IUPUI is Indiana's premier urban research university. The campus enrolls more than 30,000 students in 21 schools and academic units.
IUPUI to Hold Nobel Prize Winner's Q and A With High, Middle School Students
Imagine being able to seek answers to your science questions from a Nobel Prize winner.
That’s the opportunity students from two area high schools – and a middle school – will share during Research Day activities at IUPUI on Friday, April 24, 2009.
Nobel Laureate and physicist Leon Lederman will hold a question-and-answer session for local students as part of the IUPUI Research Day.
The Q&A Session between Lederman and students from Crispus Attucks Medical School, Arsenal Technical School, and Harshman Middle School, is scheduled to take place from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., April 24, 2009, in Room 152 of the Informatics and Communications Technology Complex building, 535 W. Michigan St.
“It’s a great opportunity for them,” said Arsenal Tech advanced chemistry and physics teacher Mark Blachly. About 40 of Blachly’s students are scheduled to participate.
The Q&A session is part of a day-long celebration of IUPUI’s research portfolio. Lederman will also deliver “Knowing How Science Works for Scientists and Citizens,” as the keynote address for the event at 1 p.m. in Room 101 of Lecture Hall, located at 325 University Blvd. on the IUPUI campus.
Lederman, along with co-scientists Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, received the Nobel Prize for research that advanced the understanding of neutrinos, basic particles that make up the world.
The physicist holds a doctorate in physics from Columbia University. His published works include “The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer What Is the Question,” and from “Quarks to the Cosmos.” which he co-authored with David N. Schramm.
Lederman is a founder and the inaugural Resident Scholar at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a three-year residential public high school for gifted children in Illinois. Students at the academy are involved in research in university, business and commercial laboratories across Chicago.
‘“I am a firm believer that doing research is one of the best pedagogical devices we have,” says Lederman, who served as a co-chair of the National Science Board Commission on 21st Century Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
Issues in education will be the focus of Lederman’s keynote speech, with a major premise being the need for revising the high school science curriculum.
Lederman is a co-founder of the “Physics First” reform movement which advocates reversing the course sequence so that high school students are taught physics first, then chemistry with biology as the capstone science course.
About 2,000 American high schools have adopted a “Physics First” curriculum, according to Lederman.
In addition to Lederman’s speech, IUPUI Research Day activities will include oral and poster research presentations by IUPUI faculty members, along with poster presentations and roundtable discussions by student researchers. All events, including Lederman’s keynote address, are free of charge and open to the publics.
For additional details, visit http://research.iupui.edu/events/researchday2009/index.html.
