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THE SUMMIT’S POWERHOUSE SCIENCES

String theory is about as hard to grasp as it gets. It offers the potential of unifying gravity, the other forces of nature, and all matter into a single conceptual structure.

The Summit’s Upper School Science Department offers a class in string theory. It is quite remarkable that we have three students who are advanced enough to take it, and a teacher who conducts it for a group that small.

Physics teacher Eric Towers says: “I left a successful career as a chemical engineer to pursue teaching because I love physics.” Towers is also an associate Quarknet teacher, and a member of a group of science teachers receiving National Science Foundation funding these past three years.

Sciences at The Summit are very, very strong, and Eric Tower’s presence is just one of the reasons why. Here are some more:

This summer Biology teacher, Karen Cruse, will take a group of Summit students to Hawaii to study marine biology, as well as to visit the world’s largest center for forensic anthropology that is located there. She is a forensic anthropologist, in addition to being a biology teacher. Last year she participated in the exhumation and recovery of the world champion show horse named
Wild-Eyed and Wicked, the purported victim of foul play. She teaches at The College of Mount St. Joseph, lectures around the country, and has participated in TV productions for Court TV and National Geographic. Cruse shares her experience of forensic science with her biology students as a direct application of science to the real world.

It is quite an achievement for any school to have three recipients of American Chemical Society awards on the faculty. Summit does.

Ed Escudero, the Department Chair, received the American Chemical Society’s James Bryant Conant Award, presented to the outstanding chemistry teacher in the nation. He says: “People tell me all the time that chemistry was the hardest, worst, least fun course they took in high school. None of my students will ever make that statement, if I can help it. I try hard make the course challenging but fun, and to take the textbook and make it relevant to the world around us. I use toys and household products to make the point.”

Mr. Escudero’s classes were one of the ten in the nation chosen to model the teaching of chemistry. The final product, “ChemSource” is used by schools of education in training budding science teachers.

Locally, Escudero has taken his show to libraries, the Museum Center, Cub Scout troops and COSI. Last year, he and the Science Club received a grant to present science shows at five area schools and to leave toys and supplies for the hosting teacher, so they could continue the demonstrations for other classes.

Escudero served as Chairman of the Policy Board of ChemMatters, the ACS journal for high school students, and as an author and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Examinations Institute, the group responsible for creating standardized examinations from the high school to the post-graduate levels.

This year the Cincinnati Section of the American Chemical Society chose Summit’s Bob Gorey as the recipient of the 2006 award honoring an outstanding high school chemistry teacher. Gorey will add that honor to a list of others, including the Schilderink Chair for Distinguished Teaching. Learn more about Bob in “Summit People,” elsewhere in this issue.

Frank Huss is the third recipient of the ACS teaching award. Frank stepped in as a long-term substitute. Frank is a well-respected teacher from Wyoming High School. He currently works closely with the Cincinnati Observatory and is President-elect of the Southern Ohio section of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

Amy Girkin, who is on maternity leave, joined the Science Department this year. Amy recently completed her master’s degree in physics at Miami University. She brings to the department an awareness of the latest advances in physics. She is currently enrolled as a doctoral candidate in physics education at UC.

Wayne Fricke taught at Indian Hill High School, where he redesigned the school’s 6-12 science curricula, before bringing his expertise to Summit. He now teaches biology and environmental sciences at The Summit. Fricke often takes students out into the world, to Duck Creek or to Sycamore Creek, to collect indicator species. Then they conduct tests to determine the quality of the water and life in those streams.

In addition to having a great faculty, The Summit Science labs are well equipped, too, with state-of-the-art data collection systems. “It is almost an embarrassment of riches,” Ed Escudero says. “All of the labs have available a full array of Vernier probes and the chemistry lab is equipped with the Measurenet Technology’s work stations and probes which includes a diode array spectrometer. The system was developed at UC and is employed in all their first year labs.”

Jared Dunnmon, pictured above, is a senior at The Summit. In his four years at the school Jared has completed first year courses in Advanced Biology and Advanced Chemistry, as well as Advanced Placement Physics B. He is currently enrolled in AP Biology and AP Physics C, the calculus based physics AP. Jared will be taking AP Chemistry and the String Theory course as a senior. Although not a typical load, the sequence represents what is available to students who wish to follow a challenging science curriculum.

Jerad has recently been named a semifinalist in the Intel Science Search Competition, a nationally-renowned research competition for high school students.