On Thursday, May 2, Ashley Armstrong, PhD, a science education specialist from the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), visited Sanborn Central to speak to all the students about the work they do at the facility. She spoke to four different age groups, and at the start of each session, she described the layout and location of the laboratory. It is located in Lead, and for 125 years was the Homestake Gold Mine. It is made up of 370 miles of tunnels, but they only use about 12 miles for the science work they do. All kinds of sciences are being studied in the lab, including engineering, physics, microbiology, astrophysics and geology, just to name the most common ones.

The Federal Department of Energy funds a large portion of the work done in the lab, but the facility is owned by the State of South Dakota. There are 200 employees who work at the lab or for the lab, and there are many scientists and engineers who use the lab space on contract. It takes close to 12 minutes in the elevator to get to the lab, which is about a mile underground. One point Armstrong focused on with each group was the reason why the lab is so far down in the earth and is so sought after for lab space is because it is so easy to keep clean without contact from the sun. It is protected from all the dust created on the surface of the earth. 

After she went over the general information about SURF, Amstrong spoke on specific topics to each of the four age groups.

…Read about and see pictures of the presentations in this week’s issue of the Sanborn Weekly Journal!