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HOW TECH TICKS
by JESSE TUEL
Photos by Kelsey Kradel
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Check out some of the most unusual classroom supplies—far beyond pencils and paper—at Virginia Tech.
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WHAT: |
Horse teeth |
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| WHERE: |
Anatomy classes; Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM) |
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| WHY: |
Two dozen upper and lower sets of preserved teeth from horses young and old allow first-year students to practice estimating the age of a horse, said Associate Professor Larry Freeman. Students gauge the wear on the teeth and the degree of eruption (how far a tooth has pushed out of the gum tissue), as both are reliable measures of age. |
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Canine MRIs taken at the VMRCVM
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| WHAT: |
Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor, left), Witch's Butter (Tremella mesenterica, lower right), Ice Man's Fungus (Fomes fomentarius, upper right) |
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| WHERE: |
Mysterious Mushrooms, Malicious Molds course; Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science |
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| WHY: |
Assistant Professor David G. Schmale III begins each lecture with a "Fungus of the Day" and then takes students on an online adventure. Viewing the Red Sea in Google Earth, for example, illustrates how spores of fungal pathogens are transported over long distances by air. Hands-on learning includes growing edible mushroom varieties at home. At the course's completion, students are better prepared for employment in agriculture, human health, and food safety.
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Visit the official course page of PPWS 2004 (Mysterious Mushrooms, Malicious Molds) on Facebook, and browse Schmales' students mushrooms-and-molds projects. |
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| WHAT: |
Dagger |
WHY: |
Through the use of stage weaponry such as daggers, actors learn to engage their characters emotionally amid dynamic movements that demand full-body coordination and amid the challenging vernacular of Shakespeare, said Cara Rawlings, assistant professor of movement and acting. The weapons are made by Neil Massey (theatre arts '88), the owner of Rogue Steel in Illinois, who is considered by Rawlings to be one of the best makers of stage weaponry in the world. |
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| WHERE: |
Stage Combat class; Department
of Theatre and Cinema |
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WHAT: |
Nintendo Entertainment System and Atari 2600 video-game consoles |
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| WHERE: |
The Virginia Tech Gaming and Media Effects Research Laboratory (VT G.A.M.E.R. Lab); Department of Communication |
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| WHY: |
An array of video-game systems, from vintage to brand-new, enables studies by faculty and students that investigate players' physiological and psychological responses to video games, as well as studies that involve recording and analyzing game content, said Assistant Professor James D. Ivory. Responses are measured with electrodes and more traditional methods, such as pencil-and-paper questionnaires. |
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| WHAT: |
Snorkel, goggles, mussels |
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| WHERE: |
Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Center; Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Science |
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| WHY: |
To find mussels in rivers, streams,
and pools, students and researchers
wear diving gear to get up close and personal, said Dan Hua, laboratory manager at the center. Participants monitor mussel populations and collect gravid mussels for propagation, with a goal of augmenting endangered populations. Fifteen endangered species of mussels are raised at the center, which also conducts outreach programs for the public and for students. |
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| WHAT: |
Legos |
WHY: |
Each fall, first-year engineering majors enroll in this required course. Students conduct 14 hands-on activities over the course of 14 weeks, each exposing students to various engineering disciplines. In one lab, students exercise visual communication skills by building objects with Legos. Once constructed, the creations are the subject of schematic drawings, which must be accurate enough for other students to rebuild the structure from scratch, said Vinod Lohani, professor of engineering education.
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| WHERE: |
Engineering Exploration class;
College of Engineering |
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| WHAT: |
Toy car |
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| WHERE: |
House Planning class; Department of Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management |
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| WHY: |
Housing Professor Kathleen Parrott |
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sprinkles her lectures with
the unexpected. When she wants her students to visualize a home's outdoor space—such as the room a driver needs to park, turn around, or access the garage—she'll interrupt the series of overhead slides with a toy car complete with the "vroom" noises. Parrott explained, "We can't design the space until we can understand how the user will be behaving in the space." |
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digital edition
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Winter 2010-11
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