February 2012

connected wisdom is now an ebook! How many times has this happened to you: you want to get a new book for your ereader, but you don’t know which one to purchase?  Look no further — SEED has the book for you! Connected Wisdom is now available as an ebook for the Kindle, NOOK, Sony eReader, and iBooks. Right now the book is available in English only, but versions in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Russian will come out in 2012. The Connected Wisdom ebook still contains the fascinating tales and beautiful illustrations we know and love. But wait, there’s more! The ebook is enhanced with the never-in-print Appendix C, which provides more details on the concepts outlined in the book. So visit your local ereader store and download your copy now.      learn more about volcanoes Photo of New Zealand's Ngauruhoe courtesy of University of Colorado/NOAA. Even though most of us were done commemorating the New Year on January 2nd, Mount Etna continued its celebration with a vibrant fireworks show long after the date had passed. On January 5th there was a big eruption, with more on subsequent days. SEED’s Science Center article “Volcanoes: Razing and Renewing the Earth” can tell you all about the different types of volcanoes—how they are formed, where they form, and what warning signs to look for before an eruption.  SEED volunteers got into the action by sharing their volcanic experiences in their planetseed blogs.

step by step: pun chee’s story

One student, one workshop. That was all it took for Pun Chee Yap from Malaysia to steer her life in a direction that she never thought possible.  Today Pun Chee is working in the oilfield for Schlumberger. How did she get there?  It all started with SEED…

Her story begins at one of the first SEED schools, SMK Bandar Sunway in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. Pun Chee got involved in 2004, her final year at the school, when SEED started a water conservation project. “I joined the project because it offered a hands-on application of science. It also had a goal of showing how science could impact the community,” Pun Chee explains. Participation in a SEED workshop earned her team that workshop’s top award for their project, which showed that the presumably clean drinking water of a local river was actually very polluted. From there Pun Chee and her teammates traveled to Dearborn, Michigan, to present their project at a conference of business leaders, including Bill Ford, then the CEO of Ford Motors.

Pun Chee’s talent did not go unnoticed at Schlumberger. When she returned from the conference in Michigan, she was offered an internship at the client support laboratory in Kuala Lumpur. “I was the youngest student to be offered an internship right after graduating high school; usually Schlumberger offers internships only to university students,” recalls Pun Chee. At the lab, she worked on a project that tested high-temperature enzymes for mud-cake removal. She even formulated and executed test plans.

The work in the lab attracted the attention of the oil and gas industry. Pun Chee was awarded the PETRONAS scholarship to study at the Universiti Teknologi Petronas, one of the top universities in Malaysia. At the university she studied mechanical engineering and petroleum, graduating in 2010. Pun Chee then rejoined Schlumberger, and she is now a Well Engineer in Algeria, working on rigs. “I remain interested and passionate about SEED. I make it a point to contact the local SEED coordinator in my work location and express my interest to be active, and to include me whenever there is an activity,” she adds, “and I continue to spread the passion of SEED among coworkers and am active in giving back to the community.”

Thinking back, Pun Chee acknowledges that SEED had a tremendous impact on her life. “I not only learned about science but I became interested enough to make it my career. In addition, SEED led me to join Schlumberger.” 

That’s not how the story ends—that’s how it begins. Stay up to date with Pun Chee and other volunteers on the PlanetSEED blogspace.   

REACH OUT! SEEDLINK is published monthly. To learn more about SEED, visit www.planetseed.com. We invite your suggestions, feedback, news and questions at seed@slb.com.

ABOUT SEED The Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development (SEED) program is a global non-profit education program focused on students aged 10 to 18 in communities where Schlumberger people live and work. SEED offers a range of specialized learning tools delivered through a multilingual Web site, through face-to-face, experiential education workshops and through collaborative international projects. At the heart of SEED are our volunteers, who generously share their time, inspiration, knowledge and passion for science and learning.