CNY Science and Engineering Fair Featured on WCNY

Donna Korol, associate professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Charles Driscoll, University Professor of Environmental Systems in the College of Engineering, were featured in a WCNY story about young scientists and engineers.

CNY holds a science fair for students in 4-12th grade interested in science and engineering to participate in. A fair where students from any school, teachers and scientists come together. Professor Driscoll says, “We want them [high school students] to learn how science is really done, for them to learn about how to make measurements, how to make interpret those measurements, present it to audiences that aren’t very knowledgeable, so we try to teach them.””We’ve [College of Arts and Science] got a really good record of high school students coming in and going into science and engineering and that’s what we want. We want science kids to stay jazzed about science and engineering and go on and do good things,” he says.

Professor Korol states, “I think science fairs normalize science, which I think is really important cause I think one of my probably life goals is to make all of us scientists, citizen scientists, so that we’re all comfortable with what we mean by science. Again, I think, science isn’t this special thing that’s this compartment reserved for special people who think a certain way, it’s kind of a life long process in terms of problem solving and i think this fairs actually foster that idea and encourage the idea that science is all around us and in us and to embrace it as a kind of a way of being and thinking as imposed to this special thing for special people. So, I think it really promotes this way of thinking that access to science is open to a broad diverse group of people and that it brings together students from different schools…I actually think it actually can give us a cross-cultural lens to look through as well. Again, we think of arts and media doing that in entertainment, but I think science can do it as well.”