About Me: Jared Quinn – Grade 7 Life Science – Overlook Middle School – Ashburnham Westminster Regional School District I can confidently say that life does not happen in a straight line.  My path has quite a few turns in it.  The only constant I can see is that I have always wanted to teach. I spent my entire undergraduate teacher preparation program planning on being a 1st grade teacher. This changed when I was required to do a student teaching placement in grade 6. After experiencing all of the challenges that middle school students bring to the table I was hooked, and I have spent the last 26 years as a middle school teacher. I spent the first 12 years of my career teaching middle school science with a little math and reading sprinkled in. I then took a brief 11-year hiatus to develop and teach a middle school engineering technology program. Then three years ago I returned to a Grade 7 Life Science classroom, where I plan of staying for the remainder of my career.   About the Lab: Dr. Powell’s EMRG (Energy Metals Research Group) team is located in the historic Washburn Shops building on the beautiful campus of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester Massachusetts. The EMRG’s vision is to serve society as a leader in practical applications for electrochemical technologies; to pioneer in enhanced transportation systems and industrial safety; to provide a catalyst for reduced manufacturing waste and energy consumption; and to be a key player in attaining a world with

• Open international collaboration
• 100% reliance on clean energy
• Expanded economic prosperity
• Healthier environment
• Improved quality of life

  Project Title: Magnesium Production and Recycling for Clean Energy   Project Overview: The Magnesium Production and Recycling project is working towards reducing the energy required in the production of magnesium. The process happens in two distinct steps: electrolysis and distillation. During the electrolysis step magnesium oxide (MgO) is combined with a tin and magnesium mixture to create a 50-50 mixture of tin and magnesium. By heating the mixture to its melting point and running the electrolysis, a magnesium tin alloy will form around one electrode and the impurities such as oxygen and salts will collect around the other electrode. The electrolysis on its own, is a process in which an electrical current is run through electrodes connected to a solid which can separate a mixtures individual components (This is how water can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen). Distillation is the second step of the project.  Distillation involves melting down the magnesium tin alloy. When the magnesium in the alloy reaches is vaporization point, the magnesium separates from the tin due to tin having a higher vaporization point. The magnesium vapor rises into a condenser where it cools and returns to liquid form and eventually its solid form. The solid magnesium is then analyzed to assess for purity   Weekly Updates:

• Week 1: The first week of RET has been a whirlwind. We started off by familiarizing ourselves with the program as a whole, met with our faculty mentors, toured the beautiful campus, and completed our lab safety training. By the second day of the program, we had jumped in with both feet. Dr. Adam Powell and Ph.D. student Daniel McArthur Sehar have welcomed us to the group and have gone out of their way to make us feel comfortable as part of the team. Daniel has spent quite a bit of time explaining the intricacies of the project and getting us brought up to speed in the research.  Our third day was spent in the lab running one of the 18″ box furnaces at 700° C to melt and remove magnesium residue from the condenser portion of the Magnesium Extraction rig.  Day four allowed us to check how successful we were at removing the magnesium residue…

 

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  Final Poster:   Lesson Plan: