| |
Villanova Summer Research Institute
Marks Fifth Anniversary
By James Borden
 This
summer the Villanova Summer Research Institute marked its fifth year of
providing high school students with free research experience in the fields
of biology, computing and related mathematics.
The program began June 23, with a barbeque
in honor of the student's arrival to Villanova. On June 24, Dr. Fleischman
sprung his "vacation surprise" upon the students - a new research area
upon which the participants could base their work. The surprise, a tradition
begun by Fleischman in 2000, is based upon something interesting currently
going on in the world of science. The one for this year was based upon
research done by John Palmer of the University of Massachusetts on biological
clocks.
The three major areas of research for
the students this year were; Epidemiology and the Population Biology of
the Immune System, Average Length of Healthy Life, and Ecology and Ecosystem
Modeling. Throughout the course of the program, students attended various
lectures and presentations focused on specific studies based in these
three broader topics. Some of the lecturers included professor Warren
Ewens, from the University of Pennsylvania, who discussed Evolutionary
Biology, and Ken Aldridge, from the chemical education program at the
University of Pennsylvania, who discussed the Penn Instructional Model.
Not all of the participant's time, however,
was spent in lectures. Field trips to Hawk Mountain, the Liberty Bell
in Philadelphia and the Mann Music Center benefited the students by allowing
them to tour the region and acquire knowledge which can not be gained
from a lecture. As the main goal of the VSRI was to provide students with
valuable research experience, much of their time there was spent working
on and researching the topics they had chosen and would present on the
last two days. While all of the presentations were science-based, and
had drawn their ideas from the three major areas of research, this did
not lead to a series of homogeneous lectures on the last two days; rather,
topics as varied as the link between cell phones and brain cancer and
what types of social changes affect life expectancy.
Most, if not all, of the students involved,
believed it was a great experience. Julian Brooks, a student in the program,
said that one of the benefits of the Institute is that in addition to
learning more about his group's particular area of research, he also learned
about a variety of other interesting topics, such as hypertension and
HIV prevention. Randolph Vesprey, whose team studied the evolution of
language, enjoyed the program so much that he feels it is "the best things
I've ever done."
In addition to Dr. Fleischman, several
Villanova faculty members and students participated in the program, among
them: Dr. Russel Gardner, biology; Dr. Douglas Norton, mathematical sciences;
and many other enthusiastic Villanova professors and students.
|
|
