In a clean, white lab, sophomore Isabel Olesinski watched from behind protective goggles as a scientist explained gene cloning. Standing among other Parker students, Olesinski listened intently.  She wants to be a doctor or a scientist someday.

Olesinski was one of 24 Upper School students who traveled with six teachers to Lemont, Illinois for a tour of the Argonne National Laboratory, where this year’s visiting scientist, Dr. Rick Stevens, works as the Associate Laboratory Director of Computing, Environment and Life Sciences. Argonne, one of 17 national laboratories owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, is the largest of such labs in the midwest.

On the full-day trip, students experienced the Lab’s Advanced Photon Source, walking a portion of the circular one-kilometer distance where electrons are accelerated to a speed close the the speed of light, and the Advanced Protein Characterization Facility. Later, Stevens showed students the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, where the lab’s expansive supercomputer is located, and the Visualization Center, which played a simulation of the evolution of the universe, generated from the supercomputer’s data.

“The supercomputer facility was incredible,” Olesinski said. “A highlight for me was learning more about the different fields and seeing professionals in action. One really cool moment was hearing from a scientist who had used x-rays to analyze Beethoven’s hair and discovered that he’d died from lead poisoning.”

Science teacher Xiao Zhang, who chaperoned the trip, considered it a success.  “I’m excited that students were excited about finding out something they didn’t know before, or think that they might be interested in,” he said. “It fulfills the purpose of the visiting scientist program–giving students an understanding of what various scientists do. It shows students what’s possible.”