Appalachian Regional Commission
PAST
PARTICIPANTS AT THE
OAK RIDGE
NATIONAL LABORATORY
Lynne Mueller, Math Teacher at
Ripley
Central
School
,
Chautauqua
County
2009 ARC Summer Institute
for Teachers at
Oak Ridge
The
experience was something most people could only dream about. The
teachers were grouped into four groups. One of the teacher
groups worked on a natural area evaluation project; my roommate
got to make Californium, as part of the nanoparticles group;
another teacher group worked on x-ray analysis of materials and
my group worked with bioenergy sciences.
The amount of knowledge available at this facility is amazing. Most individuals on the campus hold a PhD. All were very willing to try to break down their areas of specialty until they believed we understood. We got almost daily tours of the various parts of the facility. These were amazing on both a scientific basis, and personally interesting to me as both an engineer and a teacher.