I’ve come to the end of my first week as part of the Kenan Fellows Students Discover Team at the North Carolina Science Museum. If I had only one word to describe my experience it would be MAGNIFICENT. Someone in our group summed up the experience as if they’d died and gone to science teacher’s heaven and I couldn’t agree more.
Day 1 – June 30, 2014
We began our week at Prairie Ridge Ecostation and met with our teams of mentors and fellows. Liz Baird, director of education programs at the museum, facilitated a conversation with the group as we shared our hopes, fears and expectations about the journey we were getting ready to take together. It was a great time of sharing and listening as we discussed openly our thoughts about the Students Discover Project.
Next we met with Chris Godforth, Prairie Ridge director, who guided us as we participated in the Citizen Science Dragonfly Swarm Project. We had fun observing dragonflys and collecting data to contribute to this project. We worked up an appetite observing dragonflys and were ready to enjoy a catered lunch by Neomande.
After lunch we drove to the museum and upon arrival I was immediately made to feel welcome in my home for the next three weeks. Liz Baird gave us a tour of the museum and each Students Discover Team was introduced to their lab. My team, nicknamed Team Dirt, is working in the Genomics and Microbiology Lab on Exploring the Dandelion Microbiome with Dr. Julia Stevens.
Our day ended with a Daily Planet talk by Dr. Rob Dunn who explained the entire Citizen Science project and shared his vision for how this project could scale throughout the state, country and even the world. I left my first day at the museum so excited to be a part of this project and couldn’t wait to return the next day!
Day 2 – July 1, 2014
Our day began with our mentor Dr. Juila Stevens and Dan Fergus, mentor of the face mites project. We met in the conference room and learned about the molecular methods used in extracting DNA, and PCR(Polymerase Chain Reaction). A bit of a brain strain as we reviewed cell structure and learned procedures for extracting DNA and PCR reaction involving temperature cycles, primers, nucleotides, and gel electrophoresis. We then got to go back to the Genomics and Microbiology Lab and do some science – yay! Our team learned how to create and plate nutrient agar in preparation for our first soil samples that we collected around the museum block.
At the end of the day, we enjoyed a Daily Planet talk from Dr. Bucky Gates and then toured the Palentology Lab and learned more about his Citizen Science Fossil Project.
Day 3 – July 2, 2014
We began this day with another tutoring session from our mentors Julia and Dan and learned lots about DNA sequencing. Next, my mentor, Dr. Julia Stevens gave a Daily Planet talk on Exploring the Dandelion Microbiome. I was interested to hear more about her project and what my team would be working on in the coming weeks.
Roland Kays, the director of the Biodiversity Lab hosted a round table talk with all the Student Discover Kenan Fellows and his student interns. The topic was How to Reach Middle School Kids. They were very interested in tapping into our expertise in the classroom about what is working with students at this age level. It was fun to be the experts in this conversation and share knowledge from the classroom with the museum. Topics around the table included flipping the classroom, use of technology tools, and limited time with lecture.
The highlight of the day was a visit from NPR’s Frank Stasio who recorded his program The State of Things about the Students Discover Program at the NC Science Musuem. Amy Lawson, one of my teammates on Team Dirt, was interviewed along with Dr. Rob Dunn, and Dr. Julie Urban. Amy did a fabulous job discussing how this Citizen Science initiative with the Students Discover team can positively impact the middle school science classroom.
We ended our day by preparing the soil samples by adding soil to the Phosphate Buffered Solution (PBS), centrifuge the mixture, pipette the solution with bacteria cells on to the agar plates, and incubate the bacteria. It will be interesting to see what is growing!
The museum was buzzing with activity today!
Day 4 – July 3, 2014
To begin our day, Team Dirt was invited to sit in on a job talk given by Danielle N. Lee who was completing the interview process for Assisstant Director of the Biodiversity Lab. It was very interesting to participate in this phase of the interview process.
Team Dirt was then put to the task to create more nutrient agar this time on our own. We successfully plated and labeled the agar.
Liz Baird, director of education at the museum, invited all of the Kenan Fellows working on the Students Discover projects to eat lunch together and reflect on our week. During this conversation it became so apparent to me that I am part of something great … I feel we are on the cusp of changing the face of science in the middle school classroom and I simply can’t wait for week two at the museum!
