Seventh Annual STEM Awards Dinner

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The Seventh Annual STEM Awards Dinner was held Thursday, February 19, with over 200 people in attendance. Those in attendance include previous winners, as well as faculty, staff, students and community partners — all who work together to make YSU STEM the best it can be.

Interim Dean Gregg Sturrus introduced President Jim Tressel, who gave the opening remarks. YSU STEM is proud to honor the following people:

Stephanie McCann - Outstanding Young Alumna
Wesley Vins - Outstanding Young Alumnus
Roy J. Pratt III - Outstanding Alumnus
Tom Slavens - Outstanding Educational Partner
Steve Duca/Delphi Packard E/EA - Outstanding Community Partner
Ashley Martof - STEM Intern of the Year Award
America Makes - Intern Employer of the Year Award

You can read the full bios of the honorees here.

Physics Recent Publications

Michael Crescimanno, Tom Oder, and Jim Andrews, Professors, and Chuanhong Zhou, Research Associate, Physics & Astronomy, co-authored a recent peer-reviewed paper with five YSU undergraduates and two faculty from Case Western Reserve University, titled, “Chromatic control in coextruded layered polymer microlenses.” The student co-authors and their majors are Josh Petrus and Conner Hetzel, physics, Camron Bagheri and Jimmy Tancabel, mechanical engineering, and Cory Merlo, electrical engineering. Josh Petrus is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in physics at The Ohio State University. The paper appeared in December in the online open-access high-impact journal, Optics Express. The work was funded through YSU’s Affiliation with the National Science Foundation funded Center for Layered Polymeric Systems. You can read the full paper here.
Crescimanno and Andrews, Professors, Zhou, Research Associate, and Michael Baker, senior physics major, co-authored the paper,“Structure and Symmetry in Coherent Perfect Polarization Rotation,”  appearing in the January 29 issue of Physical Review A. This paper explores new phenomena in coherent magneto-optics, with applications to optical switching and sensors.  The work was funded through an EAGER grant from the National Science Foundation for which Drs. Crescimanno and Andrews are lead and co- principal investigators, respectively. You can read the abstract here.

Eye tracking in Software Engineering and Computing Education

What do developers look at when they are fixing a bug or adding new features into a software system? What if we could help developers while they work solely based on their eye movements? How do novices differ from experts while they read and understand source code? Can we use these differences to inform our curriculum to help novices learn better?

Bonita Sharif, an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Information Systems department, is collaborating with CSIS students and professionals in Germany and Switzerland to address many of these issues.

Dr. Sharif and her team are collecting data by using eye tracking devices in hopes of improving software developers’ experience while they are work on their daily tasks such as bug fixing or adding new functionality to a software system.

“Imagine a scenario where the eye tracker will be tracking the person’s eye movements while they are developing certain features or they are trying to figure out a bug. We can leverage that fine-grained eye-tracking data and use it to recommend solutions based on the task” Dr. Sharif said.

The team is using a hands-off system to track participant’s eye movements. There is no need to wear any gear. While eye movement can be tracked by wearing a tracking device on the head, in this research a device that sits at the bottom of the computer monitor is being used instead.

“[The device] shines infrared light into your eyes and the reflection actually tells you where you’re looking at on the screen, and it’s pretty accurate,” Dr. Sharif said. “You just sit in front of the eye tracker like you usually would while working and the data is collected silently.”

This research benefits not just practitioners in the field but also pedagogy. For example, little is known as to how novices become expert programmers. How do we train our students to learn and eventually become an expert programmer? This is another long term goal that Dr. Sharif and her team are working on. They are conducting several studies in entry-level programming classes to understand how novices read source code. These results will help modify the curriculum to employ more evidence-based practices in teaching computer programming.

“[For example,] when you take for instance an entry level class in computer programming…we look at eye movements in maybe the third week and then we look at eye movements in maybe the tenth week, and we try to see if the student has learned enough that they actually solve the problem more accurately and with greater speed,” Dr. Sharif said. “Novices tend to read in a linear fashion as if they were reading natural language, whereas experts jump to the place that is most important in the program. It’s still not known how novices become experts and when that switch happens.”

