I am woman hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore. And I know to much to go back and pretend.
The above is a quote from a famous song, and it often pops into my head when I am feeling a little full of myself. However, I feel like it is fitting for my present situation. I am so proud to be a woman working with other brilliant women in a science lab. I feel like I have to change my approach to life because I can’t pretend that this experience hasn’t changed who I am. (Okay so maybe I am feeling a little full of myself.) 🙂
Day 1 (of Week 3) in Raleigh
So we had a bit of a stressful (but exciting) start to our week. We were the first Team to give our Daily Planet Talk. It went well, but I just hope that some people thought it was funny. I tried to make it fun. I changed my speech several times before I was happy with it.
I will have to attach a video or a picture of our talk.
We spent the rest of our time on the Maze Runner Bacteria Lesson Plan (writing it and taking educational photos to upload). We took pictures as we remade our petri dishes that became contaminated, and I had fun like normal.
This is a picture of all the materials a teacher would need to make Agar. The Agar is pipetted into the bottom of the petri dish before the nutrient sources are placed in the corners and the bacteria is placed in the center.
One of the last steps in preparing the petri dish is to tape the sides. We practiced with a special kind of stretchy lab tape that I can’t remember the name of.
We spent some of our day making pictures to accompany the Maze Runner Bacteria Lesson Plan. This particular picture shows the daily photo card filled out with the maze fully assembled.
When the plate is finished being made with the nutrients in the corner, we had to place the bacteria in the center of the maze.
Above is a picture to help out the future teachers who use this lesson. These are the supplies necessary to place the food (or nutrient sources) in the corners of the maze, but still keep everything sterile.
Day 2 (of Week 3) in Raleigh
Sometimes you don’t even know you need a pick-me-up until someone makes you a mocha with a heart on top!
I don’t have very many pictures to share from today. However, today was even better than yesterday. Today we accomplished a lot on our second lesson plan, BLAST That, DNA!
The last time that we talked about DNA Blasting becoming a lesson, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to connect it well enough to my 7th grade curriculum. However, I had more than one break through today. I have to give a shout out to one of my co-workers from Valley Springs Middle School, Ansley Fox. We have grown from a student-teacher relationship into co-workers. This past year he was talking to me about a PBS program that he had been watching on TV, Finding Your Roots. Because of him, I found a new and interesting connection to have my students make in the classroom to DNA sequencing and DNA testing.
I had a second breakthrough that utilizes Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets along with historical scientific women!!!!
We also spent some time today listening to the Ant Team give a Daily Planet Talk. They were fantastic! They really got the audience involved and interacting with them. Great teaching moment!
You know you are a teacher when you go out to dinner, and on your walk home you can’t help but think about applications to the curriculum that you no longer teach.
These buildings could have been a real-life application of my 7th grade math curriculum, if I still taught math. 🙂
Day 3 (of Week 3) in Raleigh
We began the day by giving student tours to rising 12th grades at the Governor’s School. That was fun, and it reminded me why I am a teacher.
Team Emammal gave a wonderful presentation. I don’t have any pictures because I forgot my camera!!! Silly person.
Then we spend a lot of our time on lesson planning. I am feeling pretty accomplished when it comes to these lesson plans. They might not be pretty, but if the students and teachers have buy-in this could be some really cool stuff.
We want to sample bacteria. We are placing one sample of bacteria into each tiny tube.
We found 10 different looking bacteria and took a sample of each one. Each sample came from a different plate. We are going to let them sit over night in an enzyme bath to cut the bacteria DNA into chunks. Then tomorrow we are going to play…Who’s Your Daddy? Ha Ha.
We decided to isolate some bacteria and test the DNA! I am hoping to do this in my classroom this coming school year! Yay us at VSMS!
We had a focus group at the end of the day, but the DNA sampling was my favorite part of the day.
