Courses

The Laboratory Detective

DNA, hair, fibers!  These are just a few pieces of evidence that students will collect and analyze during The Laboratory Detective course.  Students will begin the week learning the true meanings of forensics and forensic evidence.  Direct and latent fingerprints, physical and biological evidence, computer forensics and video analysis will be some of the topics covered by both the instructor and law enforcement experts.  The capstone experience will be a crime scene investigation conducted by students.  During the investigation, crime scenes will be secured, suspects will be interviewed, evidence will be “bagged and tagged” and the plot will twist and turn.  DNA profiling and evidence analysis will then be conducted in the laboratory in order to determine whether the students have enough probable cause to arrest and retain their suspects.  Scientific method, scientific reasoning and advanced forensic techniques will be the focal points of this course.

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Forces of Nature: Hurricanes, Global Warming, and the Science of Weather

The weather produces some of the most powerful forces on earth. Did you know that a single hurricane has about as much energy as 400 atomic bombs? In this class, we'll take a look at the forces behind storms. What causes them? What makes a storm dangerous? Students will learn how large storms are formed, including hurricanes, northeasters, blizzards, and even tornadoes. Students will do hands-on work in the field and via computer in gathering data from weather instruments, satellites, radar, and ocean buoys. Why are some of the largest computers on earth working on the weather? What is a perfect storm? Students will learn about the forces that shape the weather and create tornadoes and cyclones. They will also visit the Rhode Island coast to see evidence of past hurricane strikes.

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So You Want to be a Scientist?

Doctors work to treat diseases but scientist work to understand them. Have you ever wondered about the work that goes on behind the scenes in medicine? Do you want to find out what it is like to work in a laboratory? This laboratory intensive course is designed to expose students to basic laboratory research, and current topics and techniques used in biotechnology and medicine.

Students will manipulate DNA and express the Green Fluorescent Protein gene, normally found in the Pacific jellyfish, in bacteria. Using this model system, students will discuss and explore techniques that pharmaceutical companies use to produce therapeutic proteins. Students will perform additional modern molecular biology techniques such as isolation of DNA, amplification of DNA using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and protein purification. In addition students will be encouraged to think creatively in a scientific environment by proposing an independent experiment on the final day of the course.

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Endangered Species: The Fight to Save the American Burying Beetle

We always hear about endangered species all over the world, but what about the ones right in our own backyard?  And what exactly is being done to protect these animals and their habitats?  Most people do not realize it, but every endangered species has a recovery plan that maps the road to successfully increasing populations and saving habitats.  Zoos are a huge part of these recovery plans by being a place for breeding and they help increase public awareness of endangered species.  In Rhode Island, the Roger Williams Park Zoo is involved in some very exciting conservation projects including the American Burying Beetle.

Spend a week living the life of a Roger Williams Park Zoo Conservation Program Coordinator and help with field research on some very special critters.  Students will spend early mornings in the field working on habitat restoration, setting traps to find the American Burying Beetle and getting their hands dirty removing invasive plant species.  There will even be a day at the Roger Williams Park Zoo observing the breeding facilities for this conservation project.

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Plants of the Middle Ages: Magical or Medicinal?

In the middle ages, people believed that plants possessed magical powers and that plants used in herbal remedies needed to resemble the body part to be treated. Today, we know that many plants contain chemical compounds that have medicinal properties and in fact, many modern pharmaceuticals have been developed based on compounds originally extracted from plants. In this course, we will learn the truths of these “magical” plants, and how they are propagated and tested for active medicinal properties.

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Astrobiology: The Search for Life in the Universe

Astrobiologists study life in the universe, including the possibility that it exists on other planets. What scientists know about life, they learned from Earth - we study life here to find out more about where and how to look for life beyond our own planet. In this class students will learn about the variety of life found on earth and the laboratory techniques that are used to study them. Using a variety of recording and monitoring devices, we will see first-hand how scientists search for signs of life in the universe, and what places seem most hospitable to life like our own. Students will demonstrate the difficulties in exploring environments in space and communicating with life forms that may be very different from us. Whether life exists beyond earth is still an open question, and students will learn how astrobiologists are using scientific techniques to try to find an answer.

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A Life History of the Universe

Cosmology is the science of the Universe!  Explore the life of the cosmos from its earliest seconds to its ultimate fate and all the growing pains in between.  Ask questions on the frontiers of science like:

• What is anti-matter, and why is there so little of it when matter is everywhere?
• Why can't we see dark matter and dark energy, and what is it anyway?
• How did the galaxies form?  What are quasars, supernova, and black holes?
• Do wormholes really exist? 
• Where did the Universe's microwave background noise come from and why do we care?
• Why is the Universe expanding, and will it go on forever or collapse in a Big Crunch?
• Is there life on other planets, or are we all alone in this enormous place?

Be introduced to the cutting-edge research on these questions.  Learn the answers we've discovered so far and how we found them.  Hands-on laboratories will incorporate building your own cloud chamber to see cosmic rays, using Brown's rooftop telescope high above the city, and experimenting with thermal emission spectra, light and matter to understand the physics of the cosmos. 

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From Falling Apples to Computers: Physics in Action

It’s easy to forget that in the middle of this complex world, there are a few simple fundamental laws guiding every action in the universe. From the computers we use to surf the web, to the buses we take to school, to the gravity that keeps our feet firmly planted on the ground, physics is constantly at work around us. Why do things fall down? Why do our hands get warm when we rub them together? Why do we see lightning before we hear thunder? We will break down the complexity of the world into a few simple laws of physics and explore their consequences. We’ll start our journey with Newton under his apple tree and follow along history as science slowly wove together our current understanding of the universe. We’ll touch upon things like energy, heat, and light and take physics from concepts to reality with a number of experiments and hands-on demonstrations.

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From Brain to Sensation

You feel grass under your feet and smell the fragrance of flowers in the air. Hearing birdsong, you look up to see a robin jumping from branch to branch in a nearby tree. How do shifting patterns of light, vibrations in the air, molecules floating into your nose and changes in the pressure on your skin result in these experiences? How does all this information reach our brain, and how is it put together into familiar sensations? In this class we will explore how everything you feel is transformed into electrical signals that form a unique code that the nervous system can interpret and process. Through hands-on experimentation we will test how our senses relay information about the outside world and make "reality" come together in our minds.

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Understanding the Human Body:  An Exploration of Anatomy

Have you ever wondered how your body does all the things that it does? Our bodies contain 206 bones and over 700 muscles, all coordinated by a central computer called the brain. In this course, you will learn how all the components of the body work as one to keep you going everyday.  Using prepared human specimens, as well as models, we will investigate the skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems, and how they are all connected.  A hands-on dissection will be performed and we will learn how to diagnose various medical conditions using slides of actual human tissue and X-ray films.  Lastly, we will learn the nitty-gritty of what happens inside a doctor’s office when we use a variety of medical devices to assess our vital body functions under various conditions. 

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Designing Mobile Machines:  Robot Rover Derby Jr.

You and 2 teammates will build and program a stepping motor-driven, tank-steered rover.  Each teammate will specialize in a certain skill necessary for the success of the team’s design.  To begin with, the programmer on your team will have available a generic rover that can be programmed to navigate around obstacles and knock over a goal. Programming will be in embedded C. The mechanical specialist will assemble with Allen wrenches a chassis and drive train, using extruded aluminum rail. The electrical specialist will build a power unit and hook up stepping motor drivers to an on-board computer. The rovers will have lever switches to detect the walls of the track and phototransistors to sense bright lights over the goal blocks. Your programmer will debug code on the team's custom-made machine, to implement sensory feedback.  By the end of the week your team's rover will compete with other rovers in short contests to see who knocks over their goal first.

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Where Rivers Meet the Sea: Ecology of Narragansett Bay

Did you know that for many decades coastal estuaries were thought of as unproductive swamps that were best filled and developed? Today, scientists know estuaries to be some of the most productive ecosystems on our planet. Narragansett Bay is one of New England's most important estuaries and serves an important role, both economically and environmentally, to citizens of Rhode Island and Southeast New England. In this course, students will learn the basics of estuary ecology and environmental sciences through a variety of field exercises and data collection techniques. Serving as coastal ecologists, students will evaluate the overall health of Narragansett Bay after collecting data on topics that include habitat diversity, water quality, bay taxonomy and geology and plankton ecology. This two week course will allow students to learn in-depth about Narragansett Bay by using Save the Bay’s waterfront Baycenter laboratory, classroom, shoreline and dock space, and from field trips out onto the bay aboard Save the Bay’s education vessels. 

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