Dr. Sharif and her collaborators published the following article recently in the highly selective conference on computing education:

Busjahn, T., Schulte, C., Sharif, B., Simon, Begel, A., Hansen, M., Bednarik, R., Orlov, P., Ihantola, P. (2014) “Eye Tracking in Computing Education”, International Computing Education Research (ICER 2014), Glasgow, Scotland, August 11-13 2014, pp.3-10 (25% acceptance rate)

 

The 13th Annual Penguin Bowl!

From left to right: Coach Penny Manfredi, Matthew Stuve, Captain Abhijeet Mulgund, Angela Kaissieh, Rosie Ries, and Captain Nicholas Brockman.

From left to right: Coach Penny Manfredi, Matthew Stuve, Captain Abhijeet Mulgund, Angela Kaissieh, Rosie Ries, and Captain Nicholas Brockman.

Centerville High School beat North Allegheny Senior High with a victory of 95 to 57, making this their third win at the Penguin Bowl since they began competing in 2007. Eleven schools and sixteen teams competed in the thirteenth annual Penguin Bowl on Saturday in Kilcawley Center.

“We’re excited [we won], and we’ve been working really hard for this,” said Beth Cahill, one of Centerville’s two coaches. “I am so proud of these kids, and they deserve it for how much effort they put into it.”

Centerville’s team consisted of coaches Cahill and Penny Manfredi, captains Nicholas Brockman and Abhijeet Mulgund, and team members Matthew Stuve, Angela Kaissieh and Rosie Ries.

“We’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time,” Brockman said. “We’ve been preparing for the past six months, reading up on oceanography, and for the past two weeks we really buckled down. We did buzzer practices for hours and hours.”

The Penguin Bowl is part of the larger National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB), which was originally started in 1998. The NOSB offers participating students scholarship opportunities, experience working with other students in various competitive settings, and, this year, a sleepover at the OH! Wow Science Center.

The two teams were neck and neck after the first round of multiple choice questions, tied at 24 points. After the essay question portion of the competition, Centerville gained their lead, the score sitting at 47 to 57.

“[Being tied] was intense. I didn’t know if we were going to be able to pull it off,” Brockman said. “We played [North Allegheny] earlier in the day, and we actually lost that round. It was the same situation where we were very, very close at the half. I was really hoping the same thing wouldn’t happen twice, and it didn’t.”

Centerville High School will travel to Ocean Springs, Mississippi for the NOSB National Finals Competition in April.

This year’s Penguin Bowl was dedicated to Zach Doherty from Lake High School who was killed while hiking at Hocking Hills State Park in August. Zach competed in the Penguin Bowl for three years.

Travel Abroad to China with Dr. Ray

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If you’ve ever wanted to travel abroad to study, now is your chance. Dr. Ray Beiersdorfer is taking YSU students to China for the sixth time, and there are still some spots open for students to join.

“The emphasis is to learn about the geology and the environment, but you can’t avoid the culture and human history, as well,” Dr. Ray said.
Students will be traveling all over China — including Beijing, Xi’an, Tibet, Sichuan, and Shanghai — this summer. A few of the stops on the trip include the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an, and they will hike to the Mount Everest Base Camp in Tingri.

“We’re going to visit this large lake called Qinghai Lake, and we’re also going to go to the boyhood monastery of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama,” Dr. Ray said. “That’s where he was a monk and they went and discovered him and named him the new Dalai Lama.”

Then, the students will travel to Tibet where they will be engulfed in the Tibetan Buddhism culture. After Tibet, they will visit a village destroyed by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and volunteer for a day at the Ya’an Panda preserve.
The cost of the trip is around $4,800 for 23 days in China and the international airfare. This expense includes all meals, activities, transportation and lodging.
For more information, including a full schedule, cost information and FAQs, please visit china.ysu.edu. If you are interested in securing a spot on the trip, contact Dr. Ray Beiersdorfer at rebeiersdorfer@ysu.edu or at 330.941.1753

Students create “nanoflowers” using aluminum foil

The College in High School Program started in 2007 as a teacher-led initiative to provide an extended science education to students in high schools who might not have access to advanced placement classes or to students who might prefer a more active learning style in advanced science classes.

“If you don’t expose students to science, then they’re not going to be motivated to study it,” said Dr. Matt Zeller, who is involved in some of the projects that bring high school students to YSU.

So how do you interest students in sciences if they’re never exposed to them?

“You have to come up with something that is interesting right from the start, something that looks interesting,” Dr. Zeller said.

