STEM Ed Announcement: Science/Engineerng Saturday Seminars

[Morton Sternheim <mort@k12s.phast.umass.edu>]

This is  a UMass Amherst  program.
Contact information is below.
============================

Science & Engineering Saturday Seminars         Spring, 2010 
-         Designed for science teachers; new teachers are especially welcome         
-         Five Saturdays each term; 8:30-1 at UMass Amherst, Lederle Grad
-         Towers 1033 (except as noted)
-         Educational materials, refreshments, parking, PDP's included
- 	  Advance registration is required; capacity is limited
- 	  Cost $30 per session
-         4 PDP's per half day session


February 6. Ice, glaciers, and oceans. Julie Brigham-Grette and Ray Bradley, Geosciences.
Hands on explorations of remote sensing, the effects of rising ocean levels,
and changes in the forces driving ocean circulation. Melting ice and snow
exposes water and land, increasing the energy absorbed from sunlight. We
will explore ways to measure this change in the "albedo," and will do an
experiment that models remote sensing by satellites.

March 6.  DNA & Protein 3D Structure. Frieda Reichsman and Eric Martz,
Microbiology. Ready-to-use software, tutorials, and lesson plans offer
interactive, rotating, zooming 3D models of high-impact macromolecules such
as influenza neuraminidase and Tamiflu, DNA, antibody, hemoglobin,
HIV-protease and inhibitor drug, lipid bilayers and channels. BioMolecular
Explorer 3D features molecules that dovetail into high school curricula.
Proteopedia.Org, a new wiki with Jmol, makes it easy to author new 3D
structure tutorials which are immediately online. All software is free,
works in web browsers on Windows or Macs, and is available from
http://HighSchool.MolviZ.Org.

March 27. Antibiotics in the Environment.  Erik Rosenfeldt, Civil and
Environmental Engineering. Discharges of pharmaceuticals and personal care
products into aquatic ecosystems are an emerging environmental issue.
Antibiotics are of particular concern since they may lead to the evolution
of antibiotic resistant microorganisms.  A simple assay that detects
activity associated with antibiotics is known as the AntiBiotic Challenge
[ABC], and is based upon a commercially available test for finding
antibiotics in meat, urine, and dairy products. The assay has been adapted
so that students will have no contact with potentially pathogenic
microorganisms and only simple equipment is required.

April 3. Science of the Eye.  Ishara Mills-Henry, Biology, MIT. In the
retina, photoreceptor cells translate light into electrical and chemical
signals that are processed through several downstream neurons.  We will
discuss photoreceptor function as it relates to color vision, the proteins
involved in phototransduction (signaling pathways and ion channels leading
to changes in membrane potential), the evolution of color vision, and the
genetics of color blindness.  In the second part of the workshop, we will
focus on how the processing of visual stimuli in the brain plays a critical
role in vision. Many optical or visual illusions are a result of how the
brain perceives what we see and studying them has provided further
understanding of the mechanisms of visual perception.  Hands-on activities
will include aligning opsin gene and protein sequences and how optical
illusions are interpreted.

April 10.  Weather cancellation makeup date if needed.

May 1. Recall for those registered for graduate credit. Hasbrouck Lab.

Questions: Mort Sternheim, mort@umassk12.net, 413-545-1908,
www.umassk12.net/sess 

Online seminar registration and payment:
      www.umassk12.net/sess/register.html