Pope John receives high tech gift

Becomes one of only a few schools in the nation with an SEM SPARTA — Pope John XXIII Regional High School is the grateful recipient of an S-530 Hitachi Scanning Electron Microscope. This came as a donation from Evex Corporation, Claudio Tarquinio Chief Technical Officer. The students at Pope John and the Catholic Academy of Sussex County will begin to enjoy the microscopic world of forensic science, chemistry, biology and physics. There are only a dozen high schools in the country that have a scanning electron microscope on site. The science teachers at Pope John will undergo extensive training in the operation of the SEM. This donation will also allow Pope John students to utilize equipment that is normally found only at prestigious universities, forensic labs and research facilities. Pope John students will learn how to operate this SEM in a rigorously supervised environment. They will view organic samples as well as inorganic materials at magnifications up to 100,000 times their size. Students will also use the spectroscopy component to identify materials and will be introduced to the exciting area of quantitative image analysis. They will produce high quality, digital images in a JPEG file format. The students will also be able to share that information on the Web. They, as well as the students in the Catholic Academy of Sussex County, will learn to design experiments that require image analysis and spectroscopy. Pope John is entering the area of real world research, and the students will gain unique, invaluable skills for their future.