Minh-Thu Vo left, and Gisele Noble gives a thumb's up during their participation in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program's Acceleration Academy From May 27 to June 30 at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Gisele Noble carries Minh-Thu Vo after they played paintball during their participation in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program's Acceleration Academy From May 27 to June 30 at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
A cardboard chair made by Minh-Thu Vo and another student during the ANSEP Acceleration Acedemy at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus is seen in this image.
From left, Gisele Noble and Minh-Thu Vo of Ketchikan prepare to participate in a paintball event that occurred during their participation in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program's Acceleration Academy From May 27 to June 30 at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Gisele Noble carries Minh-Thu Vo after they played paintball during their participation in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program's Acceleration Academy From May 27 to June 30 at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Ketchikan High School students Minh-Thu Vo and Gisele Noble participated in the 2023 Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program’s Acceleration Academy from May 27 through June 30 at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus, garnering an array of educational, social and recreational experiences.
According to program information online at www.ansep.net, enrolled students are offered hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics modules; team-building exercises; social activities; field trips and opportunities to learn from Alaska Native and other mentors. The program is open to all Alaska students in grades 8 through 12.
Program participants earn college credits for the math and science courses that they take while living on the UAA campus, and also are offered mentorship in career exploration and professional networking. The program is offered free of charge, and the program pays for the students’ travel to and from Anchorage as well.
Vo and Noble sat down with the Daily News at a downtown coffee shop on July 13 to share stories of their adventures in the program.
Noble explained, “ANSEP was basically focused on college math and there was engineering and there was writing as well, so there was a variety of options we could have for classes.”
Vo mentioned also that she was chosen by fellow participants to receive the “Determination, Effort and Approach,” award which earned her a $500 scholarship. She was chosen for the “Determination” portion of the three-part award, she said.
Vo and Noble said that the math courses, covering Algebra II, were required for all students, and then they could choose between other course options to fill out their schedules.
Vo described their weekly routine.
“Monday, Wednesday, Friday would be STEM labs, and then Tuesday, Thursday would be recreation activities,” she said.
Minh-Thu Vo left, and Gisele Noble gives a thumb's up during their participation in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program's Acceleration Academy From May 27 to June 30 at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Photo courtesy of Gisele Noble
Each morning, they would awaken at about 6:30 a.m., then have breakfast before going to the “acceleration” building at about 8:30 a.m. to participate in study sessions with program mentors.
Math classes were held between 10:15 a.m. and 12:15 p.m., she said. Vo said that she took engineering classes in addition to the math classes that were held on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
After lunch, they’d have an hour to study or to relax before three hours of the STEM labs. In the evening, following dinner, they participated in recitation sessions where they focused on studying.
“We had a lot of homework,” Vo said. “Every day we’d get like four units of homework to do. We’d need the whole day to work on it, and sometimes the next day.”
Noble said that they also took exams every Friday and quizzes each Thursday.
The program earned them each three college credits, they said, with one more credit for taking an extra science or writing class.
Noble said that she took math with “the best teacher” Matthew Gho, adding that he also taught Alaska History during the program.
“He’s really nice and flexible with all his students,” Noble said.
Noble described some of the STEM labs that she participated in.
“We went on field trips as well,” she said. “One of the STEM labs I had was like, recycling and we went to the dump.”
She laughed and added, “it smelled so bad, it was terrible!”
Noble said that they visited two different landfills and a recycling facility.
Noble also described learning about the leach pools that were operating at one of the landfills as well.
“They hold like, a million gallons of water,” she said, adding, “they plan on extending it to hold, five million gallons of water.”
Vo said that in a STEM lab she participated in, they made clocks.
“We learned about Kaktovik numerals,” Vo said. “It’s like a different way of writing numbers.”
According to an article at scientificamerican.com, Kaktovik numerals were created about 30 years ago by a group of Inuit middle school students and their teacher, inventing the Western Hemisphere’s first new numeral system in more than a century.
Vo said, “We ended up with these beautiful clocks and we got to pour resin on them, do art, and then each numeral was different.”
Vo also described her experiences at a 3-D printing lab, where she and her fellow students helped older students finish their projects.
“Mine was windmills, so I had to make a model windmill tower while she already had the 3-D model, so we had to make one out of paper,” Vo said.
She said it seemed the purpose of that project was to get feedback from the ANSEP students about the 3-D models.
Noble described a lab she participated in that focused on remote monitoring.
