By Phoebe Doscher, News Editor
Students presented various research projects as a part of the 11th Annual Celebration, a Colloquium on Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity on Friday, May 3 in Bream Gym. Celebration 2019 included 200 students from 20 different disciplines who shared their projects with posters and conversation.
Students presented on education projects, science research, economics, Kolbe Summer Research and more. Guided by 62 faculty mentors, every project was unique and a valuable learning experience.
Cat Schnarr ‘21 shared her learned collaboration and adaptation while working with children in a weeks-long education psychology project. “The most important thing I learned was that the levels of development are so different in kids; you can’t put a number to it. Teaching is not going to the highest level–it’s teaching on the same level and making sure they’re okay.”
Cat Schnarr ’21 presented for her education psychology class (Photo Phoebe Doscher/The Gettysburgian)
Schnarr and her partners worked with the young students on a play which they thought of the characters and plot while creating the set and acting for families at the end of the sessions. Schnarr also learned that students are not going to be motivated to work unless they have the ability to make choices and to have creative liberty.
Similarly, Allie Charney ‘22 and Brian Buechele ‘22 were a part of an education psychology team that used five weeks of sports to track students’ social and cognitive development. Charney benefitted from the comprehensive lab exposure.
“It was a great experience to apply what we learned in the classroom in a teaching setting,” she said.
Brian Buechele ’22 and Allie Charney ’22 spent five weeks playing sports with children to track their cognitive development for their education psychology class (Photo Phoebe Doscher/The Gettysburgian)
Buechele agreed that the research project in a real-life application was a valuable experience, “This experience really helped me to get an understanding of what it means to be a teacher and understand my career path through an activity that’s close to my heart—sports.”
Along with education presentations came various economic department projects, including Luca Menicali ‘19, who presented “Fiscal Policy Upon Exit from a Monetary Union: A DSGE approach.”
Luca Menicali ’19 conducted research through the economics department (Photo Phoebe Doscher/The Gettysburgian)
Menicali was especially appreciative of the Celebration event for allowing him to explain his research to those outside of the economics community, “It’s a wonderful opportunity to show the work I’ve done in the past year and not only explain to fellow economics people but now explain to residents, professors, and friends to show what I’ve done which I’m really proud of.”
Alex Paredes ‘20, biochemistry and molecular biology major, was also proud of his collaborative research project through the chemistry department and learned a lot of important skills along the way, “[The experience is] a lot more than just research. Sometimes things go wrong, which is great. I’ve become a lot better at accepting things go wrong.”
Alex Paredes ’20 learned perseverance and patience while doing chemistry research (Photo Phoebe Doscher/The Gettysburgian)
Paredes recommends that every student should experience Gettysburg’s unique research experience at least once in their undergraduate careers. He said that research is conducive to freedom, where you can have “one-on-one conversation with professors and be free to suggest ideas. It puts you out there. You learn to fall and get back up.”
