(bright upbeat music) - The Utah Academy of Engineering and Science helps residents understand complex topics from energy to environmental and infrastructure challenges.

Sidney Green has stopped by to share more information about this free educational resource that you can check out.

Thank you so much for being here, Sidney.

- Thank you, I'm pleased to be here and pleased to get to talk about the Utah Academy of Engineering and Science.

- I think it's outstanding that you guys take these complex topics and break them down so people can understand what's going on.

- Well, you know, that's really important.

There's so much hype and misinformation and incomplete information and downright falsities that the public tends to develop strong perceptions based on incorrect information.

And so our goal is to talk about these complex things in layperson's terms.

And that's been very successful.

- And I love that you bring the experts right into the room with the public so that they can hear directly from them and also get questions answered.

- Well, the academy, Utah Academy of Engineering and Science, is modeled off of the national academies.

We're a nonprofit organization of about 50 people and limited.

And these individuals are elected by the then members based on their outstanding accomplishments and also high character.

And about half of our members, half of the 50 are actually members of the US national academies also.

- [Liz] Wow.

- We're all volunteers.

We never get paid, and we don't advocate or hype different subjects, but we, in fact, just speak to the facts.

And often, we say, "Just the facts."

- Absolutely.

And you also open it up to the public so they can stop by as well and hear the facts.

- Yes, in fact we have a annual... We have about monthly seminars.

Right now they're being hosted by the Alta Club at the Alta Club here in Salt Lake.

They're all free and open to the public.

- All right, well, thank you so much for sharing this information.

If you would like to learn more about the Utah Academy of Engineering and Science, just head to the website that is on your screen.

That's utahaes.org for more details.

I'm Liz Adeola, and thank you for watching "Contact."

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