Oak Forest HS AP Students Perform Collegiate Level Labs at EIU Visit

The OFHS AP Physics Class had no idea what was in store for them when they boarded a mini-Bengal bus driven by their AP Physics teacher, Stephen Hogan, headed early in the morning to Eastern Illinois University and the Natural Sciences Building, the home of the Physics Department.

Hogan, who had previously completed a Master’s of Sciences in Natural Sciences at Eastern Illinois University, planned to connect them to the EIU Physics Department Chair, Dr. Steven Daniels.

The 12 semi-sleepy AP Physics students woke up quickly when they arrived at the campus, safe and sound, a couple of hours later to be met by the people from the Admissions Department, who gave them a tour of the campus, focusing on the science offerings and all of the programs that Eastern Illinois University has to offer undergrad students. Students were really impressed with what they were shown.

Sophomore Sebastian Bocanegra said, “I’d never been on a college campus! I felt like a college student. [The Admissions Staff] gave you a college experience. I felt older. Eastern is something new that I want to explore more.”

The highlight of the tour is when they went to the physics department. Mr. Hogan said, “They worked on four different physics labs at the collegiate level and they took over three hours.” Mr. Hogan and the Department Chair, Dr. Steven Daniels, were their lab assistants.

It turns out that being in a real college lab environment is one of the favorite things that the students really liked doing on the campus of the University the most. Many students hadn’t ever been on a college campus and hadn’t ever been in the realm of a real college campus lab.

Marwan Salem said, “It was interesting to see university equipment vs. our equipment [at Oak Forest High School]. It was very advanced compared to ours. They have this spring-locked system and they can fire it the same way all the time in order to do that Launcher lab. That was something interesting and easily doable. It would be a little worrisome [doing it straight out of high school] but I think it will be okay once I get used to it.”

Mr. Hogan really wanted his students to realize that college science was not out of reach for his high school AP Physics class students at all. The students hadn’t even realized that until they were doing the labs and then they saw the inevitable progression of thought between the high school and college levels. Students didn’t feel like the labs they were doing were insurmountable or uncomfortably hard. They weren’t EASY, but they weren’t HARD.

The students did four collegiate level lab experiments in the actual college physics labs which both the AP students and Mr. Hogan were excited about doing. The labs they did were: determined the energy conversion of ballistic pendulum, the measurement of argon gas chromatography, the mechanical conversion of heat, and they determined the speed of light via experiment. Mr. Hogan said, “They got it right!”

Dr. Steven Daniels, EIU Physics Department Chair, said, “Well that was quite a trip and we’ll have to think about doing it again in future years. A lot of the kids were saying how comfortable they felt doing those labs with you at EIU, from the foundational experiences in my class and hence [felt] more prepared for collegiate style labs. That’s truly the ultimate goal right?”

Students did feel easier about actually completing college-level work after this experience. Sophomore Paola Perez said, “When you think of college you think that it is really difficult and different, but the labs weren’t as difficult as you thought.”

Sophomore Devin Kane said, “I thought the visit was pretty cool because college seems so far away. The campus seems so far away. The labs were pretty cool and the equipment was pretty advanced compared to the OF equipment. We were able to get more exact data. It was pretty cool.

Kane’s favorite lab experiment was an experiment where the students did an emissions spectra and then were able to observe the light photon emissions because he thought that was really cool.

One thing all of the physics students found amusing was that physics students and teachers all had a weird sense of humor. All throughout the school year, they had thought Mr. Hogan had been a strange breed of physics teacher, but it turns out, he is just as quirky as the rest of them.

The proof was right in front of them at the entrance to the physics building. At the entrance, there is a large Grecian statue/column that someone had put sunglasses on in an obvious attempt to make people laugh. It totally worked on the Oak Forest High School students.

Khushra Patel said, laughing, “My favorite thing was the statue with the sunglasses in front of the physics building!”