Brownwood News – Dr. Derek L. Smith, associate professor of chemistry at Howard Payne University, and Frank Ritter, 2017 HPU graduate and middle school science teacher in Early ISD, jointly conducted a forensic science workshop at the 2018 STEAM conference this summer at the Region 15 Education Service Center in San Angelo. The workshop was titled “Biological Techniques in Forensic Science.”

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“These workshops are intended to provide public school teachers academic enrichment and equip them with supplemental exercises and activities that they may in turn share with their students,” said Dr. Smith. “Every science department is limited in some way, but we do enjoy some resources that are not common in the public school laboratory and whose application will enhance the familiarity of the secondary school teacher.”

The conference is held every summer, and HPU has been represented the past three years through the participation of Dr. Pamela Bryant, dean of HPU’s School of Science and Mathematics, or Dr. Smith. Ritter benefitted doubly in that he received continuing education credit for both conducting and attending the seminar.

“Dr. Smith and I worked closely during two of my three years in HPU’s physical science department,” Ritter said. “I am grateful for the opportunity to continue that collaboration on a peer level. I look forward to next year.”

Pictured at top: Dr. Derek Smith, HPU associate professor of chemistry (right), and Frank Ritter, HPU alumnus and Early ISD middle school science teacher, demonstrate comparison of simulated RFLP DNA electrophoresis blots. Blanket High School science teacher Jessica Dudley is pictured in the foreground.

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