Month: February 2020

History of OSU Project

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The aspect I appreciated most about this project was the freedom to choose any OSU history topic we were interested in. Doing the project specifically about OSU brought a sense of pride into being a Buckeye while hearing about the subjects everyone else in the class did. In addition, I liked feeling like I got to know some of my fellow classmates better by listening to what they found interesting enough to research themselves.

I was part of the group that did the all-women Antarctica expedition, and I think it worked well to have a group of us doing one big event, so we could tell the story cohesively, while focusing on the aspects of the trip we individually found interesting. We each recorded our parts individually, then put them together in a predetermined order to make one story. I think we lucked out in being able to find sources because the anniversary of the trip was just this past year, otherwise I’m not sure we would have found enough info to make this one trip our whole project, and we maybe could have expanded more.

As far as looking forward to the History of Science in Europe project, I think I will look into making a rough draft “script” for Ada Lovelace’s story, that way I know exactly where I need to go or need to film while in London, to ensure I get everything I need to while abroad.

History of OSU Project

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Researching Dr. Bowen became a little difficult when I realized there was not much information about what she had done outside of her time at the university. Although I didn’t stray too far from her time here, I tried to dive a little deeper when researching her by looking up her time serving for the Vietnam War as well as her time in the military in general. There also wasn’t much information on her time in Harlem, New York so I tried to see if I could find any more specifics. Overall though, I enjoyed researching someone closely related to the university for this project because it makes the community feel a little bit closer in a way. Understanding a bit of the history here helps put things into perspective of where the innovations for the university have led us.

For the other presentations, I really enjoyed Gabby’s research topic. I have cats at home so it was interesting to learn about someone who became a major part of the history for many cats’ health and well-being. I also thought her audio was easy to listen to and understand so that helped out quite a bit with retaining the information as well. I also really liked Ivana’s presentation; it was short and to the point, while also including a good amount of valuable information on her topic. The ambulance sound effect was also appreciated. Lastly, I also thought the presentations with the interviews were interesting. It was really cool to hear a first hand view of the topics being presented as well as gain knowledge that maybe would not have been found on the internet.

Dr. Samir Mathur

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I found this talk very interesting as I have always found black holes very interesting. The most interesting thing to me is how much scientists still don’t know about them and the amount of progress that has been made. It’s like we know so much, but still so little. Dr. Samir Mathur did such a great job of helping us to understand the things we do know about black holes and it was clear how passionate he is about his work. I feel like I learned more during this talk than any high school physics class.

Dr. Samir Mathur

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I have been looking forward to this talk for a while since I saw information on Dr. Mathur’s research on the 150 innovations website. It’s pretty funny that they didn’t let him know that he was on the website, I would think they would send him an email or something. I have been fascinated by black holes and space for some time now. Growing up, my dad and I loved watching the movie Apollo 13 together. Every time that I’ve tried to learn what exactly a black hole is I would end up being confused so it was comforting knowing that even some of the greatest scientists in history didn’t exactly know how a black hole works. I also looked into String Theory a couple of times and I thought Dr. Mathur explained it very simply. I think it is very cool that we have a researcher like him on our campus, here, at Ohio State.

Dr. Douglas Kinghorn

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First, I thought it was cool to listen to a talk from someone who was from England. His tips on crossing the roads in Britain and checking out the botanical gardens were informative. Everyone of our speakers thus far has been really into what they study, and you could tell the same applied to Dr. Kinghorn.

To me, the most interesting fact he said was that heroin was used medicinally for a brief period of time. When it comes to medicinal plants it seems that over time we have adopted the trial and error method in order to figure if these chemicals in plants could be beneficial to us. It seems like this field will always be expanding as we find new uses for the chemicals that we find in plants. For example, marijuana, which has always been associated in a negative way is now being used to treat muscle soreness through the chemical compound of CBD. It’s interesting because right before the talk I had just read something online about how investing in companies that make medicinal products from marijuana could yield very high returns.

Creation Movie Reflection

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The movie started off really interesting by going over the experiment of taking 3 “savage” children from their homes and tried to teach them civilized manors and Christian beliefs. They believed that if they returned the children back to their home that they would teach the other people in their community. But as soon as they brought the children back, the children went back to their old ways. I also completely forgot that this was in the time where science v. religion was in full force, so this kind of relates back to class discussions of how it can be hard for people to believe in new ideas because they go against everything they were taught their whole life, so I can see during this time why there was such turmoil when all of these new findings came out.

I also didn’t realize that Darwin studied monkeys. This makes a ton of sense due to monkeys evolving into humans and potentially the start of his theory. With this, I like how the movie shows his struggles with his discoveries, from losing his monkey friend to the church hurting his daughter for his beliefs, and also his struggle with his health.

Overall I really liked how this film was made. It gave a good insight into how Darwin came to his conclusions but also the struggles of this discovery. He had a constant battle of believing in God or his theory. This struggle related to the whole religion v. science debate that was in full force during this time. I think this discussion is still in the debate even today!