7/16/2019 Mike Koon
The opportunity to participate in cutting-edge research as an undergraduate has been one of the great selling points of the Grainger College of Engineering through the years. Thanks to the Young Scholars Research Program, Grainger Engineering is giving that opportunity to high school students in Champaign-Urbana as well.
Written by Mike Koon
Now in its third-year, the Young Scholars Program grants high school students the chance to be immersed in a research project on the Illinois campus for six weeks during the summer. They continue that project for about two hours per week during the school year and participate in the Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in Washington DC, presenting alongside college students from across the nation. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation funded Power Optimization of Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS) center headquartered at Illinois in partnership with the Departments of Physics and Bioengineering.
Prospective participants write essays stating how they can uniquely benefit from the program. Two students from each Twin City public high school – Central, Centennial and Urbana – are chosen for the program and assigned to a research team. Working alongside a graduate student in the lab, they play a valuable role in moving a project forward through the summer and subsequent school year. Science teachers at each high school serve as intermediaries between the graduate student and the two participants at their schools.
Darius Jackson, an upcoming senior at Centennial High School, is participating in the program for the third straight year.
“I have always liked science so when I found out I could work on a college campus and with college students, I was eager to participate,” Jackson said. “It’s honestly been really amazing. I have been able to network and learn a multitude of things -- from Arduino to more advanced coding.”
Projects this year range from developing super hyperbolic materials and creating a diode for wave movement to working with Stepper motors.
Last school year, Darius and another student were charged with making a drone from basswood and balsawood for less than $100 with the aid of Arduino.
“Our goal was to use little power and make something that could fly like a normal drone would,” Jackson said. “We wanted to develop a method that could be replicated for similar projects.”
Andy Yoon, a graduate student in Kiruba Haran’s lab, welcomes the help of high school students.
“A typical research group doesn’t have enough manpower to do all the things we want to do,” Yoon said. “There are always things we want to explore in the long run that we don’t have immediate funding for. It was nice to get some extra help from two high school students last year. Although I am the one mentoring, I’m learning as well.”
Program coordinator Joe Muskin says that although students are actually doing the research, teachers provide a valuable link to the college lab.
“High school students aren’t used to interacting on a grad student level and the grad students sometimes have a hard time remembering how little they knew back then,” Muskin said. “The teachers do a really good job of bridging that gap.”
“The goal in this is not to take students who have had a lot of science experience and put them into something they’d be completely comfortable with,” said Jill McLean, a science teacher at Centennial, who acts as a student advisor for the Young Scholars Program. “They know they don’t understand everything, but it’s hard to ask those questions. Because I know a little something about both ends of the coin, I can provide the right questions.”
McLean adds that even in just three years, she is seeing the impact of the Young Scholars Program.
“I still have connection with the students I worked with the first year,” she said. “They are involved in science and are pursuing things in that direction. That is really exciting.”
Members of the Champaign Unit 4 School District took notice, inviting both the students and teachers to present about the program prior to a school board meeting this past spring.
On the impact of the Young Scholars Program, Muskin concluded, “I think the students feel empowered to plot their own course in careers, but also they also understand they need to take ownership. They understand that in college, these things don’t happen unless you make them happen.”