A New Look For Vertebrate Evolution

Vertebrate Zoology at Stuyvesant High School is an advanced biology class that teaches 10-12th grade students laboratory techniques and principles of evolution. It is a hands-on class which is very popular but requires intense use of laboratory equipment and supplies. The class needs to be modified to account for changes in scientific procedures and information over the last 4 decades. Already the current school budget cannot supply this special experience for the students. For operating costs we rely on small laboratory fees which can be waived if the parents cannot afford them. Unfortunately, even these fees are insufficient to cover improvements or modifications in equipment. The requested microscope will allow us to extend the course into the process of vertebrate development. Last spring I began to breed zebrafish for the class. We studied the development of the embryo from the first hours of development to hatching. The students could see amazing things like the development of the heart and the first red blood cells being pumped through the arteries. We do not have enough dissecting microscopes for the whole class- they share. In order to get through timed events I have to facilitate/accelerate their observations by guiding them ahead of time so that each person can completely observe their own embryo.Your donation of a teaching microscope, which can be hooked to a video projection system, will allow me to guide the students before and while they look at the embryos so that they can accurately make their own observations.