Dr. Zeller has been working with several YSU students and with Drs. Allen Hunter and Tim Wagner to create experiments for the College in High School Program that give the students a chance to do actual science research rather than just mix chemicals and look for color changes. In the most recent project, the students were able to grow microscopically small “flowers,” too tiny to see with the naked eye.

Dr. Zeller said that this experiment was adapted from an experiment Harvard University researchers were investigating using gold plated slides.

“The original paper described how to induce the growth of micrometer sized carbonate crystallites with intricate flower like shapes. With the right mix of salt solutions, and by adjusting the experimental conditions (temperature, pH, size of the holes to let air diffuse in, etc.) the size and shape of the “flowers” can be influenced, and one can get all kinds of different shapes,” Dr. Zeller said. “The shapes are too small to see well even with an optical microscope, so we use one of our scanning electron microscopes for the visualization.”

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Dr. Zeller noted that the original parameters of the Harvard experiment required equipment and materials that were too expensive for a high school setting. After several months working at YSU, an intern from Hubbard High School worked out the kinks in the experiment to make it less costly and more appropriate for modest budgets and beginning researchers. For example, they decided that it would be best to conduct the experiment with aluminum foil instead of gold-plated slides.

Dr. Hunter said a big appeal of the nanoflowers experiment was that it was visually stimulating.

“The products look like art glass. It’s easy for some geeky person like a chemistry professor to appeal to other geeky people, but because these are beautiful things that anybody can appreciate just as art, let alone as science, people get interested without them having to have years of background,” Dr. Hunter said. “You basically take aluminum foil and add a couple chemicals to a beaker of water and these flowers grow on it. They’re amazingly pretty. They look like seashells or something.”

Students grow the nanoflowers at their high schools and then bring their flower gardens on the aluminum foil to YSU’s Electron Microscopy Laboratory. There, Dr. Dingqiang Li helps them to visualize their flowers on YSU’s scanning electron microscope.

Mary Janek, a Campbell high school teacher whose students had been among four high school classes that tried out the nanoflowers project last year, said that this program has helped her students immensely.

“This is really a great experience for our HS students,” Ms. Janek said. “They are getting to work with advanced instrumentation and have access to those specialists who can relate to the high school students and yet help to push them into exploring chemistry concepts that the high school budget could not begin to afford.”

 

Congratulations to those who were granted sabbaticals!

Mike Crescimanno: Dr. Crescimanno was granted a full-year sabbatical to develop more on the theory of Coherent Perfect Rotation — primarily to non-linear optics and some special device applications — and to finish some ongoing work in quantum optics and mathematical physics. Dr. Crescimanno said he is blessed to have active research collaborators at Case Western Reserve U. with whom he will be spending the year working. He said he feels an enormous debt of gratitude for the privilege and is eagerly looking forward to it.
Thomas Diggins: Dr. Diggins was granted a one-semester sabbatical, which he will be taking during the fall 2015 semester. He will be working on stream, river and riparian ecology in western New York. Specifically, he is going to be looking at how hydrological and geological factors such as the flow regime and channel type of the river, and the nature of the sediments and riverside landforms, influence the development of forests along the riverbanks. Dr. Diggins is collaborating with a student, Dr. Robin Mattheus in Geology and Environmental Studies, and with Dr. Dawna Cerney in Geography.

Carl Johnston: Dr. Johnston was granted a one-semester sabbatical, which he will take during the spring 2016 semester. Dr. Johnston will develop a research collaboration between YSU and Istituto Nacional de Salud in Peru. The focus will be on applying microbial, chemical, and next generation DNA sequencing technologies with emphasis in ecological distribution of bacterial pathogens including Vibrio species that travel through continental waters and have become pandemic in western South America.

Check out Firefall and Dynamic Earth at the Planetarium!

FIREFALL:

FirefallThroughout Earth’s violent history, impacts from comets and asteroids have mercilessly shaped its surface. The ancient barrage continues today; from harmless meteors - those brilliant streaks in the night sky, to mountain sized boulders wandering perilously close to Earth. Terrifying and majestic, these invaders from space are capable of utter destruction yet they have delivered life-giving water and most of the organic materials necessary for life. The program, which features the stunning artwork of Joe Tucciarone, YSU alum and noted space artist, is appropriate for general audiences.

