Science
Outreach
Kurt C. Friehauf
Seeing nature’s wonders
really thrills me. I think most people are fascinated with
nature when they look around, and I know there is a whole generation of
young scientists
who are just waiting to realize their destinies. In my spare
time, I like helping enthusiastic young
people discover science. Sometimes that means visiting K-12
classrooms, and sometimes the young people come to me.
Early
Learning Center (pre-school) – fun
with minerals
Kutztown University has an
experimental school related to the College of Education called the
Early Learning Center (ELC). The ELC is a fantastic place for
kids to learn. The
ELC takes kids on fieldtrips
to all kinds of places ranging from
local laboratories here at Kutztown University, to nearby experimental
farms, and even the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City!
One of their fieldtrips was to visit me in my mineralogy lab where we
learned about the ways scientists test different kinds of
minerals. Click here
to learn more.
The 1st and 5th
graders of the Nobel School (a small, local, private school) visited
Kutztown University to learn the difference betwee plant and animal
cells using the Microscopic Digital Imaging Lab. The image to the
right shows plant cells from the elodia plant - a moss-like plant
common in ponds that has leaves that are only two cells thick!
The green specks are chloroplasts, which are the little packets inside
the cells containing chlorophyll (the molecule that allows plants to
convert sunlight + carbon dioxide + water into sugar). The
chloroplasts float around in the cell fluid (called cytoplasm) and try
to orient themselves so that they are exposed to as much light as
possible. To see more plant and animal cell photos as well as a
movie of cytoplasmic streaming, click here.
Two local 9th
grade students wanted to combine geology and physics to solve some sort
of problem. We decided to see if we could determine the location
of a thrust fault that was hidden beneath a farmer's field. After
a few cold afternoons of data collection and long hours of data
analysis on the computer, they found their
answer! Click here
to read more.
Nobel
School (5th graders) – plant
cells and
animal cells with Dr.
Chris Sacchi
Geophysical
Electrical Resistivity study of a thrust fault near
