The Pfahl Semester

Dr. Michael Torrence

Dr. Michael Torrence is the Vice President of Academic Affairs at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, Tennessee. He is involved with student support services and maintains an immense dedication to providing outstanding education to each and every student, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, socioeconomic status, or any other categorical class a person could be put into.

Kat Slagell

Stage managers could one day rule the world with their calm and collected nature, and Kat Slagell is one of the best in the industry. I sat with her to discuss her background at conservatory, what it's like to travel, and what the average person can enjoy about opera.

Omar Peña

How do you fit 3D printing into the curriculum of a 70 year old scientific center? I met with a Maker Space Educator in the Innovation Incubator at the Adventure Science Center to find out.

Julie Ezold

How do you inspire children to find elements and nuclear chemistry interesting? How do you present complicated information in an engaging way, and how do you captivate audiences to appreciate science, technology, engineering, art, and math subjects? In the summer of 2017, I visited the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in East Tennessee to learn more about their facility. Recently, the lab collaborated with international scientific organizations to create a new element - which has since been named Tennessine after the contribution of the individuals working at the lab. I was fortunate enough to meet with one of these individuals, Julie Ezold - the Californium-252 program manager at the facility. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has played an integral role in nuclear research, from The Manhattan Project in the 1940s to the modern day synthesis of superheavy elements. The lab contains some of the most sophisticated and expensive equipment in the world, and I wanted to know more about what exactly a superheavy element is, what services the facility offers, and how they're working with schools and communities to teach us about science. These questions and more were addressed in my conversation with Julie G. Ezold, the Cf-252 Program Manager at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 1. Actinides [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=actinide] 2. Californium-252 [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=californium+252] 3. High Flux Isotope Reactor [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Flux_Isotope_Reactor] 4. Tennessine [https://www.ornl.gov/news/tennessine-acknowledges-state-institutions-roles-element-s-discovery] 5. Joint Institute for Advanced Materials [http://jiam.utk.edu/] 6. Glenn Seaborg [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Glenn+Seaborg] 7. Yuri Oganessian [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Oganessian] 8. Hot Cell Facility [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_cell] 9. ORNL Internship [http://www.orau.org/ornl/undergraduates/] 10. US D.O.E Office of Sciences [https://science.energy.gov/] 11. Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science [https://www.aldacenter.org/AKLC] 12. Element 117 (Lawrence Livermore National Lab Video) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cma-AjOUplU] 13. Nuclear Grand Challenges [http://www.ans.org/challenges/] 14. Pint of Science [https://pintofscience.com/] 15. Eclipse 2017 with ORNL at TTU [https://www.tntech.edu/news/releases/ornl-traveling-science-fair-to-join-tech-eclipse-fest] 16. USA Science & Engineering Festival [https://usasciencefestival.org/] 17. STEM to STEAM [http://stemtosteam.org/] 18. The Muse Knoxville [http://www.themuseknoxville.org/]

Introductory Class

This introductory class outlines what to expect for the series, host Jonathan Pfahl's goal for education, and poses difficult questions about society and pedagogy.