Science department expands technology with grants

fund a project developed by Dr. Kimberly Boyd called "DNA Technology in the New Millennium." The project will provide new equipment for DNA technology and funded summer workshops to train high school science teachers in the fundamentals of DNA technology and how to incorporate it in the classroom. As part of the workshop, which ran from July 22 - 25, the attending high school teachers can borrow equipment from Cabrini and use it in their labs.

worth of supplies including equipment, videos and CD-ROMs so that they can actually do the experiments with their students, according to Boyd. A similar workshop will be hosted at Cabrini next summer, according to Fuller-Espie.

Dr. Sherry Fuller-Espie shows off the science department's newest laminar flow

SCIENCE, from 1

The high performance liquid chromatograph and gas chromatograph are currently in the chemistry labs. "The faculty will be trained by the manufacturer in the next few months, mainly on upkeep and management," FullerEspie said.

A $1 million congressional grant to enhance learning in mathematics and the sciences through technology was awarded to SEPCHE. Cabrini received $102, 500. The money will be used to

"It was a hands-on workshop so the teachers were able to gain applicable experience with college-level equipment typically not found in high school classrooms," Boyd said. "We worked with reallife situations like forensics, bioethics, cloning and applications in medicine. We focused on some cool aspects that their students would get excited about so they will like science, too."

With the hands-on experience, the 17 high school teachers also went home with about $1,200

SEPCHE was awarded the Math and Science Institute grant worth $2.7 million. Cabrini received $250,000-$200,000 is being used for equipment and $50,000 for computers-~nd software. The project goal for the grant money is the "integration of up-to-date and emerging technologies with associated new curricula" and_"to insure that SEPCHE college faculty and K-12 teachers are teaching and their respective students are learning with state of the art equipment and methodologies," according to the science department's website. The grant must be spent in a year.

"So far purchases have included an ultracentrifuge, a centrifuge which can achieve one million g force and speeds up to ·100,000 rpm," Fuller-Espie said. "In addition, this grant has provided the department. with ultraviolet spectrophotometers, a molecular fluorescence spectrophotometer, micro centrifuges, a water purifier and standard recombinant DNA equipment, and we 're still spending."

While the equipment purchased with the other grants will be useful in the Center for Science, Education, and Technology,for which ground will be broken this spring, the Elementary Science Education Grant will provide a separate room for education majors taking science courses. The $200, 000 grant will equip _the science education room in the new center with modem college-level equipment and science tools found in elementary classrooms.

"Funds also include faculty stipends for the development of a standards based science curriculum for education majors," FuJlerEspie said.