URSCA: Creating public art in Danville

Bloomsburg University student Jo Thomson Pennypacker is creating a vast mural in Danville to celebrate that town's heritage as an iron producer.

Public organizations will be involved in the project at these times:

Wednesday, July 10, 3 to 7 pm 
Danville Area School District students and parents paint day with assistance of art teachers Jessica Noel (Lower Elementary Art Teacher) and Megan Heistand (Danville Middle School Art teacher). Rain date July 17.

Sat, July 13, 10 am to 2 pm
Open to the Public Paint Day *(alternate location in case of rain)

During Iron Heritage Festival Days: Thursday, July 18, 3 to 6 pm.
Open to the Public Paint Day (no alternate rain date)

Saturday, July 27, 10 am to 2 pm.Open to the Public Paint Day*(alternate location in case of rain)

The location will be the mural paint shed and tent on the north side of the Cole's Hardware in Danville.
*Alternate rain location for the two Saturday paint days will be inside the warehouse at Henry Voelcker Inc at 346-352 Ferry Steet or other specified location if necessary.

Volunteers will also be needed for the installation of the mural at the end of July to early August.

Project Sponsors: Danville Business Alliance, Henry Voelcker Inc (location for painting inside).
Location for mural paint days and project materials provided by Cole's Hardware of Danville,
Shed provided by Rocky Mountain Structures LLC www.rockymtnsheds.com,
Mural site at Route 11 and Mill Street by Royal Nails Salon, wall prep provided by Miller Bros Construction. Mural funding by Service First Bank, Merck, Bloomsburg University URSCA program.

Student studies bee ecology in Turkey

Corey Bower (pictured at left during his
2013 REU travels), a senior biology major at Bloomsburg University, is member of a team of undergraduate researchers in Greece and the Republic of Turkey.

After a three-day Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) mini-course in Oklahoma, students and faculty traveled to Istanbul to start an eight-week research expedition that studies the integrative biology of bees in Mediterranean habitats. Our team focuses on research significant to the recent phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has struck Europe and America. The team will be studying the taxonomy of potential alternate native pollinators and how environmental factors and stress affect foraging behavior of bees. Studies will take place in Canakkale (Turkey), Lesvos (Greece) and Bursa (Turkey).

Appreciating the Language and the Culture

Learning the language and culture of the people we will be collaborating with helps us broaden our understanding and perspective to be better team players. Immediately after disembarking from the plane, you know you’re not “in Kansas anymore”… or in our case, not in Oklahoma anymore. Our first night was in Istanbul, a city that is a true melting pot of cultures from the west and east and offers Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Turkish influences (Blue Mosque pictured).

Our second night was in Canakkale, a city at the Hellespont (Dardenelles), a place of strategic importance from the times of the Trojan War to the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I (Trojan Horse from the 2004 movie Troy pictured). On Sunday June 9th, we toured the archeological site of Troy in the morning and the Gallipoli Memorial in the afternoon. What an amazing amount of history and culture in a 60-minute radius!


— Corey Bower 

URSCA: Student researchers hone scholarship skills

Students (pictured outside of Carver Hall) in the Undergraduate Research Scholarship and Creative Activities summer program bonded during their three-day training workshop in May. The workshop emphasized fundamental professional skills, ranging from responsible conduct of research to publishing research, that students will use to complete their projects. Over the 12-week summer session, students are supported by the URSCA Award to complete their projects. This year's research, scholarly, and creative projects are diverse and include the cellular and molecular biology of sperm, water chemistry of the Susquehanna River, behavioral research on diet-exercise-addictive response relationships, social surveys of the Bloomsburg community, audiology and speech pathology, and a mural painting for Danville's downtown. Since the workshop, students are working closely with their faculty mentors for excellent one-on-one individualized learning experiences tailored to the interests of the students.

URSCA: Exploring music, language and culture

For 31 BU students, summer will be a time for exploration, research and creativity. These students have been awarded stipends to participate in research, scholarship, or creative activities with faculty mentors through BU's Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (URSCA) program.

While many of the projects will be focused in science labs, others will take students into the community. Student Dan Copes will travel to China to study the effects of music on language and culture. Copes performed with the Chinese Club at BU's annual International Banquet in April.

Lets get a good look at those atoms

If you look at them really closely, what do atoms look like?

Physics and engineering technology professors John Huckans and Ju Xin, along with a group of about a dozen students are working on a project to find out.

Working with the professors, the students are learning the techniques to bring rubidium atoms to an extremely low temperature (100 microKelvin), where quantum mechanical properties of the atoms are more easily observed. The atoms will be cooled and held in place by laser beams and magnetic coils within an ultra-high vacuum system. Absorption images of ultracold atom clouds will be captured with a digital camera at near-infrared wavelengths.

The top photo shows the instrument — machined metal, hoses and clamps — that the group is constructing to observe the rubidium atoms.

The second photo shows the plan of the project on the lab's blackboard. Below that Huckans talks to the team at a regular 8:30 am group meeting. The next two photos are details of the instrument.

When it's all finished, maybe we'll be able to post the absorption images here.