March 7, 2019 - On Tuesday, March 5, the MCHS Academic Boosters Club (ABC) took 37 Mariposa County High School students to UC Merced to participate in lab tours. ABC board member Naoko Kada arranged the tours. Before the trip, students ranked their interest in 9 morning labs and a similar amount of afternoon labs in areas ranging from biology, physics, and psychology to a tour of the nature preserve. Kada used their ranked interests to schedule students in two morning labs and one in the afternoon. Once at UC Merced, students not only participated in interesting labs and spoke with working scientists, but also had an opportunity to explore campus, choose from a variety of eateries for lunch, and get a small taste of campus life. They learned a lot and enjoyed the day. ABC thanks all the scientists who shared their time and expertise with students and also Yosemite Bank for sponsoring this very worthwhile event.
Mariposa County High School students gather in front of a building at UC Merced before dividing into groups to take lab tours.
MCHS students Sierra Reynolds, Lucca Ahmedi, Jonah Decanay, Rosemary McKenna, and Kaydence Walker have a discussion with UC Merced Associate Professor Carolin Frank in her Biology lab about her work with plant biomes.
Luke Atkins and Owen Bissmeyer experiment with creating prisms in one of UC Merced's physics labs while a UC Merced student stands ready to answer any question they might have.
Also in the physics lab, Trinity Owens participates in a demonstration with a UC Merced student of what happens to a rotating body with arms held out versus arms held in close. In the first instance, she slowed down; in the second, the chair spun faster.

MCHS Academic Boosters Club, Inc. (ABC) is a 501(c)3 organization with the mission of supplementing and enriching academic experiences and providing educational tools for Mariposa County High School students. 

For more information, visit mchsabc.org, contact abc.mchs@gmail.com,  “like” ABC on Facebook: MCHS Academic Boosters Club, or follow MCHS_ABC on Instagram or Twitter.