On October 27,
we traveled to UMass Amherst to attend the university’s annual Science Quest.
The Science Quest program gives high school students and their teachers to
experience what science and labs are like at the college. There were many demo
classes available that covered many different aspects of the sciences found at
UMass.
Throughout the
day I attended four mini-courses: 1. Dark Matters, 2. The Energy
Crisis: Where are the Renewable Solutions?, 3. Funtastic Food Science!, and 4.
The Singular Science of Paper, and Everything Else.
The first course, Dark Matters, included information about galaxies
and how the universe is expanding. There are many theories for how the universe
is continuing to grow: some say it will continue to grow exponentially and
others state that eventually in will hit peak growth and then begin to condense
again. A large portion of the
class was devoted to the study of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which seem to
make up most of the universe even thought neither have been studied or even
created in a lab.
The second course, The Energy Crisis: Where are the Renewable
Solutions?, discussed different alternative energy resources and UMass’s
pioneering effort to create and design energy resources that can replace oil in
large quantities.
The third course, Funtastic Food Science!,, provided information on
how taste works and how different kinds of food are created. For example you
can use an extract from seaweed to make gelled foods and use liquid nitrogen to
freeze ice cream.
The fourth course, The Singular Science of Paper, and Everything
Else, discussed singularities that form in paper when it is crumpled and
compared it to the singularities as water forms droplets, and even what occurs
in a black hole. Even the way the matter within paper interacts and moves is
more complicated than it seems.
The day at
Science Quest was a great experience and I ended up learning a lot of
interesting information.
Seems like you learned quite a bit during your trip!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great blog post - thorough and interesting. Keep up the great work!
Your picture did not post properly. Please fix it.
From our conversation, I gathered that while you thought that the event was a great experience, it was not as interactive as you thought had thought it was going to be. In addition, I agree that most of the events that we signed up for required prior knowledge about the topic—most notably classes regarding galaxies, the universe, and the likes. However, despite these things, I could tell that you had learned a lot about a variety of different types of science—ranging from science about dark matter to food science—and that in essence, it was a memorable day.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thoughtful post, Christi.
DeleteMoriah, you seem to be behind with your blog. Catch up ASAP.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you gave a brief summary for each individual event. It helps show the diversity of topics offered by this event. Then at the lunch meeting, it was nice to hear your personal feelings and expectations. Even though you found difficulty in understanding some of the classes like dark matter, you enjoyed others and had an eye-opening experience in several topics.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts, Adina.
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