Help me give my students the tools we need to engage in biotech labs and learn more about this growing career field in our 9th grade biology classroom.
Our school has a biotechnology pathway that provides students in 11th and 12th grades with the opportunity to gain experiences in and exposure to this lucrative and growing career field. Our in-house courses and partnerships with pharmaceutical and other biotech companies allow students to participate in internships, authentic lab experiences and more, helping to increase the likelihood that they will feel comfortable and prepared to study this subject area in college and potentially enter a career in this field. This is particularly important for my students as marginalized populations are vastly underrepresented in this career field. Our challenge has been exposing our 9th and 10th grade students to these skills and experiences in the hopes that they will gain interest and comfortability and ultimately choose these courses later in their high school careers.
A freezer and microwave will enable my 9th grade biology students to learn the skills of micropipetting and gel electrophoresis and therefore both enhance their understanding of important biology concepts AND strengthen their biotechnology lab skills.
In order to effectively engage in labs I need to be able to both safely store specific chemical reagents and DNA at the appropriate temperature and prepare specific materials such as gels and agar plates. A microwave and freezer would allow me to prep materials for upcoming labs and store them in my classroom for easy access when it is time to be used for a lab. This would allow me to run labs more frequently and would likely enhance student results on each lab as the reagents could be kept cool until the exact moment they are to be used.
This project will therefore help my students to learn biology in context, see themselves as researchers, and strengthen the biotechnology pathway at my school.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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