Fall Online Weekends – A hurricane and fascinating classes

Dec. 2022

Oct. 1 Online Residential Weekend:

As leadership at NCSSM closely monitored Hurricane Ian, they made the difficult decision to cancel the Oct. 1 Online Residential Weekend. There were many factors considered, but among them was how far our students and families would have to travel in potentially dangerous conditions. How we determined that about two-thirds of our 230 students would be traveling over an hour can help answer the oft-asked question, “When am I ever going to need to know this?” Thanks to science, we know the basic geometry of our planet; add in some math – trigonometry, the distance formula, and regression – with a healthy helping of technology, and we were able to create the complex distribution of travel distances for those students attending that weekend – showing the number of students who are local versus those coming from about 300 miles away!

Oct. 29 Online Residential Weekend:

We happily were able to welcome students to the NCSSM-Durham campus for our Oct. 29 Online Residential Weekend, and senior Brady Andrew set the theme for describing Saturday’s classes by sharing a picture of Brady’s lab group in Dr. Monahan’s Classical Genetics class – as Brady claims, “the best class.” During Online Weekend, they analyzed the cell cycle of root cells. “Not only was this a super cool experience, diving in depth into fascinating content, but it was also a chance to have some fun and meet some awesome people,” Brady said.

Sheel Patel ’24 shared this photo of his Honors Climate Change Biology class learning in the “midst of nature” during a trip to Duke Forest to collect tree core samples in order to see how climate change is impacting tree growth.

Students explored the intersection of technology and science in Mr. Davis’s Scientific Programming class.

And students taking Beth Thomasson’s Public Health class had a great time interacting with Dr. Dane Emmerling from the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Public Health and Dr. Anna Yaros, Research Clinical Psychologist from RTI, talking about public health, career paths, and research opportunities. And in Verónica Vázquez’s Cryptography and Computer Programming class, the group enjoyed simulating enigma machines and exploring codes.

Add to the mix great experiences in Organic Chemistry, Human-Computer Interaction, and calculus, and we have even more class experiences to celebrate. Thank you, students, faculty, and everyone who makes our Online Residential Weekends such an incredible experience! You all are the best!

For those who planned to join us on Oct. 1, please know how much we were looking forward to meeting the wonderful students we got to know in our webinars. We share your disappointment and especially look forward to meeting you in the spring!