2024
2D Animation with Photoshop and After Effects
This course will cover the basic functions of Adobe Photoshop and After Effects with special consideration of their animation capabilities. Students will also gain proficiency with industry-leading Toonboom Harmony. Students will learn to manipulate images and video in 2D and 3D space. These techniques, with this software, are common in broadcast and internet advertising, TV show and movie credits, corporate video, and short-form entertainment.
Artificial Intelligence
AI takes many forms, but at its core, it is the study of how computers make decisions to solve problems. This course will introduce students to the principles of artificial intelligence through the lenses of game-playing and language modeling. Game playing is a classic AI domain that requires decision-making strategies and learning from past outcomes. Language modeling is a hot-button topic due to advanced models such as Chat GPT-3. Such powerful models can trace a direct heritage to the AI fundamentals that predate modern neural network methods. This class will introduce students to those fundamentals and give them hands-on experience with designing, building, and evaluating solutions to foundational AI tasks. Indeed, a primary concern for this course is helping students understand what AI—as a technical discipline and not just a buzzword—is and what it is not.
Requirement: Some experience writing computer programs.
Body Quest: An Exploration in Anatomy and Physiology
This course is a study of anatomy and physiology. Anatomy is the study of the structure and physiology is the study of the function of the parts of the body. Students will spend time dissecting a fetal pig and comparing it to humans. In the past students have visited a necropsy lab, an autopsy lab, the University’s cadaver lab, a physical therapy facility, and a museum about medicine at the time of the Civil War to see how far knowledge has come.
Dirt-under-the-fingernails Mathematics
When studying a mathematical subject for the first time, it’s necessary to solve a certain number of routine problems to hone technical skills. However, there comes a time when a student of mathematics must transcend the familiar, and face difficult problems by relying on a mix of cleverness, experience, and raw nerve. We will consider such problems from a variety of mathematical fields. We’re going to encounter problems that we may not be able to solve, and a few that nobody has yet been able to solve. But we’re not going to be afraid to try.
Electron Control: Understanding and Constructing the Fundamental Digital Circuitry of Computing
Although the conceptual ingredients for the modern computer date back to the 1830s, the hardware to enable its operation at useful speed and interface had to await inventions of physics: the transistor (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1956) and the integrated circuit (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2000). We will use these components to build from scratch on a connection board the fundamental computing circuitry, including circuits that make decisions, add, count, store, and move information, and make LEDs (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2014) light up in revealing patterns.
Eyes on the Skies: Meteorology of Atmospheric Phenomena
In this course, we explore the drivers of weather and climate to understand dynamic systems. We analyze atmospheric conditions every day to understand how weather systems create different cloud types, ice crystal and droplet phenomena, and severe weather. We examine how meteorologists use various remote sensing equipment and forecast tools, track the weather locally to globally, and discuss what to expect in our skies each week. We also explore global data sets and use data visualization tools from NASA, NOAA, and other agencies to understand global trends and future scenarios. We’ll learn how mathematical climate model projections are developed. We embark on several field trips in the region to gain hands-on field experiences in different systems. Ideally, this class will also be the start of a lifelong habit of sky-watching atmospheric phenomena and knowing where, when, and how to spot them.
Neuroscience of You: Intro to Functional Neuroanatomy with Wellbeing Lab
This course will provide basic neuroanatomy (cortical organization and functions). We will debunk brain myths using evidence-based reasoning. At the end of the course, you should be able to identify the affected brain regions based on their behavioral, perceptual, emotional, and language deficits. You will learn about brain mechanisms such as neural pathways to understand how we function. You will be able to appreciate how every brain is different and understand your brain better. We will also cover neurodevelopmental and neurological disorders, neuroplasticity, and psychopharmacology.
The Wellness lab of this course will use biofeedback machines to understand the effects of wellness practices such as meditation, breathing exercises, and sensory feedback on the brain. Additionally, we will explore other facets of personality, development, and social psychology related to neuroscience. This part of the course intends to demonstrate the practical applications of neuroscience and how to use this information to promote your own well-being. Students will be encouraged to develop creative projects exploring elements of the course that interest them.
Tales from the Genome: What Will Your Future Bring?
In “Tales From the Genome,” principles of genetics and biotechnology are explored, including central dogma, DNA structure and replication, mutation, recombinant DNA technology, and the molecular basis of disease. DNA extraction, multiple applications of PCR and DNA electrophoresis, bacterial transformation, and identification of genetically modified organisms are a few of the ways students will earn valuable experience in hands-on lab applications of DNA technology. Students will also have the opportunity to examine and discuss practical and ethical challenges surrounding DNA technology, the treatment of genetic disease, and what the future might hold in our genetic future.
The Dark Night Sky: Serious Questions for Real Astronomers
What precisely is a comet? Are we really in danger of colliding with a comet or an asteroid? Have such events happened in the earth’s past? These questions will provide a starting point for an investigation of the current understanding of the age, size, and nature of the universe. Students will keep a nightly journal of a variety of naked-eye observations of the night sky, will use the Internet as a source of information, will use telescopes to observe astronomical phenomena, and will analyze a variety of astronomical data in the laboratory.
Water, Water, Everywhere, Nor Any Drop to Drink
Voted by past students as one of the best Summer Residential Governor’s School experiences and
particularly relevant in light of recent droughts in Virginia, this course provides a comprehensive field
and laboratory-based study of water resources. Basic hydrology, including water movement and stream and lake dynamics, as well as sources of pollution, and water treatment techniques, form the core for this course. Course content also includes an analysis of land use as it affects water supply, water quality, and watershed management decisions.
