High School Labs
Every year, we present hands-on laboratory activities in plant molecular biology in local high school biology classes in Homer, Cortland and Groton, NY. Our goal is to help enrich the required Living Environment curriculum for the students by presenting science in an engaging manner, making connections with current issues in a national and global context. All New York State students are required to learn about molecular genetic technology – our lab activities give them an opportunity to apply their knowledge to explore real-world problems in plant science. This program was initiated in 2002 (link to McCouch website previous years) as part of our outreach activities under a previous NSF grant (Award #0110004) and is in its sixth consecutive year in the same three school systems.
Objectives:
- To reach out to high school students and teachers in the US to promote an interest in science and biology, particularly from under-represented minorities or under-resourced communities
- To develop a laboratory-based program in plant molecular genetics to enrich the biology curriculum in local area high schools in mid and upstate New York.
- To offer students from participating high schools an opportunity to understand current molecular genetics technology within the Living Environment curriculum required of all students prior to graduation from high school.
- To give the students a view of how plant scientists address problems of global food production, sustainable agriculture, and human health, and to increase awareness of how research related to plants, plant genetics, genomics, and agriculture contributes to human welfare.
- To coordinate our activities with other outreach activities at Cornell, including the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers (CIBT) and the Plant Genome Research Program Outreach program organized by Tom Brutnell at the Boyce Thomson Institute (BTI).