You are creating a product that transfers your internship experience into educational resources. Please describe the challenges and successes you are experiencing.
My time in the Rao lab so far has allowed me to experience what daily lab life is like and has given me the opportunity to practice some of the techniques my students learn in a way that is applicable to real, current research. I’ve gained a much better understanding of some of the procedures we use in class lab activities; explaining these will be much easier now that I’ve used them in a way that is relevant to experiments outside of the narrow parameters of the high school labs I’m used to. Designing lessons based on the science of stem cells has been much easier now that I have a deeper understanding of the techniques used to study them.
On the other hand, it’s been a challenge to modify what I’m learning into a secondary-level lesson. I’m fortunate to teach courses that allow students to gain valuable laboratory skills, but providing them with the information they need to fully understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, while not over-explaining and confusing them, may be tough.
My lessons also approach the history, legality, and ethics of stem cell research, topics that I rarely approach in my laboratory-based courses. It’s been a challenge to design lessons around these topics since I’m not extremely comfortable with them, but it will be interesting to see how my students handle them.