Day 4 (of Week 3) in Raleigh
We gave more student tours today to rising 9th graders with the Students Discover School Camp. I didn’t take any pictures, but I felt my teacher vibe come out. I felt the energy spread from me into the kids. It was great. I forget sometimes how one person can change the feel in the room. I spent part of the morning talking to kids about their breakfast.
The #DinoStars gave their presentation, and it was great!
Look at #TeamDino and the picture of Beth with her spirit dinosaur.
Look at #TeamDino and the picture of Kate with her spirit dinosaur.
Look at #TeamDino and the picture of Monica with her spirit dinosaur.
We spent a little more time today lesson planning. Again, I am feel good about this. It’s going to be great. I can just feel it. I think if I can pair up with Kate and we can do some district wide PD, then we can really turn some of these teachers onto really teaching science while DOING science in class.
Look at the really cool purple ladder that we are going to use in our Gel Electrophoresis experiment today!
So, yesterday we isolated 10 different samples of bacteria DNA. Then we placed them into little tubes with enzymes to break the DNA apart in a specific pattern. Today, was the real test our our #TeamSoil brilliance.
Look at our gel. Our non-edible jell-o looks good! We are ready to test our chopped up bacteria DNA samples.
Can you see the little colorful holes (AKA wells) on the left side of the gel? Can you see the bubbles on the edge?
These two wacky scientists have worked so hard to make their DNA testing work well. They now have to wait another hour to see if their hard work from the last two days going to pay off.
The enzymes did not do a good job cutting our bacterias’ DNA. We worked so hard, but we ended up feeling sad at our failed experiment electrophoresis experiment. 🙁
I don’t know if you can see it, but the ladder DNA (on left) worked well and so did our negative (on right). However, the actual DNA we were testing did not turn out very well because the enzyme we used was expired.
I am already missing our Doc. Today was our last day with Dr. Julia Stevens. She left this afternoon on a plan to participate in an interview Far Far Away.
Today had another LAST. It was our last night of PD. Thank you to Dr. Julie Urban who made that happen.
Day 5 (of Week 3) in Raleigh
It is over!!! I am devastated that my intern or extern – ship is over. I had the time of my life at the Museum of Natural Sciences.
Our last day, was amazing (even though Dr. Julia Stevens was MIA).
We started the morning with a little visit from the Ant Team. Michelle showed us her new friend, Mrs. Cicada.
We learned that a cicada has to have a BIG muscle (unlike the planthopper) to help suck up the tree juice because of the direction the juice is flowing. SO COOL!
If you are wanting to work some of these awesome experiments in your room, but you don’t know how to get Agar, all you need to go is find this package in your local Asian Grocery Store. Who Knew!?!?!
Have you ever heard of a face mite? Well, I saw some today, and that was pretty crazy. The consensus was that Monica had the prettiest face mites.
This is a close up of the facemites. Look at Monica’s facemites. They are so pretty and there really isn’t any debris.
Dr. Julie Urban is super gluing her face to find some facemties. It looked like it hurts, but she said it was better than getting your face waxed.
So, yesterday we did not have success with our gel electrophoresis when using an expired enzyme to chop up our 10 bacteria DNA. So we are trying again.
Grace is working hard filling 22 wells/holes in the gel with the samples and enzymes that we mixed the day before.
So these are our nervous faces. We really want the electrophoresis to go well.
We were sad. Our “baby-daddy” experiment with slicing bacteria didn’t work.
We were going to use this key to look for our baby-daddy, but it didn’t really work.
These are the most awesome women/teachers. I have enjoyed have many breakfasts and dinners with these fancy ladies. I will miss them…FOREVER!
I love Beth. I am going to miss her terribly. She shared with me some of the most wonderful resources. Every time I talk to her I learn more about how she is one of those Real-life Superheroes. There is just no way to compare myself to someone as phenomenal as Beth. I hope one day I am as good a person as she is.
I’ve been wanting to play with the elephant in the room for three weeks. I figured because it was the last day, we were in a “now or never” situation.
I dropped the elephant in the room.
I will end my picture show for Week 3 with our fancy rooftop picture. Go Us!