This week, I started my four week internship in the Roberts Lab at NC State. It has been a wonderful week. I’ve gotten to meet the fish, dissect some of them, collect tissue samples, extract the DNA, and run PCR and electrophoresis gels. Everyone in the lab has been extremely welcoming and generous with their time and teaching.
What has been funny about this experience, however, is how many times I have been asked the question, “So, why exactly are you here?” In other words, all that science stuff sounds cool, but why is a high school teacher doing it? It has been, I admit, a little bit tricky to explain.
In the end, it comes down to my desire to make science real for my students. Science, for many of them, is something that you read about in a book. I want them to see that science is something to do. So, when we study cells, we culture and identify bacteria; when we study ecology, we go out and explore the campus ecosystem. It gets a little bit trickier when we get to genetics. DNA and genetics are among the least concrete topics we study, and the processes and equipment needed to do genetics labs are mostly beyond our reach. And, truth be told, I don’t know all that much about genetics lab techniques in order to figure out how to bring them into the classroom.
So, here I am, taking a four week crash course, figuring out how to make DNA and genetics come alive for my students, and maybe, if I’m lucky, how to put a little bit of it into their hands. Wish me luck. 🙂