9/10/2012 3:56:08 PM

NYSSBA: NanoCollege program gets urban youth interested in science, college study

New York State School Boards Association

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In a lab at the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Sciences, a half-dozen middle school students from
the Newburgh Enlarged City School District were taking turns viewing ultra-small cells and proteins through a fluorescent microscope. Graduate student Rick Hynes explained that a blue light helped to “excite” molecules on a slide and make otherwise invisible things visible.

“Awesome! I can actually see the vapor,” one student exclaimed as he examined a slide through the lens of the sophisticated instrument, valued at $25,000 to $50,000.

That kind of reaction was exactly what professors and graduate students at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the State University at Albany had hoped to inspire in more than 30 Newburgh middle schoolers on that July day. The Newburgh students spent a week this summer living in dorms at the University of Albany, mixing with college student mentors and trying their hand at real-world science, technology and arts projects.