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Ursuline News

In Review: Guest Speakers and Educational Field Trips
In Review: Guest Speakers and Educational Field Trips

Special guests and field trips help students learn in creative ways, and many Ursuline departments benefited from both this semester.

More than 40 students flew simulators when they toured L3 Technologies' Link Training and Simulation Unit on National Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. The Arlington facility is L3 Technologies' headquarters, where it develops and manufactures flight simulators and training systems for military and commercial customers.

Herb Sheaner spoke to history classes about his experiences as a Prisoner of War in WWII, and Kristen Ohlenforst '96 spoke to English students and the Literary Magazine Club about book publishing. She published a book she uses in her psychology practice.

"Kristen emphasized that one should do what she's interested in," said Literary Magazine Club moderator Monica Prachyl Cochran '71 of Ohlenforst, who changed from an art major to a psychology major. "You really have to follow your passion."

Canon Lawyer Meg Hogan spoke with Ursuline's Peer Ministers about how canon law affects people's everyday lives, and Theology Teachers Jason Surmiller and Kathy Sherman Skyped with a Byzantine nun and Holy Land tour guide, respectively.

"The Israeli tour guide really helped answer questions about the Monotheistic world religions and what the life of an Jewish Israeli girl is like during and after high school," said Sherman, who recently traveled to Israel.

Other educational opportunities:

  • Ursuline's Engineering Design Innovation Classes visited the new Walcrest Water Treatment Facility in Dallas. Students also met its chief engineer Eva Gordi. The pumps will operate approximately 30 percent more efficiently.
  • Biology I Honors and AP Biology Classes attended a genetic conference for high school students in Richardson. The conference focused on gene regulation, hereditary diseases, and environmental factors that can alter gene expression, leading to cancer cell formation.

  • The Geology, Meteorology, & Oceanography Classes spent an afternoon at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. Dr. Jonathan Moody's classes have been visiting the museum since its opening in 2012.

  • Amanda Briones' Church History Classes Skyped with a Benedictine monk, had a field trip to St. Basil the Great Byzantine Catholic Church, and had Dr. Elizabeth Ranieri, who has a PhD in Art History, discuss Sacred Space and how architecture and church design can be a study of God.

  • Psychiatrist Dr. Dave Atkinson talked to Melanie Alvares' Morality Classes about the connection between neuroscience and morality.

  • Sophomore Theology Classes visited the Biblical Museum of Art.

  • Seniors from Jeff Girard's Inside Nazi Germany Classes visited the Dallas Holocaust Museum.

  • U.S. History Classes visited the George W. Bush Presidential Library, which included a special exhibit on Presidential First Ladies. Students posed for pictures in a replica Oval Office and "solved" presidential problems in the Decision Points Theater.

  • College Counseling had its second Sophomore College Visit Day. The sophomore class visited Austin College