Science Time at the Gator Nation

As I mentioned yesterday I had to rush off and miss out on the delicious Father's Day dinner of chicken enchiladas (which is probably my favorite meal-I eat the leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner) because I was starting my summer program at UF. The program is a new opportunity for science teachers around the state to learn more about biotechnology and how to apply it in the high school classroom.

The Bench to Bedside program (BtoB) is a year long initiative that supplies the participating teachers with the support and materials (and graduate credit!) to establish a biotechnology program in their classrooms used to educate students on the process of drug discovery at the bench through the clinical trials process and finally treatment at the bedside.

It's only the end of the second day, but I'm equally excited and exhausted! 

All of the teachers come from different backgrounds, so our first "lab" today was to practice working with the micro-pipetters, or "pipette-men by pipetting colored water into the 96 well plates. 

From all my work in the developmental and immunology labs I can do this in my sleep....and I'm modest about my skills too! hehe.
 
Our "protocol" only instructed us to pipette certain volumes in to what seemed like random wells.

When we were done, a "magic picture" appeared! My benchmate and I got the DNA base pairing rules, but it wasn't all science-y stuff around the lab......

We are in Gator Country after all!

I'll save the rest of my science adventures at UF reporting to you until the program ends the first week of July! Stay tuned!

Love to all,

~the science teacher who believes in learning everyday, Jess