UNLV STEM Fall Camp - Digital Citizenship and Cybersecurity (Module 2)

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The UNLV STEM Institute is offering a Saturday STEM Camp program in Fall 2023.

Description:
The UNLV Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering and the UNLV College of Education are pleased to host the Fall 2023 STEM Camp. The goal of this STEM outreach program is to spark early student interest, ingenuity, and creativity in STEM by encouraging students to acquire knowledge, apply it, and to explore possible solutions to technical problems.

Schedule:
Students will come to the STEM Institute on selected Saturdays between October 7, 2023 and December 9, 2023 (Oct. 7, 14, 21, Nov. 4, 11, 18, and Dec. 2 or 9). The morning session runs from 9:45AM to 11:45AM, and the afternoon session from 1:15PM to 3:15PM.

Modules:
There are five teaching modules in this camp for students to choose, and students can choose to participate in any one or two modules. Morning session offers Module1, Module 2, and Module 3.  Afternoon session offers Module 4 and Module 5.

Module Selections:
Module 1: Adventures and Journeys to Unraveling Nature's Secrets from the Earth to the Space (Morning session)
Engineering, simply defined, is the application of mathematics and science to solve real world problems, including environmental research problems. In this session, Dr. Henry Sun, a Desert Research Institute researcher, will present a few intriguing examples of such problems and invite you to explore the knowledge and solutions to problems. One topic is using google to unravel the mystery of the vegetation patches. If you get on Google Earth and look down on semiarid regions, you will see holes in vegetation as if someone took a round cooker cutter to it. Yet, who did it, and why, remains a mystery. Another topic you will learn is space gardening, NASA wants to decorate the international space station with house plants for mental health benefits of the astronauts. But how do you grow plants in a microgravity environment where you have to place the roots of the plant in an enclosure or else water will fly out on its own. How would you do it? The third and final topic is investigating nature's enigmas. There is a mysterious colonial diatom that lives in shallow ponds around Las Vegas that moves like an inch worm (search Bacillaria paradoxica). Diatoms are plants, and plants do not have muscles like we do. Why would a plant move, and how does it do it? The preferred aim of each project is to produce a peer reviewed publication with you as a coauthor.
Module 2: Digital Citizenship and Cybersecurity (Morning session)
As digital citizens, we are all responsible for practicing and promoting cybersecurity. Essentially, this module will cover topics security data lake, threat detection, network analysis with Wireshark, Man-In-The-Middle Attacks, Password Cracking, among a few others. Each of the topics listed above is presented in a form that is friendly for students not having prior experience/knowledge in cybersecurity or technology in general.
Module 3: The Most Dangerous Math in the World Part II:  Statistical Applications in Radiation Protection (Morning session)
Students will learn basic statistic concepts (mean, mode, median, variance, and standard deviation) and how they are used to report radiation and contamination measured by radiological instrumentation.
Module 4: Robotics: 2D Printing Robot (Afternoon session)
This The robotics workshop will teach students to learn coding on Arduino with L293D Motor shield to control a mini 2D plotter.  This machine has two stepper motors to move, combine and synchronize motion of a pen along X and Y axis respectively.  With the aid of free INKSCAPE software, customized images, signatures, or drawings can be converted in G-code file. A GCODE file contains commands in G-Code, which is a language used to describe how a 3D printer should print a job.  By integrating the G-Code with Arduino control code, this tiny machine draws images so nicely with a good accuracy.  With the experience of application at 2D plotter, students can easily switch to a 3D printer project in the future.
Module 5: Start coding in Python Language (Afternoon session)
Python has become the fastest-growing programming language in the world, and it has found its great use in web development, data science, creating software prototypes, and so on. This Python class will guide students to learn Python one step at a time. Topics covered include Strings, Lists and Tuples; dictionaries and sets; conditional execution & loops; functions; modules, etc. No Prior Programming knowledge is required.

Cost:
Each module bears an enrollment fee of $500 that covers all the lab kits, learning materials, and stationery.

Contact information:
All the inquires or questions shall be emailed to: stemunlv@unlv.edu
Dr. Yingtao Jiang, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, College of Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Dr. Shaoan Zhang, Professor of Teacher Education, Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Cancellation Policy:
Students who cancel their registration prior to 10/04/23 will receive a 100% refund less a $35 administrative fee. Cancellation requests must be submitted in writing to stemunlv@unlv.edu.

Sorry, we are no longer accepting registrations for this course. Please contact our office to find out if it will be rescheduled, or if alternative classes are available.