from Hudson.Net.Newswires copyright June 7th 2005 (cleared for all media with attribution)

COLUMBUS CORPORATIONS BACK "SUPERSCIENCE" IN SCHOOLS

by Polly Jo Adams

Dateline Columbus, OH: A pilot program has been launched in Central Ohio recently that takes education beyond the cutting edge. Entitled, "SuperScience for High School Physics", the project was the brain child of research and development engineer Marshall Barnes and was backed by six companies, four from the Columbus Technology Council http://www.columbustechnology.org/ - Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease http://www.vssp.com/ , Time Warner Cable http://timewarnercable.com/ , Interhack http://www.interhack.net/ , and Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur http://www.porterwright.com/home . The two other companies are Hugh White Honda http://www.hughwhitehonda.net/ , and Plaza Properties, Inc. http://plazaproperties.com/ . Additional support was given by PC Direct http://www.pcdirectinc.com/ which also a CTC member, Reis Design http://riesdesign.com/ , Lubell Labs http://www.lubell.com , and CD and Tape Outlet.

The purpose of the program was to expose high school physics students to advanced concept physics and technology ideas, many of which used to be thought of strictly as science fiction but are in various stages of being realized. They ran the gamut from invisibility technology and Ohio's historic connections to the search for antigravity, to whether wormholes could be used for time travel. The works of  Vince Billock, Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, and others were referenced during the presentation. There was plenty of interactivity involved as well, wearing special glasses to see how UHF static could be "unzipped optically" to reveal hidden 3D aspects, seeing how diffraction material could cause one's hand to appear transparent, a demonstration with a Star Wars model "flown" by one student while 4 others kept separate time readings of the model's flight path along 3 dimensions to prove that time is not strictly the 4th dimension, but that Minkowoski was correct about time and space being inseparable.

Two schools were involved, the Briggs High School physics classes of Linda Lee Kennedy http://www.columbus.k12.oh.us/brigghs/vtbriggs/Room%20204C.htm of the Columbus Public School system, and the physics classes of Craig Kramer http://www.bexley.k12.oh.us/hs1/aca-staff/staff/science/kramer.html and Jack Minot http://www.bexley.k12.oh.us/hs1/aca-staff/staff/science/minot.html at Bexley High School http://www.bexley.k12.oh.us/hs1/about/about_bhs/index.html of the suburban Bexley School system. In all, nearly two hundred students saw the presentation, covering concepts ranging from cosmology to optics and included video clips, the use of a TV to receive live, over-the-air static which could be tunable - as opposed to a random static generator, and in-depth illustrations of thought models and student questions on the blackboard. Each student also received a free booklet that served as a supplement to the presentation. In addition, through a special arrangement, each school will get a free copy of Marshall's upcoming dual CD audio book, "Solving the 4th D Puzzle" for their school libraries.

All the teachers, whose classes Marshall addressed, were impressed with him as well. Craig Kramer and Jack Minot of Bexley even wrote a letter saying in part, "Marshall immediately captured and held the students attention while providing physics background explanations". Linda Lee Kennedy of Briggs echoed that, stating that Marshall "was able to engage and involve the students in the presentation despite their being antsy about the near close of the school year".

The corporations involved in sponsoring the program all received a detailed description of what would be presented. For the four of the six main sponsors that are members of the Columbus Technology Council, the issue of promoting imagination and an interest in cutting edge science was an obvious reason for their support.

Jean Arthur, of  Time Warner Cable, stressed the cable company's commitment to supporting education as their main reason for getting involved with the SuperScience program, pointing out that "Time Warner Cable provides complimentary cable service to more than 500 schools in its service area which enables those schools to receive more than 500 hours of commercial-free, educational programming each month. Time Warner also offers schools in its service area the latest technology in Road Runner, its high-speed online computer service, at no charge."

Other reasons companies got involved were the connections to the respective school communities and the obvious public relations plus. Bill Porter, who green-lighted the support of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, and his wife have close ties to Bexley - she's served on the Bexley City Council. Porter,Wright, Morris and Arthur also has connections to the Bexley community and has supported other good cause projects in the past. Both firms, as well as Time Warner Cable, went out of their way for their ads to stress their support of the educational value of the SuperScience program. Lubell Labs, one of the contributors to the program and a manufacturer of state of the art underwater loudspeakers, is also located in Bexley and a past supporter of Bexley High School projects.

Interhack, whose founder Matt Curtin, has spoken to schools himself on computer and Internet technology, shifted emphasis from its operations as a corporate Internet security consulting firm, and instead, provided an ad that focused on Curtin's new book, Brute Force: Cracking the Data Encryption Standard http://web.interhack.com/news/n2005_bruteforce.php . The book is the story of the formation of the world's most widely-used system to protect sensitive information and how a group of independent cryptographers, civil libertarians, and hobbyists managed to demonstrate the system's weakness in June of 1997, even as the U.S. Congress debated the government's control over cryptography, and is of significant historic value in the subject of computer technology. Booklets the students received from the program came with bookmarks for Brute Force.

Plaza Properties, a major company in the development and management of residential and commercial properties, is located in the Bexley area and Hugh White Honda has dealership locations not far from both Bexley and Briggs and has embraced hi-tech cars like the 2005 Honda Accord hybrid http://www.hughwhitehonda.net/New-Inventory.aspx?InventoryId=4241377   and the 2005 Honda Civic hybrid http://www.hughwhitehonda.net/New-Inventory.aspx?InventoryId=4491658 .

There's some talk of doing the presentation at the Ft. Hayes alternative high school http://www.fthayes.com/aboutus/aboutus.html during the last week of summer school and then expanding it in the very late fall to other schools around the county. Marshall indicated that how far it goes depends on what backing it can get, and various ways it can be structured. He's weighing the options of a possible "major event day" that would incorporate exhibits and demonstrations from researchers, corporations and the military, plus a large scale multimedia presentation of new state of the art technology that he's developed, all in one location, and inviting all the physics students in the entire county. In the scheme of things, Marshall sees corporate support of projects like this as essential and natural, especially in these times of cash strapped school districts.

"I'm a product of the Arts Impact program of the 70's, as far as the creativity goes, but the 80's when it comes to business," he says, "and I learned how 'win-win' works. It's how you get things done."