Special
Middle School Speakers
By Shirley Geiss, Grade 6/7
Science Teacher
• Dr. Jane Luu
Middle School was fortunate to have two special speakers
in the month of March 2001.
The
first visitor was Dr. Jane Luu. Students were
researching famous astronomers in their 7th
grade Science class and noticed that in the
introduction of their science text there was
an interview with Dr. Luu. Upon reading further
they noted that Dr. Luu had arrived in the
United States from Vietnam as a young girl.
She studied physics at Stanford University
in California and astronomy at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. But the most exciting
information was that she was now working at
Leiden University in the Netherlands. Dr. Luu
is the astrophysicist who along with her co-worker
David Jewitt discovered the Kuiper Belt in
1992. The Kuiper Belt is made up of millions
of ice-rock pieces that circle the sun. The
rocky planet Pluto is the biggest object in
this ring. The Kuiper Belt is named after Gerard
Kuiper, a Dutch-American astronomer who postulated
the existence of bodies beyond Pluto in 1951.
Anna
Konishi, a student in the class, emailed the
Leiden University, got Dr. Luu's email address
and sent her a note asking if she would be
willing to visit our school. She quickly replied
and was very enthusiastic about
coming to talk with the 7th grade students. On March 6 Dr.
Luu arrived and spent about 1 1/2 hours with the students.
After she had introduced herself and her background and told
a little bit about how she works, the students began asking
questions. Their questions were excellent, some very specific,
and afterwards she said that her students at the University
do not ask nearly as many questions!
We
were very pleased that Dr. Luu came to visit
our international school.
• Dr.
Ruurd van Woersem
Another visitor to the Middle School in the month of March
2001 was Dr. Ruurd van Woersem, a heart surgeon and father
of our 6th grade student Dana van Woersem. Dr. van Woersem
spoke to our students on March 12 about the heart and pacemakers.
He
brought with him a cardio technician, Mr. Van
Landbaard from the pacemaker company Biotronik,
who has worked with the doctor in the operating
room for the past 10 years. Dr. van Woersem
explained to the students, with the help of
a computer presentation, the workings of our
heart and what it does in its job of pumping
blood throughout the body. He then discussed
what might happen if there is a disturbance
in the heart and used a giant model to demonstrate
how a pacemaker could help the heart return
to normalcy.
We
learned that Professor Einthoven (1860–1927),
a Dutch physiologist and professor at the University
of Leiden after 1886, was the first to measure
the electric currents developed by the heart:
he invented a string galvanometer and with
its aid produced the electrocardiogram (EKG),
a graphic record of the action of the heart.
For this he received the 1924 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine.
Dr.
van Woersem stated in answer to one of the
many questions that he has implanted over 200
pacemakers in patients. The students were quite
interested in the talk and had excellent questions
for the doctor.
|
Other
Special Speakers
By Don Morton
• On
September 25, 2001 Grades 10, 11 and 12 attended
a special assembly in the ISA World Theatre
to hear the Paris-based American writer David
Sedaris discuss his works, which include the
collections Barrel Fever, Holiday on Ice, Naked
and his latest book, Me Talk Pretty One Day.
Sedaris was in town at the invitation of the
John Adams Institute. Its website described
Sedaris as a popular commentator whose essays
are regularly featured on National Public Radio
and in The New Yorker and Esquire. In America
David Sedaris (b. 1962) is seen as "the
modern master of the short story who shocked
the genre into new popularity." Does Sedaris
enjoy living and working in Paris? asked ISA
high-schooler Pierre-Emma Ott. "Yes," the
writer replied, explaining that "Paris
is an ashtray, a nice ashtray."
• In 2001 former ISA parent American Ambassador Paul Bremer III addressed
Amsterdam's John Adams Institute on problems of global terrorism.
Back
to Voices 2003 |
A
Welcome from our Alumni Coordinator Don Morton
