mercer-Smiths met while summer undergraduate researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1973, and were married in Longview, Texas on Dec. 27, 1975. They lived in separate states during graduate school (UNC-Chapel Hill and Yale) and post-doctoral appointments (Rockefeller University and Harvard). After their experience at Oak Ridge, they had always hoped to work at a National Laboratory. And in 1983, they Read More

Not Too Late To Register For Washington Spring Break Trip

By ROBERTA COCKING
Coordinator

Spring Break Trip

Attention Los Alamos Middle School and homeschool 8th grade parents. It’s not too late to sign up for this year’s spring break trip to Washington, D.C. This is the 41st year for this once-in-a-lifetime annual trip for your student to travel with their peers to our nation’s capital!

Sign up quickly to lock in your reservation and trip price. Price for the trip could possibly increase after Jan. 9! Flexible payment plans are available with Worldstrides for this trip .

The trip is a private trip and not a school-sponsored trip and has been offered to Read More

County: Tips On Dressing For Safety In Cold Weather

COUNTY News:

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website, the best way to avoid hypothermia and frostbite is to stay warm and dry indoors and outdoors.

If you must go outside, dress for safety; wear several layers of loose-fitting, lightweight, warm clothing. Trapped air between the layers will insulate you.

Remove layers to avoid sweating and chill.

Outer garments should be tightly woven, water repellent and hooded. Wear a hat because much of your body heat can be lost from your head.

Cover your mouth to protect your lungs from extreme cold. Mittens, snug Read More

Amateur Naturalist: The life Of Oaks And Mosses

By ROBERT DRYJA
Los Alamos

Consider some the dimensions of a gambel oak tree. It may grow as tall as 30 feet. It is considered to be a large shrub or small tee. Its leaves may be 2 to 7 inches long and 1.5 to 3.5 inches wide with deep lobes, (see Picture 1 below). Its fruit is the acorn seed pod. The lower half of a seed pod connects with a branch. It has a bowl shaped cup at this connecting end. A seed pod may weigh about 1/10 of an ounce.

Now consider a moss. Unlike a gambel oak tree, a moss “branch” may be 0.1 to 3.9 inches long, far less in comparison to the trunk or branches an oak tree. The main branch of a moss may have Read More

New Mexico Ranks No. 20 Nationally For Higher Education

HED News:

SANTA FE — New Mexico’s continued investment in tuition-free college through the Opportunity Scholarship has put the state at No. 20 in the nation for higher education, ranking high for affordability, accessibility and support for the community. 

The New Mexico Higher Education Department (HED) is closing out 2025 by highlighting major achievements made possible through sustained funding for higher education and strategic new investments that expand access, improve completion and strengthen high-demand career pipelines. 

“Looking back on this year, we are proud to see another Read More

LANL Shares 10 Moments Of Community Connection In 2025

Los Alamos National Laboratory. Courtesy/LANL

LANL News:

  • “Los Alamos National Laboratory a force for good through education, nonprofit giving, volunteerism”

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, we strive to be a force for good in the surrounding region, which includes the seven counties of Los Alamos, Mora, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Miguel, Santa Fe and Taos. This year, the Lab and its employees contributed to this endeavor through educational enrichment, philanthropy, volunteerism, safety and environmental stewardship.

Raising $2.7M for nonprofits, students and children through Read More