With our summer learning trips coming to an end, OLLI members have been busy hitting the road to discover new places. We have been on many exciting and interesting visits, and our trip to the Homeland Security Education Center (HEC) and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory was certainly no exception!
It was an early morning for many of us, but well-worth the early wake-up call! Our trip began with a visit to the Homeland Security Training Center at the College of DuPage. To say we were all impressed would be an understatement. It was incredible learning about the comprehensive and collaborative training programs taking place. While the HEC offers programs in Criminal Justice, Fire Science/EMS, it also houses the Police Department and Suburban Law Enforcement Academy. Most interesting are the collaborative efforts taking place between the various programs, providing an all-encompassing comprehensive education for recruits and students.
The highlight for many was definitely taking a tour of the indoor street scene simulation center, used for force-on-force exercises. We even got to take a look at few students in training! A wonderfully-catered Italian meal completed our visit of the Homeland Security Education Center, and we were off to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
A scientist's oasis, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory was a feast for the mind! The Fermi lab is recognized as the United States' premier physics laboratory, which includes the wold's most advanced particle accelerators. Located on 6,800 acres in Batavia, IL you would never guess that this Chicago suburb housed such an incredible facility. On our tour of Wilson Hall, we had the opportunity to look at the experiments taking place, as well as learn about the collaborative efforts between the Fermi lab and labs across the globe working on the same project.
During our Q&A session, OLLI members also had the opportunity to learn about some mind-bending research on topics that include neutrinos, a component of the proton, and dark matter. If that's not confusing enough, there is also research being done on 'nothing,' sort of. Scientists are trying to discover what exactly makes up 'nothing,' or if 'nothing' actually exists--some pretty profound stuff!
For more information on the research happening at the Fermi lab or about the many exciting programs at the HEC check out their websites below!
What's a Neutrino?
Homeland Security Education Center at the College of DuPage
OLLI at Bradley
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