Lakeland to Hold District Science Symposium

The Lakeland School District's Annual Science Symposium will be held on May 31 at Lakeland High School at 7 p.m. It will feature the work of students in the district's science research program at Lakeland and Walter Panas high school.

Keynote Speaker will be Michael P. Perrone, Ph.D. from IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center will talk about Watson, the supercomputer that recently won a Jeopardy match versus two human contestants.

Student Speakers are Kaitlin Hamilton, Temporal Comparative Analysis of H1N1 Influenza A Virus Protein Residues to Assess Selection Sites, and Frank DiRenno, Fabrication of Nanoscale Mechanical Resonators Using a Bottom-up Production Technique

The  science research students will  follow the opening addresses with presentations of their research projects in the school cafeteria where they will be on hand to describe their research and answer questions.

The Lakeland District program is geared to develop these skills as each student pursues his or her passion for the sciences.

"This innovative and dynamic program promotes personal achievement and the development of problem solving skills, goal setting, research ability, time management, and public speaking," said James VanDevelde, the district's communication director. "Students who participate in the program are afforded the unique opportunity to enter a professional world from a high school setting."

The research process begins when students choose an area of interest and proceed to research literature in that field. They gain knowledge and gradually narrow down their interest to a very specific topic, progressing from mainstream articles to professional scientific papers. With easy access to technological resources, students are enabled to conduct bibliographic research online through the same means as professionals.

To achieve communicative skills, students prepare Power point presentations on chosen articles and present these to myriad audiences to become increasingly more competent and professional public speakers over time. Although this is in preparation for participation in scientific competitions, these skills prove to be invaluable far beyond the scope of the Science Research Program.

Idea development progresses as students contact various professionals within their niche of research and open dialogue via e-mail, telephone, or letter. The intent is the establishment of mentor relationships with advising scientists, the cornerstone of the research process for high school students. Once obtained, the student is aided in developing his or her own original research project.

The student carries this project out, analyzes and summarizes the results and writes a research paper. These are submitted to competitions such as the Intel Science Talent Search and sometimes for publication. PowerPoint presentations and posters are then created for local, regional, national and international science competitions. These are displayed at the annual symposium.