Science Extracurricular Opportunities at the Pingry School

Pingry offers a rich extracurricular program in Science.  In this blog post, I will outline them and provide links for you to explore more.

Journal Club  

Students, faculty, grads and researchers present cutting edge experiments being done at universities and research institutions around the world. This program is open to absolutely everyone and meets before school. Thursday at 7:30 AM.

Faculty: Logerfo

Open to: Absolutely anyone who wishes to listen, discuss or present

Science Olympiad

Both the middle school and the upper school have Science Olympiad teams.  Members prepare for and compete in events in the New Jersey Science Olympiad.  Events include bridge building, aerodynamics and a broad range of other scientific topics

Faculty: Tambor, Huang-Hobbs (middle school), Kehoe (upper school)

Open to: Middle School, 9th grade 

Astrophotography Club

Using Pingry's Telescope to capture Lunar, Planetary or Deep Sky images. Nightscape photography, capturing images of the Milkyway, Star Trails and Light Painting. 

Faculty: Toner

Open to: All students

Project 80

Students use science to educate themselves and others so that they can affect change in the world around them. Students are making commercials, hosting talks, and having fun with science in general.

Faculty: Coe

Open to: All students in the Upper School

Robotics Team

FTC 6069 and FRC 2577 are competitive academic teams with the objective to design and build robots for, respectively, the FIRST Tech Challenge, starting in September, and FIRST Robotics Competition, starting in January. The teams is divided into student-led programming, electrical, mechanical, and public relations sub teams.

Faculty: Jenkins, Bourne

Open to: All Students in the Upper School

PCR

Pingry Community Research Journal (PCR) is a student-edited publication that is an outlet for student-researchers to communicate their findings. Publishing one’s work to the larger community is a main end goal of all scientific research.

Faculty: Maxwell

Open to: All Students in the Upper School

Anatomy Club

Students meet approximately once per month to examine the anatomy of different organisms by dissection.  Meetings are monthly during CP.

Faculty: Torres

Open to: All Students in the Upper School

SMART Team

Students collaborate with scientists to learn about a researcher's field of study. Using a three dimensional printer, students create models of protein structures to help them explain complicated biological processes. Students then present their work at a national scientific conference.

Faculty: D’Ausilio

Open to: Sophomores

Waksman Student Scholars Program

Students identify and analyze DNA sequences from the duckweed Landoltia punctata.  Once completed, the student's sequence is published in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database for scientists to access.

Faculty: Maxwell

Open to: Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors

iRT

The Independent Research Team is a group of small teams doing original research on topics ranging from molecular biology to physics to computer science. Each team is lead by a senior student and a faculty mentor who are responsible for teaching underclassmen, collaborating with scientists at nearby universities, and driving the project forward. All projects are novel, student-driven, and grounded in the current scientific literature. 

Faculty: Kirkhart

Open to: Sophomores, Juniors, or Seniors

The following are actually classes, but provide options for individual research projects.

Introduction to Scientific Research: Methods in Molecular Biology

The research course is a science elective open to students in their junior and senior years. In this course, students learn a variety of molecular biology techniques while completing a yearlong project designed to isolate a specific enzyme from bacterial cells and test its activity. They also gain experience in reading primary scientific literature in the field of biomedical research. Students who take the research course for the second year focus on designing an individual research project using skills they have learned in the first year of the course.

Faculty: D’Ausilio

Open to: Juniors and Seniors

AP Biology Master Projects

Students conduct independent research projects based on individual interest.  This includes choosing a project, proposing a budget, designing and conducting experiments, analyzing results, and communicating findings.  Students present a poster to the public at Exhibit: Science and publish an article in Pingry Community Research Journal.

Faculty:  Maxwell

Open to: Juniors and Seniors