Year 13's go to Liggins

Last week I bundled up eight of my nine Year 13's and took them off to the Liggins Institute up at Grafton Campus in Auckland. They run a fantastic programme that allows students' the opportunity to learn about a number of topics and gain some hands-on practical science lab experience. 

The topic that we were learning about was the importance of a Healthy Start to Life, and how the environment of a foetus can affect what it looks like, it's birthweight and it's health throughout life.

One thing that I particularly remember is being stumped about why 10 little cloned calves who were all genetically identical actually looked different from one another.. (?!?)  I was sitting at the back of the room thinking.. "maybe birth order has affected how many nutrients they have access too.. maybe they have been kept in different paddocks with different food sources.." I didn't even think about the intrauterine environment, from having different surrogate mothers!

It turns out that the environment we all experience inside of our mothers' uterus may have a big influence on the rest of our life, especially during middle-age! 

After morning tea the students got to have a go using a micropipette and setting up a DNA sample for PCR. They mixed and mingled into groups with other students from Edgewater College and Onewhero Area School and worked really well together.

Chandar Dewan demonstrating how to use a micropipette

Sela and Kellie with girls from the other two schools

John concentrating on delivering the right amount of polymerase to the PCR tube

Siale and Rapture looking like they're enjoying the day :)

After students had set up their tubes to be taken away and have the sample copied billions and billions of times, the next thing to do was run gel electrophoresis on different samples of DNA, to work out how long the chain of base pairs were in each sample. If a sample has more base pairs then it is longer and bigger, and will push more slowly through the gel. If the sample has less then it will move more quickly and therefore get further through the gel! Then students could use a pre-set ladder sample to work out how long each one was, using a computer programme. 

Norman all ready to run gel electrophoresis

At the end of the day everybody split into two groups to talk to two scientists. One was still a student working on his masters about nutrition, and students enjoyed asking him what sort of protein is found in Up and Go (soy) and what protein is better to take when working out (whey right before, and casein the night before). 

Mokani and John ready to ask a neuroscientist some questions

The other scientist was a neuroscientist working on Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease, and he brought a real brain with him for students to have a look at, touch and feel! It was covered in a resin to keep it from degrading, so the brain was quite hard and a little bit plastic-y feeling, but so interesting!

Sela, Kellie and Siale touching the brain of a 60-year old!

Siale and Kellie touching a REAL BRAIN!!!

Year 13 Biology made me so proud on the field trip. They displayed respect towards Chandar, the students from other school and each other, and everyone had integrity and responsibility while they participated with their groups during the activities of the day. 

To celebrate their success Mr Kettle and I treated them to some ice-creams and McDonalds fries on the way home. Keep up the great work team! :)

+Rapture Iosefa +Sela Tukuafu +Sialemoka Kuki-Lagatule +Jay Akau'ola-Laula +Mokani Glassie +Norman Fogavai +Keletiola Mapa +Kitana Tutu-Inamata

Year 13 Bio Goes to Liggins

On Friday five Year 13 students went to the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland. The lab was run by a teacher who has previously taught at Tamaki College, so he knew all of our students already. 

Students learned about how important the prenatal environment is - how mothers can best prepare their unborn children for life, and that Liggins is helping to study how the prenatal environment can correlate with some diseases that appear during middle age.

Next students got to practice using pipettes and setting up samples for PCR.  Students then got to set up and run gel electrophoresis to try and work out how many base pairs were in a given sample of DNA.  Then it was time for lunch!

After refilling on Subway sandwiches, students got to meet some real scientists and ask them questions about their research and their time at university. One scientist surprised the students by talking about how her programme had allowed students to work with cadavers - people who had died and donated their body to science.  There were a few questions asked after that!  After the scientists left it was time to look at a photograph of the gel electrophoresis results and see who had run it properly!

As we finished up, the teachers stood to one side chatting about teaching and learning platforms and biology etc etc... the students completely blew us away by spontaneously moving the lab chairs into a circle and chatting to students from Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate! It was so nice to see, and there was  a LOT of laughing. 

Here's a video of the trip: