TonyEnglishDayThreeCamp

National Science Foundation and
The University of Tennessee

Science and Engineering
Summer Camp
for Coal Creek Students
July 5to July 8, 2004

Day 3: FROZEN STIFF AT SUMMER CAMP
While UT students fought the heat walking between classes, Lake City Middle School students learned about cryogenics…. the study of how to get to low temperatures and how materials behave when they get there. Dry ice (i.e. solid phase carbon dioxide) and liquid nitrogen were used to freeze different materials like plastic, rubber, and latex in UT’s biomedical engineering lab. Observations were then made as the materials thawed during the third day of Coal Creek Science and Engineering Summer Camp.
	A sample of synthetic tissue manufactured and frozen during the first day of camp was slowly thawed. Gradual lowering of temperature for storage and then gradual raising of temperature before use are how biomedical engineers preserve synthetic tissue. Students got to see how synthetic tissues manufactured in a lab in Tennessee could be preserved for transportation and application to injured burn patients in another state or country.
Journalist Kiernan Archer from the Clinton Courier-News participated in the experiments. She agreed that this summer camp was definitely “cool”, especially during the cryogenics experiments.
	Tomorrow, students will develop a web page to publish their results, just like they will do when they become world famous researchers someday and want to share their results with their peers.
Click on image to enlarge:
	Dr. Tony English pours liquid nitrogen from a container... always a crowd favorite!

	All A.J. wants for Christmas is a block of dry ice.
	Emily, Brittany, and Drew give J.J. a cold stare when he asks them to try on his frozen latex glove.
	A.J. frozen stiff while playing with dry ice, thaws.

Grant offers "ice" tea, but got no takers.	Emily, Brittany, J.J., Nathaniel and Michael take turns freezing balloons in liquid nitrogen.
	Michael shows how his balloon, shriveled when frozen, comes to life as it thaws.