“It was like internet, and how cell phones work, but with water pressure and flow rates,” she said. “Like, cell towers and internet, like if there’s a signal from a phone and it goes to a cell tower.”
Vo described her twice-weekly engineering class that was held during the recreation periods for the other students.
She said her instructor was UAA Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering Matt Calhoun, whom she described as “super nice” and “super laid-back.”
Vo said the class earned her one college credit, and was focused on orienting students to the array of engineering career types, and how to best prepare for an engineering career. Following the lecture portion, she said they were assigned a variety of hands-on projects, such as making a pipe-cleaner tower that would stand the tallest, or preparing an egg to survive a drop challenge.
A cardboard chair made by Minh-Thu Vo and another student during the ANSEP Acceleration Acedemy at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus is seen in this image.
Photo courtesy of Minh-Thu Vo
She said that the most “stressful” project was an assignment to create a chair out of cardboard that could hold 250 pounds. Part of the challenge, Vo said, was that there were no fasteners or tape allowed to be used in the construction. Adding to the stress as she planned the project was the knowledge that if the chair didn’t pass the challenge, she wouldn’t pass the class, as the chair project counted for 50% of her grade.
She said that she partnered with a fellow student to build the chair, and they waited to start until the weekend before the project was due.
“We worked on that thing for over three hours, and it still wasn’t done,” she said. “It was bad!”
At first, Vo said she tried to make the chair look aesthetically pleasing, with classic-looking legs, but they were too weak to hold much weight. They connected the pieces by cutting slots to lock the pieces together. She and her teammate finally decided to attach triangle-shaped supports under the seat, which finally was successful.
Noble and Vo described a homemade cardboard boat race challenge they participated in together as part of a team.
Vo said, “the parameters of the project were however many people of the boat you added on, you could add on a foot and a half, but the minimum requirement was six feet” in length.
“You only got one roll of duct tape, and if you used over that, you got points deducted, but if your boat floated for a certain amount of time you’d get a certain amount of points, or if you made it to the end of the race, you’d get a certain amount of points,” Vo said.
Noble added, “at first, our boat was huge. It was a good eight-feet long, then we cut it in half, we shrank it down all the way to six feet.”
Vo said during the process, they realized that their original plan to put three people in the boat was too ambitious, so they ended up building a smaller boat to hold one voyager.
She said that she was very confident in their boat’s abilities before the race, because it turned out to really look like a sea-worthy craft.
“It ended up working, but we sank in the first ten seconds,” Noble said, laughing.
Vo said that when their teammate stepped into the boat it immediately tipped over and dumped the student in the pool.
Vo and Noble said they were surprised when, in the end, a larger boat shaped simply like an oblong box floated the longest.
They also were able to go to two movies during the program, and shopping at a mall and at Target, they said.
They also attended a Renaissance Faire and played in a paintball tournament.
Vo and Noble agreed that the paintball event was their favorite activity, even though they had a few stinging moments when they were hit with the paintballs.
From left, Gisele Noble and Minh-Thu Vo of Ketchikan prepare to participate in a paintball event that occurred during their participation in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program's Acceleration Academy From May 27 to June 30 at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Photo courtesy of Gisele Noble and Minh-Thu Vo.
Participants also were offered chances to go bicycling, swimming, hiking and to play team games, Noble said. They hiked to a glacier, went gold panning and took a tour on a boat as well.
Both students agreed that their math skills improved over the course of the program.
Noble described a career exploration class also as very helpful to her.
“There was a bunch of different careers, and it got me really interested, because I was mostly looking at the science and medical field … and I found a lot of interesting things that I learned, like astronomy and chemistry,” Noble said.
One STEM lab offered was a Mental Health First Aid class, through which Noble said she earned a certificate.
Noble recalled an assignment in that class, in which they dissected a sheep’s brain as really interesting. They were asked to identify the parts of the brain as they dissected it.
Vo said, of the overall experience, “it was really fun to be able to collaborate with all these different students from all over Alaska. That was probably one of my favorite things, other than all the fun activities and getting the college credits.”
They said that they were the only participants from Southeast Alaska.
Vo said she’d encourage any student to apply for the program, as it provided such a depth of knowledge, experience and fun activities. They both expressed excitement about applying to attend again in 2024.
Noble said that due to many assignments in her classes in which oral presentations were required, she gained a lot of confidence that she’d not had previously.
“I’m really happy about that,” she said with a grin.
