​Lincoln-Way East Argonne Research Team Spends Day At Argonne

FRANKFORT, IL — The Lincoln-Way East Exemplary Student Research Program team spent a day at Argonne National Laboratory recently. The school said the team created an abstract, met with their scientist at Argonne, revised the details of the experiment, completed a battery of procedural and safety trainings, secured and prepared samples and then conducted the experiment using the particle accelerator, the Advanced Photon Source.

Students also participated in a technical lecture by Argonne scientist, Dr. Tianpin Wu, on the details of how the APS worked, how data would be collected/reported, and then the process of interpreting the data. According to the school, the students then formed a conclusion and created their poster, which will be presented on May 7.

East’s team, along with about 100 other doctoral, post-doctoral, and professional scientists, and the other seven high school teams, will present the poster to the APS scientists at Argonne. The school said the project will be in the 2019 catalog of projects for Argonne National Laboratory because the project yielded conclusive results.

This project began in August with Lincoln-Way East being paired up with an Argonne beamline scientist based on their proposal for an experiment. The team of eight was selected from approximately 70 applicants who have declared they want to pursue a career in science.

“This is a tremendous experience for a doctoral or post-doctoral student, let alone a high school student. Argonne National Laboratory is the only U.S. Department of Energy facility that permits high school students an opportunity to perform research,” said Benjamin Voliva, Chemistry teacher at Lincoln-Way East.