Download Project Management for the Frosty Fling

Forsyth Central High School Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics Academy 2011‐2012 Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 2 FCHS STEM Grand Opening September 7, 2011 Thanks to everyone who came out and supported the Grand Opening.
Project Management for the Frosty Fling During Instructional Focus on 9/14/11, Forsyth Central STEM students gathered in the East campus cafeteria to listen to the first of many guest speakers. With their first deadline in their design challenge past, students are ready to move to the next phase of the project. Mr. Cary Green, a parent of a STEM student and professional Project Manager, volunteered to speak to the group on project management. Mr. Green is a Project Manager overseeing several large scale technological projects that involve several millions of corporate dollars. He presented many important skills needed in accomplishing a project not only for the large projects he works on, but also smaller projects such as what the STEM students are working on. Mr. Green stressed that successful project management is a delicate balance between time, quality, scope, expectations and money. One of the many important issues faced with all design projects, including the current STEM challenge, is simply time management. The key to success is to plan. Students need to plan each phase with sub phases covering the four parts involved in project management. Students were also introduced to different Excel spreadsheets designed to help track task completions for the various stages. In summary, Mr. Green in a short period of time went through a detailed plan on how to initiate, plan, implement and complete a project with specific criteria, and a specific due date all within the budget and specification required. These basic project skills will not only work with the STEM design challenge but also extend into the classroom and into the real world. Mr. Green also took the time to explain career options that involve fields of study with STEM and project management. What’s up in Biotech? Over the past few weeks, students in Biotech have been involved in learning the basic operational procedures of a research lab. Students learned about not only safety and maintaining a safe work environment, but also about chemical storage, emergency situations, and many other general procedures used in a lab setting in compliance with OSHA standards. Laboratory equipment commonly used in labs outside the classroom were introduced and the students were able to use the equipment involved in measuring both large and small volumes of fluids (down to the micro‐liter amounts) and dry chemicals. Students also learned how to make specific concentrations of solutions and the importance of accurate measurements of both solvent and solute. Towards the end of the unit, Biotech students took a normal written exam, but a new twist was added to the test. Students had to perform a specific task or practical demonstrating their knowledge of what was learned. Students were asked to create two solutions of a variety of mixtures of food coloring according to a specific table of volumes for each color. Their final results will be analyzed by a piece of equipment called a spectrophotometer that gives very precise numbers based on the color of the sample. The other part of the test required students to make three different solutions of various concentrations. They had to determine how much of each solute they had to weight out, and then placed in a solution. Each in turn was measured based on the conductivity of the solution. When asked about the practical test, Grant Butschek said “ WOW! “That was nerve racking. I was so nervous about making a mistake that I was almost shaking. The written test was so much easier.” Coming up next, students will be discussing bioethics and then quickly moving into proteins and DNA and the lab procedures involved in studying them. Biotech students will start to record their labs in a formal laboratory notebook that they will be able to take with them upon graduation showing the variety of procedures learned. Co­Curricular Competition Updates: · Science Olympiads is a single day in February. Students will compete in a variety of events. For more information, visit http://www.aug.edu/gaso/9‐12.html · Engineering: West Point Bridge building competition in January, VEX competitions in the Spring · There are math team competitions scheduled for Sept 24 th at Alpharetta HS and another on Oct 15 th at UGA. Interested students should come by and see Mrs. Dirst in room 186 or email to [email protected]. There are competitions throughout the year each month and it is never too late to sign up. There are no scheduled practices at this time and it costs nothing to join.
FCHS Alumni Spotlight—Meredith Tise After graduating from Forsyth Central High School in 2004, Meredith discovered her passion of forensic anthropology. Before graduating from the University of Georgia in 2008, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology, she had experience working at the Forensic Anthropology Facility, also known as the “Body Farm,” at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. In addition, during the summer of 2006, she completed an internship with a forensic anthropologist at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. During the fall of 2008, Meredith began her Master of Arts degree in Anthropology at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. She worked in the Forensic Anthropology Laboratory at Texas State on cold and current forensic cases. In addition, Meredith was employed as a graduate research assistant at the new Forensic Anthropology Research Facility. Her work consisted of collecting and placing donated bodies, as well as conducting research and assisting in the training of local law enforcement of the methods for the recovery of human remains. Her thesis work focused on migrant fatalities in Arizona from the United States‐Mexico border. She collected data on the skeletal remains at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner in Tucson, Arizona to develop a new method to estimate the sex of Hispanic skeletal remains. After graduating from Texas State University‐ San Marcos in the spring of 2010, Meredith worked during the summer at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in the Physical Anthropology Department. In August of 2010, she began her PhD program in Applied Anthropology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, specializing in Forensic Anthropology. She regularly works at the local medical examiner’s office on forensic cases, and also has the opportunity to teach multiple classes as a graduate student. During this past summer, she completed a Pre‐Doctoral Fellowship at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner as a Forensic Anthropologist and travelled to New York, Paris, France, and Johannesburg, South Africa to conduct research on the skeletal remains of African populations. Meredith has collected data from over 1100 skeletons from around the world and continues to focus on her courses and conducting new research that can contribute to the field of forensic anthropology.