For the past three summers, high school students have been elbow to elbow generating bacterial mutants, figuring out how the mutants were different from each other, cloning out the mutations, and learning how to interpret DNA sequence information, all for the sake of advancing scientific knowledge and having fun. Hiram College has hosted 2-3 sessions of the Hiram Genomics Academy each summer, allowing a total of 129 high school students from high schools all over Ohio, as well as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, and Virginia, the opportunity to work with Hiram College faculty and undergraduates on a bacterial genome project....
What jobs are available for a young person who understands how genes work and who has lab skills in molecular biology, microbiology, and genomics? That was one of the questions that 104 students at Rootstown High School in northeast Ohio had to think about during the 2007-2008 academic year. Working with their biology teacher Stephanie Lammlein and faculty at Hiram College, the students participated in the third iteration of a long-term functional genomics project and made some real scientific contributions. Along the way, they learned a lot about basic molecular biology, how to apply it to a real-world problem such as agricultural production, and hopefully expanded their thinking as to possible future careers....
Big business is investing in its future – by facilitating the education of its future employees.
Real research – conducted by all Hiram undergraduate science students.
Tomorrow’s big-world scientists, learning by doing, starting in their first year at Hiram – and even before – through the high school outreach program.
Hiram College Center for Deciphering Life’s Languages Inaugural Symposium
April 4, 2008