 

DYNAMIC EARTH Dynamic Earth:

The Earth is a living, dynamic planet. How did it get that way? What happens if our global climate changes? This immersive program, narrated by Liam Neeson, takes the audience above Earth to look at how our atmosphere moves, below the ocean to seek how currents move and how the carbon chain begins, and to Venus, the perfect example of a climate system gone wrong.

Dickey Electric Promotes David Wright, YSU STEM alumn, to Head of Estimating

“Joe” Dickey Electric has promoted David Wright to head of estimating and engineering. Wright replaces Gary Williams, senior estimator, who’s retiring after 40 years with the Mahoning Valley electrical contractor.

Wright was previously a junior estimator who completed his electrical engineering technology degree from Youngstown State University in 2013 while working full-time for “Joe” Dickey Electric. Before that, he joined the company as a journeyman residential electrician after completing an apprenticeship through the Youngstown Area Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee in 2004. He’s a Youngstown native now residing in Washingtonville.

Williams is a well-known and respected electrical industry professional who is staying on part-time to help in the Wright’s transition.

“David is a bright, young star with a comprehensive background in the electrical industry,” said David Dickey, president, “Joe” Dickey Electric. “Between his experience and formal education, and the knowledge transfer he’s been receiving from Gary Williams, we feel very strongly about the future of our estimating department.”

While working as a journeyman electrician for “Joe” Dickey Electric, Wright continued his education earning an Associate’s Degree from YSU in technical studies. He was promoted to junior estimator upon completion of that degree. During the course of his Bachelor studies he was part of a Mahoning Valley National Electrical Contractors Association-sponsored student-engineering team that won a national championship in the Green Energy Challenge.

“Joe” Dickey Electric was formed in 1957, and strives to be the area’s most trusted and cost-effective electrical contractor, handling commercial, industrial, residential, green technology and 24/7 emergency electrical services. The company employs up to 250 electricians, has an office staff of 20 professionals and maintains a fleet of more than 50 specialized vehicles.

Exploring the Unknown: Math Professor Looks into How Temperature Affects Sleep

IMA3-2Assistant professor of math Dr. Alicia Prieto Langarica is teaming up with five other women from around the world to look at how temperature affects sleep patterns.

“Sleep is really interesting, and there are a lot of things that everybody shares, but it is also extremely stochastic since it varies a lot,” said. Prieto Langarica. “So sometimes you don’t sleep very well, or you find a different position, or you just sleep different. But between people, it’s even more different. Some people need more sleep from other people and some like colder temperatures than others.”

Dr. Prieto Langarica explained that while awake, a person’s body spends most of its energy on thermoregulation. While sleeping, once a person has their rapid eye movement sleep, the body stops its thermoregulation.

“If we don’t get REM, things get bad in your mind, and we get real tired and things like that. But we cannot get a lot of REM because when you are in REM you are not thermoregulating, meaning you’re like a lizard,” she explained. “So when we’re in REM, we cannot maintain our body temperature, so it starts drifting to whatever the ambient temperature is.”

While the exact reason for shutting off thermoregulation isn’t known, she said that a doctor came up with a theory that says the energy normally used for thermoregulation is instead used for other necessary processes, such as saving memories and growing.

“You need that energy to do all these processes that you need to do once a day, like saving your memories, growing — most of the growing that you do when you’re a child and even when you’re an adult happens during your sleep — you change your skin all the time, your bones are remodeling, everything,” Dr. Prieto Langarica said. “Most of those processes happen while you’re sleeping, and you’re turning off your thermoregulation so you have all this other energy to file everything in our head. “

Dr. Prieto Langarica went on to explain that even in very similar conditions, a person sleeps differently, and while most people believe the temperature in the room matters, it’s actually the temperature between the person and the sheets that matters.

“The temperature, what we call the distal skin temperature, is the temperature right above your skin. So for example some people like it cooler because they like more covers, but they’re actually achieving the same temperature as the guy who keeps it warmer but is sleeping in shorts without covers,” she said.

The group’s first manuscript on the study has been accepted, and they are working with Dr. Markus Smith on the function of sleep on mathematical models.

Faculty Faction: Tony Vercellino

Dr. Tony Vercellino, assistant professor of Civil Engineering, didn’t originally want to teach.

“Ten years ago if you asked me if I would be teaching at a university, I would have said you’re out of your mind,” he said.

