More information about Woodward Academy is online at www.woodward.edu.
For some students, the high school lab doesn’t offer the sophistication and experience they’re ready for. The areas they want to explore are much bigger than the scope of the equipment available.
To engage creativity and increase scholarly research among those students who ask the complex questions, teachers at Woodward Academy in College Park created the Independent Scientific Research program. Now in its eighth year, ISR was designed to give students the opportunity to do authentic research and to write about it.
“The labs have outcomes that are often predetermined, but in the real world, no one knows the outcomes,” said Kevin Hurysz, a co-director of the ISR program as well as a physics teacher. “In this program, the highly-motivated student who’s interested in that novel experience can do something that hasn’t been done yet - and that’s not something you always encounter in the classroom.”
Hurysz and his colleagues saw a need for this specialized program for higher-level students who are typically in an honors or Advanced Placement class, but who want more than what is covered in those traditional settings. Students who have an idea of something they’d like to pursue apply to the program prior to their senior year, and if accepted, they narrow their research question to a particular field. Then they are matched with researchers who doing similar work at area institutions and spend the summer working on their project.
“It’s similar to what a graduate or undergraduate student would do: attach themselves to a project where they have an interest,” said Hurysz. “We’ve had people paired at Georgia State, Emory and the Shepherd Center, to name a few. What has surprised us most is willingness of practitioners in the field to take on high school students.”
Once the school year begins, ISR students conduct additional research and present their findings in a paper that is formally presented to the entire community. Senior Shouhui Xin is in the midst of that preparation now, working on a report about the research she’s done on Down’s Syndrome with advisors from Georgia Tech.
“I’ve been trying to figure out why the chromosomes break down and cause Down’s Syndrome in humans,” she said. “I don’t expect to get an answer. But I am majoring in biology and genetics, and I wanted to get college experience with doing projects and writing lab reports.”
Senior Jack Sullivan has also paired with Tech professors to study “The Effect of Low Temperature Ozone Addition on Ethylene Flame Propagation,” with an eye to how it can improve combustion in aircraft engines.
“Aerospace engineering has the potential to drastically increase the mobility of the human race in the coming decades,” said Sullivan. “Although I have many scientific interests, I felt I could do the most good in the world with combustion research. If ethylene is used as aviation jet fuel, this experiment has the potential to enhance the thrust capacities in certain kind of jet engines with ozone.”
Though neither Xin or Sullivan have selected a college yet, Hurysz believes having participated in the program gives both students an edge.
“The kids who have taken it on have gotten a leg-up,” he said. “Many have been published, which often leads directly to undergraduate research and employment. But first, there needs to be that spark, that passion to do it.”
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