Stan-X Moving Forward Despite the Pandemic
After the successful conclusion of training sessions in the Discover Now teaching academy this July, 2020, multiple schools have started Stan-X programs this fall. As part of our commitment to engaging with partnering teachers and their classes, Dr. Kim has visited with classes (by invitation) at multiple times this past month. Some highlights :
Dalton School, NYC, NY: Seung Kim was hosted by Dr. Jessica Joiner on Wednesday November 18, 2020. Dr. Kim joined a group of over 20 students, faculty and Dalton School leaders to present the motivation, rationale and plans for the fruit fly-based Stan-X course developing at Dalton this fall and winter quarter. There was a lively discussion and Q&A period! Plans are afoot to visit the class next quarter to discuss experimental progress and primary literature related to the course.
Haileybury School, United Kingdom: Seung visited the classroom of Victoria Turner and Gareth Lewis, who hosted a teleconference on Friday September 11th. Dr. Kim joined participating Stan-X students and instructors in class to discuss an overview of the experimental work planned this year.
Dr. Kim returned to lead a class discussion on Friday November 27th via videoconference. He joined the current group of 7 lower Sixth formers at Haileybury for over an hour to discuss the original journal article, “Ablation of insulin-producing neurons in flies: growth and diabetic phenotypes” by Rulifson et al. (2002). For all the students, this was the first time they had a chance to read and discuss primary article from a scientific journal. In this case, the discussion was led by a senior author on the study! Reading and understanding primary articles in science journals is a basic skill of practicing scientists. Students have had this experience at other Stan-X partner schools, and based on the enthusiastic responses of the Haileyburians, we are planning to repeat this in the coming term.
Lawrenceville School: Nicole Lantz and Elizabeth Fox, partnering instructors at the Lawrenceville School Research Molecular Genetics (RMG) class, have built an innovative system for remote, real-time interactions at their fly stations – comprised of a dissecting stereomicroscope, and fly ‘pad’ with CO2 on the microscope stage. One student in class positions flies onto the fly pad, and uses a phone camera mounted onto their microscope to transmit images of flies on the stage to partnering students physically distanced, e.g. in their home or dorm room. This allows two or more students to view and score fly phenotypes simultaneously, whether they are in the actual classroom or viewing via teleconferencing. Students from multiple Stan-X partner schools, including Commack High School in Long Island, NY and Haileybury School in the U.K. participated in these sessions. At multiple times throughout mid-November, Dr. Kim also joined via this scheme to interact with students at their microscopes, and discuss fly husbandry and phenotypes. The audio allowed Kim and the students to discuss findings in class. This terrific adaptation to the need for distanced learning has helped move research work forward in the RMG class, even in the time of COVID-19.
In November 2020, the students from Haileybury and Lawrenceville met online to discuss their flywork. Lawrenceville students used Zoom to show the Haileybury students their flies under the microscope, allowing the two groups of students to discuss their common research while it was actively happening.