Baton Rouge – Students at the Abramson Science & Technology Charter School in New Orleans were one of only two schools in Louisiana and the only one in New Orleans to participate in the finals of an international science competition last May. This year, the students are preparing new science projects, hoping to compete in more science competitions and bring larger awards to the state.
Abramson is a K-12 program that gives students a math and science-based education with a focus on using state-of-the-art technology. Students work collaboratively with universities and are mentored by experienced scientists to enter national and international science project competitions. The school formed at the site of Marion Abramson Senior High School in New Orleans east. Hurricane Katrina extensively damaged this part of the city, and the charter school is a way to rebuild the education infrastructure in the area.
This new concept for education was developed through a workgroup comprised of LSU, Southern University and Southeastern Louisiana University and led by Tevfik Kosar, an LSU professor in the Department of Computer Science and at the Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT. The group received approval in January 2007 from the State Board of Elementary & Secondary Education to begin the first school in the New Orleans area, and students began attending the school in Fall 2007.
In its first year, Abramson students participated in the finals of the International Sustainable World, Energy, Engineering and Environment Project Olympiad, or ISWEEP’08, which took place in Houston, Texas in May 2008. More than 600 participants from 50 countries participated in ISWEEP’08.
“This was a very big accomplishment, considering this was only the first year of the school,” Kosar said. “ This year, we are getting better prepared so we can compete again. We showed that students from New Orleans can compete with international students in math, science and engineering, so this year, we hope to bring really big awards to the school and to the state.”
Abramson joined last year’s competition with four projects, two of which were selected for the finals, with one winning the honorable mention. Kosar, along with Orhan Kizilkaya, a research scientist at the LSU Center for Advanced Microstructures & Devices (CAMD), and two LSU CCT/computer science graduate students partnered with the Abramson high school students and teachers, mentoring these four projects from the beginning to the end.
The student projects covered a multitude of computational science and technology-related topics. One project aimed to improve hurricane awareness among high-school students while teaching them how to use the state-of-the-art Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, or LONI, high-performance computing resources in Louisiana, as well as computational science tools that predict possible local effects of an approaching hurricane. Other student projects involved parallel computing and data throughput optimization on LONI as well as microspectroscopy experiment studying the interaction between the fungi and plant leaves.
“The science and technology-based model we are using at Abramson is a very successful model,” Kosar said. “According to recent research, kids who get exposed to math, science and technology at very early ages become more successful in those and other academic fields as well. Schools implementing similar models in neighboring states such as Texas and Oklahoma have become the most successful schools in their states in a very short amount of time. I am very positive that we will be one of the best schools in New Orleans in the very near future. We also have plans to replicate the same charter school model in other cities in Louisiana, such as Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport.”
This year, Abramson students have started preparing for the science competitions much earlier and are working with university collaborators to develop state-of-the-art projects so they can compete in the city- and statewide as well as international science competitions.
Some competitions the Abramson students plan to enter include the New Orleans City Science Fair, Louisiana State Science Fair, ISWEEP ’09 and the Intel International Science Fair.
For more information, please contact CCT Manager of Public Relations Kristen Sunde at 225-578-3469.
Abramson is a K-12 program that gives students a math and science-based education with a focus on using state-of-the-art technology. Students work collaboratively with universities and are mentored by experienced scientists to enter national and international science project competitions. The school formed at the site of Marion Abramson Senior High School in New Orleans east. Hurricane Katrina extensively damaged this part of the city, and the charter school is a way to rebuild the education infrastructure in the area.
This new concept for education was developed through a workgroup comprised of LSU, Southern University and Southeastern Louisiana University and led by Tevfik Kosar, an LSU professor in the Department of Computer Science and at the Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT. The group received approval in January 2007 from the State Board of Elementary & Secondary Education to begin the first school in the New Orleans area, and students began attending the school in Fall 2007.
In its first year, Abramson students participated in the finals of the International Sustainable World, Energy, Engineering and Environment Project Olympiad, or ISWEEP’08, which took place in Houston, Texas in May 2008. More than 600 participants from 50 countries participated in ISWEEP’08.
“This was a very big accomplishment, considering this was only the first year of the school,” Kosar said. “ This year, we are getting better prepared so we can compete again. We showed that students from New Orleans can compete with international students in math, science and engineering, so this year, we hope to bring really big awards to the school and to the state.”
Abramson joined last year’s competition with four projects, two of which were selected for the finals, with one winning the honorable mention. Kosar, along with Orhan Kizilkaya, a research scientist at the LSU Center for Advanced Microstructures & Devices (CAMD), and two LSU CCT/computer science graduate students partnered with the Abramson high school students and teachers, mentoring these four projects from the beginning to the end.
The student projects covered a multitude of computational science and technology-related topics. One project aimed to improve hurricane awareness among high-school students while teaching them how to use the state-of-the-art Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, or LONI, high-performance computing resources in Louisiana, as well as computational science tools that predict possible local effects of an approaching hurricane. Other student projects involved parallel computing and data throughput optimization on LONI as well as microspectroscopy experiment studying the interaction between the fungi and plant leaves.
“The science and technology-based model we are using at Abramson is a very successful model,” Kosar said. “According to recent research, kids who get exposed to math, science and technology at very early ages become more successful in those and other academic fields as well. Schools implementing similar models in neighboring states such as Texas and Oklahoma have become the most successful schools in their states in a very short amount of time. I am very positive that we will be one of the best schools in New Orleans in the very near future. We also have plans to replicate the same charter school model in other cities in Louisiana, such as Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport.”
This year, Abramson students have started preparing for the science competitions much earlier and are working with university collaborators to develop state-of-the-art projects so they can compete in the city- and statewide as well as international science competitions.
Some competitions the Abramson students plan to enter include the New Orleans City Science Fair, Louisiana State Science Fair, ISWEEP ’09 and the Intel International Science Fair.
For more information, please contact CCT Manager of Public Relations Kristen Sunde at 225-578-3469.
Publish Date:
10-29-2008
