Schedule

• Session 1 (June 9 - 27, 2025) and Session 2 (July 7 - 25, 2025)
• Synchronous time: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 9 to 10 p.m. ET

Description

This seminar is for students interested in conducting experimental research in one of the physical sciences (chemistry, physics, biology, etc.) or engineering (chemical, materials, electrical, environmental, mechanical, nuclear, biomedical, etc.). The empirical methods taught in this seminar apply to any situation in which you want to make an improvement in some product or process and have full control of the factors you suppose might enable you to make the improvement. For example, you might want to improve:

• A medicine's potency through changing its delivery system, manufacturing processing conditions, and chemical composition
• The taste of a chocolate chip cookie by altering baking time and temperature, and amounts of salt, butter, and vanilla
• The strength of a building material by varying the composition of its filler material, the annealing time of the material, and the type of metal added to the material
• The yield of a manufacturing process by changing the temperature, pH, and catalyst type
• A crop's resistance to insects by varying four different parts of the plant's genome
• The charging capacity of a battery by switching out its membrane material, membrane thickness, anode material, and electrolyte solution concentration

Expected learning outcomes

During the seminar, we will develop the skills to think critically, analyze data, and draw conclusions. Specifically, we will focus on:

• Using experimental data to either accept or reject hypotheses generated within the framework of the scientific method
• Evaluating random experimental error and using it in the determination of the validity of your hypothesis
• Designing experiments to gain the most amount of information while running the fewest number of trials
• Randomizing and blocking experiments to avoid bias in the estimate of the effects of independent variables
• Incorporating multiple independent variables in a set of experiments in a way that allows the experimenter to determine the individual effect of each variable on a dependent variable as well as the effect of the interaction between independent variables

Some, but not all of the topics in this course are part of the AP statistics curriculum. Students should have completed at least one year of algebra before taking this course. Calculus is not required.