JOURNAL 2
Directed Studies: Introducing Research to High School Kids
When I decided to go back to McKinley, one of the things I wanted to accomplish was to show a student what research was all about. I loved to do research, even as a kid. I would "fool around," with hydroponics and the idea of mutation. In high school I worked on the idea of artificial photosynthesis and the idea of an enzyme that humans can take like lactase pills to enable them to digest cellulose. It was because of such humble beginnings that my love of research flourished. It was this love of research that I wanted to share with a high school kid.
When I talked to Mr. Santiago about me working with his directed studies student, he loved the idea. His only question was, what type of research topics did I have in mind. Other teachers have already soaked up much of the interesting topics for their students. That's when I grinned and said, "don't worry I got some thing that will knock their socks off." I reached in and showed him a folder of information about mutation and the theory of natural selection. He looked at me and asked if I was going to work with E. Coli or something. I smiled and pulled out my laptop computer showing him random shapes roaming around on the screen reproducing and eating each other. The idea I had planned to show himehad to do with an experiment to duplicate the theory of natural selection upon the internet. Traditionally the process of natural selection was done with bacteria (because of its rate of reproduction and short life span) or numbers on a computer screen. In my experiment with help from a professor in San Jose, I planned to use a program written to simulate different premortal soup components, gradually interacting and decaying till some sort of pattern is made where cells appear. From this cellular level different cells can live symbiotically to form organisms. These organisms can eat or be eaten by other organisms till a superior organism is made. With this explanation, I loaded a disk into my computer with a batch of organisms that I had "grown" on my computer for 48 hours. This batch of organism quickly killed the newer batch that I had on my screen. Mr. Santiago looked at it and smiled. Then I told him about the connection of the experiment to the internet. By releasing the program on the internet at different locations, we can gradually see how a "life" starts to populate a "virtual medium." I hoped that the organisms will start to slowly populate the internet and show signs of life or even behavior, as these organisms get bigger and their bytes larger. Who knows even migration.
By now Mr. Santiago was in la-la land, dreaming about him showing off his prize winning student at the state science fair. But, unfortunately he did not have any students this year. . .just a bunch of graduating senior that don't have the time to meet the upcoming symposium deadline. Mr. Santiago said, he'll save it for a special student. . maybe in fall. Ironically that turned out to be my brother, a freshmen that has three years to work on it.