Hope College will host its annual "Science Day" for high school students on Thursday, Nov. 7.
There will be a keynote address and several one- hour presentations on a variety of science-related topics from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. More than 240 high school students and their teachers from 11 schools from Michigan and Illinois will attend.
The students' experience will begin at 9 a.m. with the keynote address "Atoms, Molecules, and Light: AMO Science Shaping the Future," delivered by Dr. Wendell T. Hill, director of atomic, molecular and optical sciences and engine atomic physics at the University of Maryland at College Park.
From 10:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. and again from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the students will each attend one of 20 concurrent presentations. Topics range from "Flying A Wing," to "How to Win an Argument About Nuclear Power," to "Substance Use and Teens--Only the Facts," to "Birds and Changing Landscapes: A Tropical View and a Temperate View" and "Tales from the Crypt: The Mathematics of Secret Messages." There will also be a session for teachers focusing on interdisciplinary teaching using paramecium.
Most of the sessions are led by members of the Hope faculty and students. In addition to Hill, guest presenters include Dr. Ronald Deenik, a 1973 Hope graduate who is president of Holland Family Dentistry PC, and Dr. Marshall Elzinga, a 1960 Hope graduate from Hudsonville who is retired from a career as a research scientist. Elzinga had conducted research at Harvard Medical School, Brookhaven National Laboratory and the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, and held teaching appointments at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the City University of New York and the State University of New York, Brooklyn.
Science Day is sponsored by Hope in an effort to introduce high school faculty and students to areas of current research and social interest in the sciences, and to the wide variety of science programs at the college. Hope departments participating in the day include biology, chemistry, computer science, geological and environmental sciences, nursing, and physics and engineering.