Stonehill Science Saturdays

March 11, 2008

Providing Advanced Placement Labs for High School Students
On a rainy Saturday morning in March, Miriam Baradgi, a sophomore at Brockton High School, is fitting the delicate stem of a leafy green bean plant into a slim tube of water in the biology laboratory at the College's Merkert-Tracy Science Center.

Lab Instructor Steve Dacey (left), himself a Stonehill graduate, is explaining the details of the experiment to Baradgi and 17 other high school students, who are about to learn how wind, humidity and heat affect a plant's ability to absorb water.

Baradgi just turned 16 and hopes to study neuropsychology. She appreciates the opportunity to spend her Saturday mornings in a college laboratory.

Feeling Like Scientists
"We do similar labs in high school, but you get a better feel of it here," explained Baradgi. "You're feeling the lab experience and you're loving it. You don't feel like a student, you feel like a scientist."

Since September, 47 students from Brockton High School, Randolph High School and Coyle and Cassidy High School in Taunton have been traveling to Stonehill on Saturdays to complete labs for their high school courses in Advanced Placement biology and chemistry.  more...