Students from Woodland Community College were invited for an immersion day on campus! The goal of this event was to introduce the idea of graduate school and conducting research to the students. 

Students learned about ongoing avian research and conservation efforts at the California Raptor Center. 

​Next, our students attended a Graduate Student Panel and learned about the journey of two current graduate students at UCD, Camilo Echeverria and Angelica Carranza. Both graduate students had previously attended community college and gave a unique insight to the Woodland students. 

Our first lab tour began at the Sean Collins lab in the department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. Current graduate student, Diana Sernas, gave a brief presentation on the ongoing research of the lab, showed the powerful microscopes used, and showed off their lab space! For many students, this was their first time stepping into a lab. 

We took the students to explore Shields library and to a 500-student lecture room. Many students had never seen a lecture room of this size!

To end our day, we toured the Shock Compression lab in the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Current project scientist, Dylan Spaulding guided our tour. Students learned about the ongoing research of the lab, had first hand experience of seeing the extremely large canons used by the lab, and held different projectiles used in previous experiments. 

A special thanks to Dr. Lorena Navarro, MESA director at Woodland CC and to our funding sources: Graduate and Professional Student (GAPS) grant and Beyond Tolerance grant.

5th and 6th grade students became engineers for a day! The problem they tackled: Getting a ball into a bucket. Solution: Make a catapult! Beamer Elementary students used popsicle sticks, rubber bands, cardboard, and teamwork to create a catapult. We also taught them about the differences between accuracy and precision. 

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Register here: ​https://ucdavis.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwpfu6hrTMrHdAqE4UK9OVCBGFngwjmazHU