| |
Science Symposium Highlights Impressive Student Research
Tuti Penev '05 explains his physics project on "Radiative torques in interstellar grains" to college President Robert Vagt.
|
5/9/2005
Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu
The Davidson community celebrated the achievements of student researchers recently with a communal poster session. The hallways and adjoining rooms of Watson Life Sciences Building and Dana Science Building were lined with students and posters they created summarizing about 75 research projects they’ve done this year in biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and psychology.
Plentiful refreshments kept browsers happy as they meandered through the displays. Students stood by their posters and explained their projects in detail to those who inquired. Most of the research was conducted by students in collaboration with faculty members as independent study projects. Others were in courses that require a group investigation and poster.
Verna Case, Dana professor of biology and chair of that department, explained that the event demonstrates publicly that Davidson students conduct some impressive research by making them the center of attention for an afternoon. Furthermore, she said, it’s good experience for students who will be continuing their scientific study. Creating a poster teaches students how to creatively summarize their work. It’s also a popular means of conveying discovery to others. Case said, “With any scientific work, it’s important not only to complete the project, but to communicate it as well. Poster sessions are one way that’s accomplished in the scientific community.”
Many of the projects have already been presented at scientific meetings, and a few have either been published, or are in the process of publication.
This was the sixth year of the Science and Math Student Research Symposium. Case said it originated in poster sessions that were an annual requirement of the college’s 1996-2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant. The science department chairs decided to expand the idea to include all student research every year. Social science departments now also produce a poster session to showcase student research in those disciplines.
The recently injured Colleen Gillespie '06 found a comfortable position to explain to Robert Correll '07 her physics research on sol-gel glasses.
|
The student posters are produced as one big sheet on the college’s plotter printer. Students create the poster as a PowerPoint slide, and send it to the plotter for printing.
To see a sampling of student projects in various disciplines, and some of the students who conducted them, click on the links below. Please note that collaborators in multi-person projects are listed in alphabetical order, rather than in order of participation.
Biology
Chemistry
Center for Interdisciplinary Studies
Mathematics
Physics
Psychology
|
|
