Exploring ‘cool science’ at Science Exploration Day

As UB students enjoyed their spring recess, a younger group of students took part in Science Exploration Day, filling North Campus lecture halls and research laboratories for a day of adventure in “cool science.”

For more than 30 years, Science Exploration Day has encouraged students from public and private schools across Western New York to be the future of STEM — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — fields. Organizers brought in presenters from UB, as well as other area colleges and universities, local industries, research laboratories and government agencies, to give participants a crash course in the real-life problems the presenters tackle and expose them to new career paths and fields of study.

The day began with a keynote lecture, “The real science behind CSI: applied forensic science,” by Ted Yeshion, professor of criminal justice and criminalistics at Gannon University. Yeshion gave students an overview of a typical crime laboratory and talked about the importance of crime scene reconstruction, as well as placing special emphasis on the multidisciplinary nature of the forensic science field.

Following Yeshion’s lecture, students could choose from among 30 small group presentations, ranging from a tour of UB’s Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation lab to a demonstration with Hawk Creek Wildlife Center’s resident animals.

One of these presentations was on the role of environmental chemistry in the Buffalo community. Tammy Milillo, research assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, guided students through environmental problems — like those associated with the Tonawanda Coke plant — that have happened near their own homes.

Milillo stressed to students the interdisciplinary nature of her research, citing how she’s even collaborated with sociologists in the past.

“I think the experience has been phenomenal with presenting how multidisciplinary my work is and perhaps how multidisciplinary that scientists can be,” Milillo said after students filed out of the Natural Science Complex for lunch. “That’s the biggest message I have to kids because they are the next advocates for the environment, the next scientists or whatever they want to be.”

She also thought it was important that students saw real-world applications of science — not only in her presentation, but in Science Exploration Day as a whole. She said students need to see a bigger picture of what science can do for their communities.  

“As students live in a community, they have to become active and engaged,” she said. “If you are just handing them a lab manual and they do steps one through six, how does any science really matter? It really matters because it solves real-life problems.”

The benefits of Science Exploration Day could also be seen across the hall, where students were exploring the human brain through hands-on activities led by members of UB’s Neuroscience Graduate Student Association (NGSA). One activity involved tasting phenylthiourea (PTC) paper strips to determine if they were super-tasters, which led to students discussing if they tasted anything.

Jamal Williams, president of UB NGSA, took pride in showcasing his field of study to the younger students. He said the neuroscience field is something he wish he knew about while growing up in a time without easy access to the internet. He also spoke on the opportunity to present a field like neuroscience to children at such a young age.

“When I was a kid, my grandmother bought me an encyclopedia from a garage sale; that was my Google,” Williams said. “Now we have to start thinking about things earlier because we have the burden of much more data to synthesize.

“We live in an age where information is more accessible than it’s ever been, but we also live in an age where things like alternative facts can be spewed more excessively,” he said. “Scientific literacy at a younger age will help build the next generation to be more cognizant of the Earth and of people and human disease; it will help possibly inspire the next generations to start thinking about the big questions of the world earlier because we have the resources.

“I’m working very hard to try to solve problems I’m looking at,” he said, “but I can only imagine where my mindset would be if I had this sort of exposure at their age.”

Mohammad Haider, another member of UB NGSA, followed the activities with a quick lecture on concussions. In addition to scientific knowledge that was relevant to students in the room, he also gave important life advice that embodied Scientific Exploration Day’s mission.

“Find anything that interests you and try to see if you can (make a career out of it),” Haider said. “You never know what you can do until you try it. I recommend studying something that you truly enjoy and see where you’re at. Don’t tell yourself, ‘this is not something I’m cut out for.’”