STEMing a Career at Lakeland: New STEM Lab

Lakeland Regional High School has opened its new science lab in the STEM wing for the 2019 to 2020 school year. The lab will enhance students science careers by exposing them to new technologies that typical high school students wouldn’t be able to get their hands on.

The new lab can truly benefit the students and their future careers.   Mr. Jared Ślusarczyk, teacher for the science research and chemistry classes, explained that students in LRHS’ new STEM program have a “much more competitive college application, better chances to be noticed by their professors, and in the end, be much more recognized by hiring managers during their search for career paths.”  The lab has the ability to spark a career.

Students will get tons of hands on time with technologies that most high schools can not provide.  These include GC-MS/FID, GC-FID/FID, and UV-Vis and light spectrophotometer which are all complicated and expensive scientific technologies that students will learn to use.

This program will also take students on a multitude of trips to some of the most well known medical and chemical companies in the world such as Johnson & Johnson, Stryker, BASF, and Colgate.  Students will also get to work with these companies on some of their projects, on top of participating in seminars with colleges.

“To this point, students are shocked to be able to take part in such a course,” Mr. Ślusarczyk responded when asked about what he thinks students see in this new lab and the opportunities it opens.

The lab is used by students in the Bio-Medical & Research Sciences track of UPAL (University Programs At Lakeland).  UPAL is a program in which 8th grade students must apply to get into as freshmen at LRHS which offers many tracks and college credits through its course. The four year track in the lab allows for students to become acquainted with the lab during freshman year and propose an individual study to work on from sophomore through senior year.  This study can spark new interests in fields students may never have heard of coming into high school. 

Apart from the UPAL, LRHS students in Science Research 1 through 4 also use the new STEM lab. 

Some of the topics currently being studied by LRHS students are plastic decomposition byproducts entering our food systems, blue light impact on mice, and indoor air quality.  All of these studies and more are showcased at competitions.

Whether this is a program that students joined to fill space in their schedule or they truly had an interest in the biomedical field, this new lab will impact their interest in science forever.