Research topics ranging from Disney princesses as role models to nuclear weapons testing will be explored at a regional college honors conference at Wartburg College April 24-26.
More than 160 students will arrive Thursday evening for opening festivities at the Upper Midwest Region Honors Conference at Wartburg. Multiple presentations will be open to the public Friday at 9:15 a.m., 11 a.m., and 1:30 p.m., with a poster session at 3 p.m. in the Science Center. The final presentations will be at Saturday at 9 a.m. in the Science Center.
Topics and times of the talks are at www.wartburg.edu/umrhc/.
Students will be coming from Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Illinois and Michigan. The Wartburg Scholars Program, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, is hosting the conference. Dr. Mariah Birgen, professor of mathematics, directs the program.
The conference theme is “Seeds,” reflecting on seeds students have sown in college “to reap a rich harvest.” Among the subjects are:
- Disney princesses as role models.
- Marshall Islands nuclear weapons testing effects on inhabitants.
- Human trafficking.
- Questioning of victims in sexual assaults.
- Prenatal testing and Down Syndrome.
- Gene therapy.
- Examining love as one of life’s most powerful forces.
- Seeds of human aggression.
- Sowing the seeds of gender in children’s minds.
- Precision biopsy and detection of prostate cancer.
- The vision of the interstate highway system.
- The Eugenics Movement and the Nazi’s “Final Solution.”