This morning we all spent our time nervously waiting for the faculty members to review reports. Let’s just say there were positive comments and not so good comments. Some groups got a lot of comments but I am very thankful our group didn’t have much to change. Where I would love to say it’s due to the great lab group I have. Here I would love to include a quote of Xuan where she’s got tired of revising her report.

“William is not here, I don’t have my punching bag” -Xuan (joke) 

Fun Memories: 

Julia Z ate little too many cough drops (maybe overdose)

Michelle forgetting her lanyard two days in a row. 

Julia Z accidently removed Cory from her spam account. 

Xuan and I had a little nail salon and were able to get many customers (Julia Z, Dimitra, Eric, Brian, and Michelle). Our business didn’t do that well as many people did not trust us. But I would love to say my hair salon business is going pretty well. With Brian being the most successful consumer. 

I also got some plants at the farmers market. Here’s their growing process!

Xuan attempted to eat Antiseptic Spray. (not really) 

Since today we wrap our final report I would like to have a little spot dedicated to my lab mates. 

Cory – The lifesaver to our group. Always saving Kevin and me from struggling. He’s also very good at playing piano and he trusted me to do highlights on his hair (didn’t really work but it’s okay). 

Kevin – Who always wants to call me Alaina when my name is Alina and question me why it can’t be Alaina. So next time you see Kevin make sure to call him Calvin. Also if you didn’t know Kevin is in charge of running our instagram page. Make sure to follow @sspbiochempur22. 

My blog is kinda short so I chased people down for quotes. 

“6 weeks of pretending protein proficiency” – Xuan, Sehyun 

“SSP is great” – Brian 

“Alina is from Missouri?” – Phillip (he figured it out two days before the program’s end that we only live an hour from each other) 

“Some people already know this, but i never ordered unsweet tea for any of the boxed lunches, but i felt like trying one so i took one from the cooler. if you didn’t get the tea you ordered once, that’s probably because i took it >:D” -A confession from an unknown person 

“Ahh” – Calvin (Kevin)

“reject biochem, embrace geoguessr” – Julia M

“I would not actually hurt my lab group” – Xuan 

“I love Michelle” – Alina (got forced to put this)

“Nathan it’s work time.” – Dimitra 

“Everything will be fine ~ that’s what I always tell myself when our group goes through chaotic but fun challenges” – Victoria

Credits 

I would like to thank Xuan, Julia Z, and Dimitra. for sending me a bunch of pictures for my blog. I would also like to thank people who provided quotes for my blog. 

Hi my name is Alina (not Alaina). A rising senior from Smith-Cotton High School in Sedalia, MO. In my free time I enjoy reading books and watching TV shows. I would also like to say that I also love eating throughout the day so I bought a bunch of random stuff. Like Michelle would say “Alina you’re really gonna live here for a long time”. 

The post Coming to an End first appeared on SSP International.

Reports pose a constant threat to the brain capacities of subjects of the Summer Science Program. The groans of MOE failure, constant keyboard typing, desperate scribble marks on the whiteboards resembling the format “goofy ahh ___”, and desires to explore the outside world in spite of unfinished reports are present throughout the entire subject area. However, failure to obtain a sufficient amount of sleep as well as a desire to socialize with other members restrict the participants’ abilities to continue to write their reports in a sane manner. This study explores the brain processes of various subjects in their most intense day of writing in the entire program.

Introduction

The Summer Science Program is a scientific program designed to give research opportunities for high school students who push themselves to learn and experience what true research is like. In the case of participants who are in Biochemistry, they then write reports of their experiments at the end of the program, learning how to write scientific reports in addition to earning wet lab experience for a total of around 5 weeks. It is well known that the average number of hours of sleep these participants get on average is not high compared to the average number of hours of sleep, but these reports pose a significant threat to that of the participants near the end of the program. Sleep is necessary for the daily bodily function of the participants. However, it is estimated that the average participant has a negative correlation in terms of hours of sleep and hours of report writing. Thus, an increase in hours of report writing meant a decrease in sleep, which led to some detrimental effects in the participants’ sanity. I studied this phenomenon due to the necessity of having to write a blog for the Summer Science Program on the day of July 24th, 2022, and will detail the following results. The goal of this project is to detail the average participants’ daily activity and function, and describe the effect that reports have on the participants of the Summer Science Program.

Results

All participants were given the same dietary fulfillments of the day, which was Chinese food (Fig. 1). This was done in order to prevent the further descent into insanity caused by their reported daily dose of Wiley dining hall food and weekly doses of sandwiches from the Purdue Food Company, while still maintaining that every participant had the same type of food given. This resulted in an interesting change of pace for the participants, despite some of them getting up late in order to compensate for the late night that had occurred the day prior. 

Many participants continued working on their reports for the remainder of the day, which resulted in increased stress levels and desire to socialize with other participants at their working sites. Despite socializing increasing the time required for writing reports and consequently, decreasing the amount of potential sleep for the participants, they continue to attempt to socialize despite knowing the consequences of their actions (Fig. 2).