But luckily for us STEMians, he changed his mind.

“I [thought I] was just going to be an engineer working with construction, and then I did the consulting stuff, found out it wasn’t my cup of tea, went back to school, got the opportunity to teach and found out I really liked it,” Vercellino said. “I guess you could say I kind of fell into it. I like being able to teach and being able to interact with the students and watch the ideas click whenever you explain something well in the classroom.”

He said he likes the small-school feel of the university, and that’s what made YSU appealing to him.

“I came from a big research university and that atmosphere was too research focused compared to what I want to do. It’s easy to lose touch with students at such a big university,” Vercellino said.

One of his main goals is to build a successful research program and further the name of the university. He said he wants to help build the program to be well-rounded so the students that do want to come here can get a broad environmental background as a part of their civil engineering degree.

He hasn’t started research yet, but Vercellino said he is looking to get into oil and gas research as well as broaden his research background in water and wastewater treatment. He is currently putting together a research article about the uptake of micropollutants in agriculture due to wastewater reuse, and will be serving as a professional mentor to the YSU chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

When he’s not in the classroom, you can find him refereeing ice hockey in his spare time or rooting for his favorite teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and the St. Louis Blues.

Transforming the Future: Professors Look to Harness the Power of Light

It’s pretty commonplace for each of us to have cell phones, a computer, and an internet connection. In order to get information to these devices at the user end, much of the information has to be sent through wires or wirelessly. But many people don’t realize that, even with wifi, most digital information is moved as light in fiber optics. Drs. Jim Andrews and Mike Crescimanno, both professors in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, are looking at new ways of manipulating that light.

“Transmitting information via light is more effective than transmitting it via electricity, but processing it as light has always been a challenge,” said Andrews.

Essentially, Andrews and Crescimanno are looking to control light with light, instead of another means of energy.

Crescimmano_Andrews story POEM 2014 zoom“It was one of those things that we came up with, and I really wanted to push it a bit further,” said Crescimanno. “When you pick up an old-fashioned telephone, there’s a wire that goes to the wall, and guess what happens? When the signal in the wire goes into the wall and goes to the bottom of the building, it gets converted to light and sent into fiber optics.”

Currently, information being transferred via light has to be converted into electricity and then converted back to light at every branch point along its path. Andrews and Crescimanno are working toward not having to convert the light to electricity, but instead having the light control other light directly by changing its polarization, that is, the direction of the light’s electric field, transverse to its propagation direction.

“So what we’ve done,” Crescimanno explained, “is thought very critically about how to change the polarization of light in a device more completely and efficiently. We’ve been looking rather critically at combining the existing methods of rotating the polarization of light by using wave interference in a process we call ‘coherent perfect rotation’.”

By harnessing the power of light and cutting out the middle step of converting the light to electricity, this makes for a more efficient and more cost effective way to transfer information.

Andrews and Crescimanno are working on this research with Dr. Chuanhong Zhou of the physics department and several students. They received support for this work from the National Science Foundation through a $129,750 Early concept Grant for Exploratory Research, or EAGER.

STEMians: Scholarship Information! Read how to get assistance for next academic year

Welcome back, STEMians! Now is the perfect time to begin filling out applications for scholarships for next academic year. Below is a list of scholarships available to STEM majors (check out the financial aid website for additional scholarship opportunities), as well as links to applications. All of this information can also be found here.

Applications are due by February 15. Many of the scholarships listed require FAFSA to be completed, so please complete your FAFSA prior to February 15.

Be sure to like STEM Scholarships on Facebook so you can stay up to date on the latest scholarships!

 

Current Students

STEM Common Application

Over 30 scholarships are available for current STEM students through the STEM Scholarship Application. By completing this one application, you will be considered for all available STEM College Scholarships for which you qualify for that academic year. Completed applications must be submitted by 5pm on February 15th every year to be considered for the following academic year. Most scholarships require that a FAFSA also be completed.

For a full list of scholarships awarded through the STEM Scholarship Application, Click Here

APPLY ON-LINE HERE. You can also find scholarship applications, along with additional information, on the scholarship board outside of the Dean’s Office in Moser Hall, Room 2200.

