July 18, 2005

The day began with a talk from guest lecturer Roger Harris, an employee at Sigma Xi: the Scientific Research Society. He discussed the purpose his company serves in the long process of scientific research: to explain the science and scientific research to the people who fund research and award scientific grants. These people include members of corporations, legislators, and others. His goal was to show the class that science needs not only researchers, but those people who can explain the research to people who have little or no background in science.

Next, the class was introduced to a modeling program called NetLogo. At first, the students observed pre-made models such as those simulating the spread of disease. Next, the class began to build its own models using NetLogo, and in the process learned more about scientific programming. The students were challenged to design a model in which all of their 'turtles' migrated to the highest level of a patch. Each group took its turn presenting their solution to the problem.

After lunch Matt Lathrop, the Mentor Center Director, came in and talked about the opportunities available at Shodor for students who complete the Scholars Program. Many of the students seemed interested in the idea of Apprenticeships and Internships at Shodor.

Then the class was introduced to a new programming language, Perl. Initially they built very simple programs as they learned programming tips and specifics commands in the Perl language. Again they were allowed to experiment with Perl on their own. Eventually they broke into a discussion of how the Perl can be useful in scientific programming.

In one short day the class got an overview of two programming languages: NetLogo and Perl.