In addition to socializing, other aspects of entertainment were seen, which were referred to as “mental health breaks” by the participants in order to cope with their decision to increase entertainment as a replacement for hours of sleep. This included horrific games of unnecessarily stressful Tetris, as well as Other members decided to instead go out of their working environment to “get a breath of fresh air” in order to “clear their minds”. This included going on what the participants referred to as “Target runs” and “Boba runs”. Although these activities shown by the participants did increase report writing time, the average amount of stress present did significantly decrease (Fig. 3).

Although most of the day showed the expected pattern of attempts in decreasing levels of stress, there were times when that was not the case. For example, a participant was seen dropping their boba cup in their working space, causing an extreme amount of stress increase in a short period of time (Fig. 4). As shown, there was an intense conundrum and all the surrounding participants found it amusing, but the participants responsible were seen fleeing the scene. They soon returned to clean up their mess, and the floor is now spotless clean. Other examples of insanity are seen, ranging from random selfies to unfaithful signs written by the participants.

It is safe to assume that these participants are not in their right mind, and need sleep as a treatment. We are hoping to get this treatment out in 2 days.

Discussion

However, despite all that is going on at the moment, the participants have nothing but to say that SSP was one of the most amazing experiences so far in their lives (at least the one writing this does). I have learned so much from just 6 weeks, and despite all the struggles of writing the report and working in the lab, there is no doubt that SSP has changed my life both as a person and as a scientist. I don’t know what will happen to me on the last day, but there will definitely be tears in some form when I leave the life I have created at Purdue University. I truly believe that this experience will prove to be helpful in terms of future research and pursuing scientific studies in any further education this participant might take. Coming this far, I believe that the person on the first Sunday, walking into Honors College is so different from the person, on this Sunday, working on their blog instead of on writing their lab report . I will miss you guys all, and though it’s not over yet, thanks so much, especially to all the faculty and my lab group (Ya and Rut)! <3 

Experimental procedures 

Photos:

Taken using a camera on a phone – additional contributors: Daniel, Maya, and Natalie

Ok I can’t think of anything else to put here, I got tired and have to write my actual report

References

Hi guys, my name is Joseph and I’m a rising senior at Troy High School in Fullerton, California. Some of my hobbies include playing the cello and playing video games such as Tetris and Valorant. I also listen to a lot of music (mostly jazz, classical, and kpop) and being a part of the front ensemble in my marching band. Oh, and I also like science (I almost forgot about that one lol).

The post Evidence shows that “tomfoolery” decreases stress in participants who are writing lab reports first appeared on SSP International.

Yet, it’s only been 4 weeks. But those few weeks that seem so meager on paper have been densely packed with activity–quite literally there have been many days of sunup to sundown productivity, grinding away at assays or typing out obscure information about some Cdc protein in a trance. In fact, we can look to today as a model for what SSP has been like (just like U. maydis is a study model for all Ustilaginomycetes; shoutout to Payton and Eric you guys presented great today!): we started bright and early with 12 consecutive student presentations, which was promptly followed by an interesting lecture by Micah on Animal Crossing? Then followed by hours of computer work with MOE and the report without a single moment spent in the wet lab… So maybe today isn’t a good representation of the SSP experience, but maybe that should be expected. Yesterday’s closure of the wet lab marked not just a significant checkpoint in our projects (end of data acquisition), but also a transition towards data presentation–primarily in the form of our reports. So as the coming days menacingly approach us with the hours of report writing they have in store for us, we will keep our heads high and valiantly face off, holding close the hope of the new light (all-nighter party) that lies beyond the darkness (the hours before Monday 8:00 am). 

But what about what has happened so far? Is an anniversary not a celebration of what the present has become as a result of the things that’ve passed? Indeed, as I write this entry it’s been just hours over the exact anniversary–a month past the moment at which entered Honors North for the first time, welcomed by the long reception tables with name tags and Ms. Belote and her camera. Not to mention, of course, the orientation speech that Mr. Bowdon delivered just hours after to an audience of uncertain, unacquainted underlings oblivious to what lay ahead of them. And I’d love to continue delving deeper into early memories like when we sat on the gnat-infested grass as we met Mark for the first time or when we calibrated our pipettes with unfamiliar people at the then unfamiliar benches on the first day of lab, but I think I’ve got my point across: it’s been a long time (I guess I did roll away at memories after all lol). 

When I look at the current state of our program in this context, it’s hard to not look warily at the future, anxious about the inevitable end that’s to come. So let’s hold on dearly the remaining time we have together. ‘Cuz from here on out, the days we have left with each other can be summed up in just a single digit.

Hey guys! I’m Brian and I am a rising senior at Portola High School in the great city of Irvine in Southern California, the (objectively) best state. In my free time I enjoy drawing, watching anime, and exploring new academic topics.

The post Single Digits first appeared on SSP International.