Field Trips

 Student Trip to MIT
By Mark Kondracky

On Saturday November 18 three of New London’s Magnet school students took a field trip to MIT for a program on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The purpose of the trip was to offer academic programs and opportunities for students to meet distinguished colleagues from academia, industry and government labs. Participants would make professional contacts to help them in their pursuit of a career in the STEM disciplines.

So at 6:30 am, Oskar Vasquiez, Jenifer Blanco and Lisa Willysthssa boarded a van and headed up to MIT to participate in this unique program. On the way up we discussed some physics projects, solved some problems and enjoyed the view. (Especially watching the crew teams practicing in the Charles River.) After checking in at registration we had presentations from Jabbar Bennett the senior director Development Science, Healthcare and Education Industry Partnership and Karen Hinds.

This session was followed by the keynote presentation by Ronald Mallet, a professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Connecticut. His talk was on how a time machine could be constructed by using lasers. There was also a discussion of how black holes distort space and time. Professor Mallet was extremely interesting, and was very impressed with the quality of our New London students.

Following the presentation by Professor Mallet, students attended workshops on Biomedical Science, Environmental Science and Material Science. Again our New London students and staff distinguished themselves. The next activity was a working lunch. Students met with Scientist and Engineers from various disciplines. Oskar Vasquiez learned about a study to help understand why older drivers have an increased risk for certain types of accidents.

The final activity was a brief college fair. Students met with representatives from various colleges and learned about scholarship opportunities from NEBHE. Check out the science website for pictures, and links to NEBHE for scholarship information.

On the trip home we munched on gummy bears and did physics problems to pass the time.