Junior Aidan Spradlin works hard on his TIME project.
by Aly Henneberry
Every student is required to take three science courses to graduate, but there are a select group of students who chose to go even further than the required classes to foster their love for the discipline and conduct real-world research.
These students are members of the TIME program, a science program at BHS that focuses on its students doing real science research. The possibility for project ideas are endless and limited only by students’ imagination and creativity.
The students are researching countless topics that either affect our town in particular or our world as a whole.
“My favorite thing about the TIME science program is just the significance of the projects we’re able to complete here at Brevard High School where we wouldn’t regularly get the opportunity,” said junior Hannah Lemel. “So we do a lot of cool projects that are really significant to this area and really significant to the world, so that’s really awesome to get that opportunity in high school to do that.”
Lemel is partnered with juniors Aidan and Bryce Spradlin to research the existence of select brain eating amoebas in local lakes. Sophomore Chase Bishop is researching the ability to grow food sources on Mars.
“My project is growing spirulina which is a superfood,” said Bishop. “ It’s a close relative of algae, it’s a cyanobacterium that can be the only food source that one person can eat, and we’re trying to grow it with materials that would be found on Mars for astronauts to eat.”
The significance of the projects is not the only thing that the students enjoy.
“My favorite thing is how hands on it is,” said sophomore Sam Ballard. “You don’t have to read through a textbook or anything, you get to do all the work on your own.”
TIME is unlike all the other science classes in the sense that it is doing real science, performing ongoing research and not purely studying concepts for the final exam. If that is something that sounds interesting then it might be something students consider taking next year.
“I would tell [students] that it’s a super cool opportunity, and if you’re really into science and you’re willing to work hard and get passionate about real problems that you can solve scientifically, then definitely take this class,” said Lemel.
Whether or not this is the class for you there is one thing for certain, and that is that it prepares all of the students for the road that lies ahead after high school.
“The thing that I can carry from the TIME science program into real life is definitely going to be being prepared for failure,” said Bishop. “Life is going to hit you in the face and you’ve got to be prepared to get back up and keep going.”