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Approximately 100 students from Hattiesburg High School and Forrest County Agricultural
High School (FCAHS) toured the University of Southern Mississippi's science research
facilities, learned about polymers, participated in hands-on demonstrations and engaged in
laboratory activities with Southern Miss faculty and graduate students through the universities
Bayer Materials Science high school program. Graduate students in polymer science and biology
at the university had been working with these students through a five year, 2.5 million
dollar National Science Foundation grant. The grant supports an outreach initiative,
in which the graduate students bring their expertise in the area high school classrooms
spending 10 hours a week sharing their research through demonstrations, lab activities, and
projects. Students are seeing people who look like them,
dress like them, talk like them, know technology like them, and they are scientist.
Well, we're learning about proteins and phospholipids and how they can relate to polymers and how
they help each other out. They work together, and they can combine and stuff like that.
Science can be fun and entertaining. So, my graduate research here involves modifying
high performance skis and snowboards. Most people don't really associate that with chemistry,
physics, or science. And so, what I try to do is I try to show them real people can become
scientist, and you can bring your passion into it. It's not just being in a lab mixing
beakers. On the campus of the University of Southern
Mississippi in Hattiesburg, I'm Steven Rouse.