 

Myron Wick Scholarship in Science and Engineering: CLICK HERE FOR APPLICATION

  • Available to full-time Junior and Senior Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Environmental Science, and Engineering Majors
  • Minimum 3.0 GPA
  • Deadline: February 15

Builders Association of Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania Scholarship: CLICK HERE FOR APPLICATION

Carol Lamb 330-941-4625

  • Available for majors in Civil And Construction Engineering Technology
  • Deadline: July 1

Alan Jacobs Achievement in Environmental Studies: CLICK HERE FOR APPLICATION

Geology and Environmental Science Department, Moser Hall 2120

  • Refund for the cost of the textbook for students who receive an A in ENST 1500
  • Deadline: 5 days before the end of the term

Ann Harris Scholarship: Geology and Environmental Science Department, Moser Hall 2120

  • For Junior and Senior Geology majors with at least a 3.5 toward the cost of a summer field camp
  • Deadline: March 1

Donald Marcy Scholarship: Biological Sciences Department, Ward Beecher Hall 4037

  • For sophomore, junior, and senior Biology majors with at least a 2.5
  • Deadline: February 15

John and Lina Moteff Scholarship: Physics Department, Ward Beecher Hall 2023 CLICK HERE FOR APPLICATION

  • Available to science majors with first preference to incoming physics majors
  • Deadline: February 15

Dr. Ronald A. Parise Scholarship: Physics Department, Ward Beecher Hall 2023

  • Awarded to physics majors with at least a 3.0 GPA, preference to Mahoning and Trumbull residents
  • Deadline: February 15

Help A Sister Out: Sherri Lovelace-Cameron, Ward Beecher Hall 5016 CLICK HERE FOR APPLICATION

  • Awarded to full-time graduate and undergraduate female African American students majoring in Biology, Chemistry, or Physics with minimum 3.0 GPA
  • Deadline: March 15

Additional Resources for current students

 

Incoming Students

First-time STEM students are encouraged to apply for one of our several scholarships available to incoming students. See details below for deadlines and application information.

 

STEM Scholarship Common Application

Although most of these scholarships require at least sophomore level status, by completing this one application, you will be considered for all available STEM College Scholarships for which you qualify for that academic year, in the event that a new scholarship becomes available. Completed applications must be submitted by 5pm on February 15th every year to be considered for the following academic year. Most scholarships require that a FAFSA also be completed.

For a full list of scholarships awarded through the STEM Scholarship Application, Click Here

APPLY ON-LINE HERE. You can also find scholarship applications, along with additional information, on the scholarship board outside of the Dean’s Office in Moser Hall, Room 2200.

 

Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program

Available to incoming students who place into the minimum math required for their major (Pre-Calculus or Calculus) and have at least a 2.5 high school GPA. Preference is given to students from our partner schools (Austintown Fitch, Boardman, Campbell Memorial, Chaney, East, Girard, Hubbard, Liberty, Lowellville, McDonald, Niles McKinley, Struthers, Warren Harding, Youngstown Early College), but all applications are accepted. Only 20-25 scholarship are awarded per year.

More info and application

APPLICATION DEADLINE: March 1st

FIRST Robotics Scholarship

Available to an incoming student who has participated for at least one year on a FIRST Robotics Team.

More info and application

APPLICATION DEADLINE: April 1st

John and Lina Moteff Scholarship

Preferably given to incoming students majoring in Physics. Those majoring in any science will be given secondary consideration.

Click here for application

More info

APPLICATION DEADLINE: February 15th

Teachers Experience The Flipped Classroom

On December 16, area high school chemistry teachers and several faculty of the STEM College were introduced to the concept of The Flipped Classroom as a part of Professional Day, which was jointly hosted by the Department of Chemistry and the Beeghly College of Education. The Flipped Classroom, pioneered by Aaron Sams and Jon Bergmann, provides a way for students to have a more hands-on learning experience.

“The basic idea of flipped learning is to present lecture material outside of the classroom. This is usually done through the preparation of videos that are then posted to sites like YouTube. Students are expected to view the videos before class,” said Dr. Mike Serra, an Associate Professor of Chemistry, and the principle organizer of the event . “Some teachers present students with an outline of the notes that students fill in during each presentation. During class the students can focus on other things such as problem solving or performing more experiments. It can be beneficial for the STEM disciplines that are more problem based.”

This year, there were 45 participants from local high schools, as well as some participants from the Department of Chemistry. Sams gave a presentation introducing all of the participants to flipped learning.