Innovation Lab at Belfry High School Provides Multiple Educational Opportunities

Even in the midst of economic decline in eastern Kentucky, there are rays of hope for the students. One major contributor that sparks pools of talent among our students is the Appalachian Technology Initiative (ATI), a regional rural technology education consortium under the direction of the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative (KVEC).  ARI combines the human, financial, technological, and physical resources from the region in order to deliver first class learning opportunities to every student.  Because of the remote location and relatively small size of schools in the region, many schools have very limited course offerings outside of Kentucky state requirements.  Some schools only offer a few career pathways, none of which are in high-tech fields such as computer science or aerospace engineering. The ATI offers students in the most rural, remote areas access to high-level curriculum.

Funding from an Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) grant awarded to KVEC has allowed for the development of satellite hubs that will enable students to interact with cutting edge technology.  Each hub will have a focus area, such as aerospace or drone technology, but all hubs will include elements from each aspect of ATI work.  One innovation lab is being created at Belfry High School in Pike County under the supervision of Dr. Haridas Chandran, science and physics teacher. The Innovation Lab will be composed of seven unique stations: aero-dynamics lab, biofuel lab, alternate energy, 3-D printer lab, gold-nano research, electronics and lego robotics.

A biofuel experiment is being conducted to see if better oil is produced from algae which is fed by pumping dry ice and light from a fluorescent tube into a tank with algae that has been placed in distilled water or CO2 from burning coal.  After  a few weeks of algae growth, the algae will be dehydrated and a series of experiments will be run to see which oil is better.  Tyler Field, a senior who plans to major in observation biology in college, stated that he loves “the freedom of being able to do your own experiment and test the way you want”.  Cassidy Walters, senior, says the best part for her is “having hands on work” that she will remember.

Two teams of students have created lego robots for competition.  The goal for each robot is to go around the challenge table and successfully complete each constructed task.  The lego robots are autonomous.  Commands have been programmed using ev3 windstorm program in the laptops and the students simply have to click to begin the robot’s performance.  Brandon Booth says the focus is on “doing the challenges in a specific, continual order”.   The girls’ team is working to make adjustments in distances and other data on their laptop after each robot attempt with the challenges.  Anna Henson, freshman, believes that this will “prepare her for later classes, such as AP classes”.  Another freshman, Jaley Adkins, discussed how she is “learning a lot of math…you have to be very precise, especially with exact angle measurements”.  The girls are working on the project on their own time, staying after school, working on weekends and ‘no school’ days to be ready for the competition this month.

   

In a research project that Dr. Haridas says is “being done for the first time in a high school in Kentucky”, physics students are collaborating with Dr. Martin O’Toole, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Louisville Medical School, to synthesize colloidal gold nano-particles with different chemicals and local plant extracts.  The experiment, which Dr. Haridas calls “Golden Nano through Electrolysis”, is producing one solution that can be ingested orally by a patient before an MRI.  The solution would attach to cancer cells in the body and show up in the MRI.  Another mixture could kill skin cancer cells by using a laser to shoot the material into the cancer cells.  Students are scanning the wavelengths as they alter the independent variable (different plant extracts).  The colloidal solutions will be sent to U of L where they will be scanned with an electron microscope to get the size and shape of the synthesized gold nano-particles.

Jaret James, a senior planning to enter the bio-medical field and become an oral surgeon, is confident that these experiments and research “will help him know his way around labs” when he enters college.  The students plan to present the data from the project at a conference in Frankfort in April.

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