News

Elizabethtown College Celebrates Mobile Science Program with
Local Educators and Legislators

March 19, 2009 ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. –
On Thursday, March 12^th, legislators, local school leaders and college administrators came together on the Elizabethtown campus to launch the new Science in Motion program. Attending for the State Department of Education was Ms. Patti Vathis, who was instrumental in administering the program to include Elizabethtown College and representatives of Senators Folmer and Smucker. Also attending the launch were representatives of Elizabethtown, Pottsville and Lancaster school districts. Dr. Ted Long welcomed guests, which included students from Elizabethtown High School. The high school students performed experiments (extracting DNA from a strawberry) for the crowd using some high-tech equipment that is part of the program.

The Science in Motion program is funded through a state grant created by state legislators and awarded by the Department of Education. The Elizabethtown College Science in Motion vehicle will travel throughout Lancaster, Lebanon, Schuylkill and Berks counties, providing science-related professional development and state-of-the-art science equipment to high schools in districts unlikely to afford such costly equipment and professional development for their faculty.

President Long presented the keys to the new 2008 fuel-efficient Honda Element, to Dr. Marla Jones, who is the Director and Mobile Educator of the Science in Motion program and who will be transporting sophisticated science equipment to participating schools, providing professional development to the high school teachers and working with students in the five school districts initially involved in the program.