On behalf of NEWT and R-STEM, welcome to the next 6 weeks of your life!!!! We are all thrilled to have such wonderful teachers working with us this summer. And are even more excited to read about the interesting experiences you will be participating in while you complete your internships. Please use this blog page as a way to share your experience with the world. You may include pictures and videos in each post, and you are encouraged to be as expressive as you wish!
Social Media Tags are encouraged:
@ChristinaSTEM @icerd02 @RiceU_STEM @NEWTCenter
Have fun!!
Christina
What is your perspective of Research?
May 9, 2021 at 3:31 pm
Research is the hands on approach to answering some of life’s questions. We observe a phenomena in the physical world, create a hypothesis, then experiment to test if our hypothesis is valid under variable conditions.
Research is where the rubber meets the road. Trials, experimentation, success, and failures, all of which comes with the research process. Tenacity is the one word I would use to describe research. We have to become tenacious, in our effort for the pursuit of knowledge that deepens our understanding of our beautiful blue planet.
May 20, 2021 at 7:03 pm
I am excited to be a part of Rice University’s NEWT Research Experience for Teachers 2021-2022 year! I anticipate it will be a growing experience. Looking forward to meeting my cohort-mates.
Blessings-
June 9, 2021 at 12:19 am
I recently read the article that was provided, “How to Read and Understand a Scientific Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide for Non-Scientists.” Informative, thought provoking, and the article provided practical tips on how to decipher the various articles that we will read during our internship. This article will help us to be more prepared. It was wonderful.
June 21, 2021 at 4:40 pm
What is a better way to learn than to investigate a topic with unknown answers! Curiosity has allowed mankind to create, investigate, and record amazing solutions to puzzling questions. From cancer to energy to learning techniques; each topic had to be researched and it has allowed us to learn and develop cures/techniques to handle each topic.
June 23, 2021 at 3:03 am
I am super excited to be part of this year’s RET Nano. I met with my mentor today and discussed what they project will be about. Dr. Acapulco is awesome and I can’t wait to be on campus Thursday. Its going to be a great year!!!
June 23, 2021 at 4:49 am
Research in my mind is finding out more information. It can involve looking through the literature, field observations, and laboratory investigations. Science is wonderful because it allows us to find out more information and share that information with others. It truly is a community of people trying to find the answers to questions and building on each other’s experiences and knowledge. I am enthusiastic to start NEWT RET and see what information I can share with the scientific community.
June 28, 2021 at 2:43 pm
My first two days were awesome. My mentor, Joe Swain, is a great and patient guy. We toured the lab the first day and I shadowed him during his own research while he was explaining to me the process. He also showed me the equipment and we were discussing the lab equipment that I will be using (e.g., the mass spectrometer)
He is synthesizing peptides and the way is done is adding an amino acid at at time to make a long chain of 30 to 40 amino acids. During that process, which can take five days, he adds a protective compound during each addition, then he removes it to add another amino acid later. At the end of the day I attended their weekly meeting with the students’ progress.
On the second day I was also shadowing, but later I was doing some practice with the scale to weight out compounds. On Monday 28 I will be using the pipettes to practice for my own research. I will be using alginate in my research to synthesize hydrogels and then measure the chemical and mechanical properties.
June 28, 2021 at 9:40 pm
When it rains, it pours! I am blessed with several learning opportunities this year and my most favorite one is the Rice Nanotechnology Research Experience for Teacher. I am very excited to learn scientific breakthrough with nanotechnology and how it works!