After being canceled last summer due to COVID-19, North Park’s Summer Science Academy (Academy) is set to resume in-person under robust safety measures.
Since 2016, the summer enrichment experience led by Dr. Yoojin Choi has offered interactive, hands-on courses in biology, biomechanics, physics, chemistry, and psychology to high school students.
Designed to introduce students to college-level classes while nurturing their passion for science, the courses are taught by North Park’s full-time faculty members. North Park science students and recent alumni also have the opportunity to develop leadership skills through the Academy as teaching assistants.
“I have found that Summer Science Academy provides a venue for Chicago-area students from diverse backgrounds to come together and learn—students from selective-enrollment schools to charter
schools to neighborhood schools to suburb schools, from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, from freshmen to seniors,” said Dr. Choi.
Mira Cechova, a current North Park junior majoring in Biomedical Sciences and Psychology, appreciated the extra preparation before entering college. “I truly enjoyed attending Summer Science Academy and meeting the different professors. As a North Park student now, I already got to know in advance the professors that I would have.”
This summer’s Academy will be held July 12-16, and students have the opportunity to take Forensic Chemistry, Biomechanics of Body Movement, or Human Anatomy Boot Camp.
In Forensic Chemistry, students will get to learn the behind-the-scenes of popular crime television shows by participating in hands-on activities, such as collecting evidence, analyzing samples of blood, drug, glass, DNA, and ink, as well as learning techniques in fingerprinting and chromatography.
Through measuring human movement with video, 3-D motion capture, force plates, and accelerometers, students enrolled in Biomechanics of Body Movement will gain experience with interactions between physics and musculoskeletal anatomy as they relate to human movement in sports performance, injury prevention, and rehabilitation.
Aiming to excite students for careers in healthcare, Human Anatomy Bootcamp explores organ systems of the human body and their connections to nutrition through experiential learning with 3-dimensional models, virtual systems, and human cadavers in the state-of-the-art Johnson Center’s Cadaver Lab.
Taking necessary precautions, the University plans to closely monitor the pandemic situation both on campus as well as the surrounding area; based on this safety analysis, cancelation of the Summer Science Academy may occur.