Foreward
Some of the greatest challenged we face in society require research to understand the problem and further research and engineering to produce solutions. We have learned through research that our world needs a reduction in greenhouse emissions, an alternative clean every source, a cure to many forms of cancer, and an increase in food supply. Young researchers today will be instrumental in solving these problems with their global peers. The opportunity is yours, and the world needs your help. These are complex problems that will require discipline, collaboration, commitment, inventiveness, and a voice
Scientific research and engineering are essential tools for problem solving and discovery. You have learned a skill set to address problems systematically by asking questions, and an approach that will help you answer those questions with a reasonable degree of certainty. When you use research tools, you go well beyond anecdotes to guide your understanding, and develop real evidence to explain phenomena. You will need to use these skills throughout your careers in almost every discipline. In Teknos, you have shown an understanding of tools to investigate real problems far beyond what most students learn in a high school curriculum, and you are sharing your work with the world.
Research is a process to nurture and satisfy your curiosity. Your curiosity is driven by connections you draw with other research and next steps needed to develop a deeper understanding of a phenomenon. Your inquiring mind established a rationale for research, and your research toolkit enables you to gather and analyze data to satisfy that curiosity...for the time being. A research project not only allows you the opportunity to answer your own research questions, bu lessons learned in your findings lead to further questions for future study. Research is a perpetual curiosity machine!
Teknos is a platform to share your work with professionals around the world. This journal is read by high school students who look for research project ideas, by corporations who look to support research by high school students, by educators who want to promote research at their high schools, and by other researchers. Publishing in professional journals should be an ongoing responsibility that you have to share you work and give other the opportunity to build on it and ask more questions. Publishing your work also shows a willingness to collaborate with peers around the world interested in the same question. Working together, across institutions and across hemispheres, allows scientists and engineers to tackle problems efficiently at a time when answers are needed sooner that later.
Congratulations on your tremendous success as young scientists and engineers. I wish your work brings continues discovery for the betterment of society.
Evan Glazer, Ph.D.
Principal
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology