Friday, June 24, 2011
5th day of the SEED program
it's the 5th day of seed, 6 days away from my long weeek vacation so excited :) anyways, everything is so far so good. Mary is back teaching me more things. We tried to get started on my project but the moe program doesn't work on my computer ughh -_____-, so now we have to wait for Bonnie to reinstall it. I've been reading so much lately though. My junior year in school, I should have an A in both english and physics. I also started making up my hours, I've made up 5 hrs so far.. so that means 5 down 30 more to go yaaay!(sarcastic v.) but that's kinda it for now.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
as the days go on..
It is now the fourth day into project seed and now im starting to understand so i think a lot of my reading. I think it is going to be pretty fun once i get in the lab...but what i wanted to say was.. i present next Thursday and im really nervous.. Today Liz and Marissa presented and they were asked a lot of questions which i know im gonna get a lot of that too.. i hope i can do it..
blog challenge#1
Ooops -_- I forgot about this. But anyway My name is Chelsea Weidaw and I am going to be a junior at Sto-Rox High school. I live in a kinda small town called McKees Rocks right outside of Pittsburgh, PA.
This summer I really hope too accomplish a lot. I hope to find out what kind of hard working person I really am and to see if I can make it through the hard times of college work. I know this isn't going to be easy, but if Mr. Lucas didn't think i could do it i wouldn't be here. So I believe in myself to accomplish many things this summer. I hope to expand my vocabulary and not use the same boring works I do.
So my first impressions of project seed were that omg..this is gonna take up my whole summer i am not gonna have a life and this is going to be so hard. But now that i am a couple days into this project i am feeling comfortable and i am ready to see what things i am going to learn. I'm really excited. So i think what im going to be working on is some kind of analyzing of hairs and seeing if i can pull chemicals from the hair and figure out what it is. maybe. But i am going to be working a lot with the instrument called GC/MS..
Well thats all, let the summer begin :)
This summer I really hope too accomplish a lot. I hope to find out what kind of hard working person I really am and to see if I can make it through the hard times of college work. I know this isn't going to be easy, but if Mr. Lucas didn't think i could do it i wouldn't be here. So I believe in myself to accomplish many things this summer. I hope to expand my vocabulary and not use the same boring works I do.
So my first impressions of project seed were that omg..this is gonna take up my whole summer i am not gonna have a life and this is going to be so hard. But now that i am a couple days into this project i am feeling comfortable and i am ready to see what things i am going to learn. I'm really excited. So i think what im going to be working on is some kind of analyzing of hairs and seeing if i can pull chemicals from the hair and figure out what it is. maybe. But i am going to be working a lot with the instrument called GC/MS..
Well thats all, let the summer begin :)
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Duquesne Press Release
Hey everyone. Here is a link to an article in the Duquesne Times.
http://mail.srsd.k12.pa.us/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://times.duq.edu/2011/06/high-schoolers-discover-college-careers-in-science-through-project-seed/
http://mail.srsd.k12.pa.us/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://times.duq.edu/2011/06/high-schoolers-discover-college-careers-in-science-through-project-seed/
Yay! Project SEED
Hello again! My name is Liz Thornton; I am a student at Sto-Rox High School and live in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. I will be entering school as a senior this year, and am a second year Project SEED student. Last year when I first began my research in Dr. Cascio’s lab under the guidance of Chelsee, an amazing graduate student that help me so much, I did not think I would ever understand what it was that I was supposed to be doing. I spent the first week reading the same three papers over and over again. I picked every other word apart and put them into Google. Then I read the papers again. I went to Chelsee to get a better understanding of what parts of the paper I should spend the most time learning, because they were the most relevant to what I would be doing. Then I went to Mr. Lucas and read it again with his help. Although he couldn’t help me very much because he doesn’t do biochemistry and didn’t know many of the biology words used the way he told me how to figure them out really helped. After reading for the same paper over and over again even when I closed my eyes I could see the words. It was hard work, and my sister who is an alumni of Project SEED warned me it would be tough, but that I had to be persistent, and I was. Soon I understood what I was doing and little by little everything that I didn’t understand started making sense. It just takes time, energy, and the want to learn it. This year I am working on the same project, which is mutating the ɑ1 glycine receptor which will aid in understand the conformational changes of the receptor and help in studies that could help treat neurological disorders related to the nervous system, but since my cells are working I will be doing more than just the mutation part of the procedure.
Along with the hard work came the great fun that came with knowing all the Project SEED students (even the adopted ones…Chris). We would spend our lunch time eating and playing and just enjoying getting to know each other and becoming friends. From the lunch time to the field trips we became a family. We turned to each other for help and to vent our problems. We encouraged each other to do our best, and pushed each other. Having the opportunity to spend this summer with three students I already know from school, and two students I am excited to get to know I expect it to be just as amazing as last year. The week of summer I spent waiting for Project SEED to start did not feel like summer without Project SEED my summer would be awful. So now that Project SEED has started so has my summer, and I know it will be an awesome one!
Along with the hard work came the great fun that came with knowing all the Project SEED students (even the adopted ones…Chris). We would spend our lunch time eating and playing and just enjoying getting to know each other and becoming friends. From the lunch time to the field trips we became a family. We turned to each other for help and to vent our problems. We encouraged each other to do our best, and pushed each other. Having the opportunity to spend this summer with three students I already know from school, and two students I am excited to get to know I expect it to be just as amazing as last year. The week of summer I spent waiting for Project SEED to start did not feel like summer without Project SEED my summer would be awful. So now that Project SEED has started so has my summer, and I know it will be an awesome one!
Blog challenge #1
Hello, my name is Dwayne; I attend Central Catholic High School in Oakland, and live in the Lincoln area of Pittsburgh.
I came into project seed this summer with the intention of learning and gaining a better understanding of the field of chemistry. While I still hope to accomplish just that it seems as though the task is going to be a bit more of a challenge than I originally thought. But that simple fact will not hinder my plight towards my goal of knowledge. The next goal that I was hoping to accomplish this summer was to gain an experience that will be useful at a later time.
With all that said my experience thus far has been good. My mentor as well as all the graduates and undergraduates that I will be working with are all exceptionally nice people, and really know what they are doing and talking about. My initial thoughts on the work that I will be doing this summer are of a skepticisitc nature. Not skepticism that what I am attempting to do can actually be done, but skepticism that I will be able to fully comprehend and understand my topic in the eight weeks the program lasts. my skepticism however is somewhat diminished by mentors who promise me that it is possible and will be done (I believe them). Perhaps now is a good time to say what my topic is, so in my topic I am looking to find self-assembled monolayers on titanium alloy strips (let me just say its a lot more complicated than it sounds). So far I have delved right in to the experiment over the past two day already testing my first six samples of titanium in 12-hexadeldecanoic using the infrared spectrometer. Let me end by saying all of the people that I have met so far including Mr. Lucas and my fellow ProjectSeed members are great people, and very nice
I came into project seed this summer with the intention of learning and gaining a better understanding of the field of chemistry. While I still hope to accomplish just that it seems as though the task is going to be a bit more of a challenge than I originally thought. But that simple fact will not hinder my plight towards my goal of knowledge. The next goal that I was hoping to accomplish this summer was to gain an experience that will be useful at a later time.
With all that said my experience thus far has been good. My mentor as well as all the graduates and undergraduates that I will be working with are all exceptionally nice people, and really know what they are doing and talking about. My initial thoughts on the work that I will be doing this summer are of a skepticisitc nature. Not skepticism that what I am attempting to do can actually be done, but skepticism that I will be able to fully comprehend and understand my topic in the eight weeks the program lasts. my skepticism however is somewhat diminished by mentors who promise me that it is possible and will be done (I believe them). Perhaps now is a good time to say what my topic is, so in my topic I am looking to find self-assembled monolayers on titanium alloy strips (let me just say its a lot more complicated than it sounds). So far I have delved right in to the experiment over the past two day already testing my first six samples of titanium in 12-hexadeldecanoic using the infrared spectrometer. Let me end by saying all of the people that I have met so far including Mr. Lucas and my fellow ProjectSeed members are great people, and very nice
Starting the grind
It is now the third day of the project, and I'm only starting to grasp the basics of my topic. The slow going progress I'm experiencing is new to me, because I've always been a fast learner. Compared to my usual speed, I'm feeling about as fast as molasses, and thats being generous. Very generous. I guess I'm going have to get used to this. I'd say it has humbled me, but I think I'll save that line for later. After all, it's gonna get a lot harder before it gets easier.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)