Urban League Summer Camp: Day 7

Today was rainy - which I have no problem with (I came prepared), but I had a sneaking suspicion that the kids probably did not think to bring rain coats or umbrellas... So, since we were going to visit the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences today anyways, I met them in the breezeway between 7A and 7B to spare them the rest of the rainy distance. From there, we met Prof. Michael Peres, who showed us around a bunch of the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences!

We started out in the Biomed Photo lab, where Prof. Peres talked about what the meaning of "photography" is.

Then we toured a bunch of the photo school facilities. This is one of the shooting studios, which is painted all black to absorb any stray light.

Then we visited the north light room, which has a huge window that allows you to use natural light for photography. Or, you can pull the huge black velvet curtains and use artificial light. OR, you could use a combination of the two.

A nice group picture in the north light room.

We all got on board a huge elevator to ride down a floor - this thing is capable of bringing up cars!

After checking out a few more labs and the cage, we returned to the biomed photo lab, where Prof. Peres showed some example photographs. These are photomicrographs of a monkey fetus.

We also got another look at polarization. Here, polarized light is used to view stress in a lens. The pattern being formed is called a "Maltese Cross".

Then we used a camera hooked up to a microscope to view a human hair (with split ends).

Here we used a differenti

al interferen
ce microscope to view a dime.

We also got the opportunity to look through a microscope at tiny Abe in the Lincoln Memorial on the back of a penny, and the signature line on a check (which actually isn't a line at all, just tiny letters spelling "AUTHORIZED SIGNATURE" over and over - no joke!).

Here we melted a chemical (cholester

ol sulfate, I think) on a hot plate, then watched it re-solidif
y under the microscope. It formed beautiful crystals... But only when viewed through a polarizer! See the Maltese Cross patterns again?

We were plagued with a few technical difficulties today... The computers wouldn't allow us to log in to be able to make our own photomicrographs, and my camera ran out of battery and wouldn't take any more pictures. So we called it a day and let the kids go about 20 minutes early. Luckily the kids told me they had a lot of fun today, anyway! On a side note, Sterling had more babies with him today... Maybe he's forgotten about the poor one being ransomed.

Prof. Peres gave each of us a copy of the book Images from Science: An exhibition of Scientific Photography. It is stunning! (Although there are a couple biomed images in there that make my stomach turn a little bit... There's a good reason I did not become any kind of biologist.) I know at least one of the students was more interested in photography vs. imaging science, so hopefully today was extra helpful to at least one of the kids!