The Society for Invitro Biology Education Outreach

During the first weekend after I had an incredible opportunity to attend a teacher's workshop organised by the Society for Invitro Biology (SIVB) as part of their educational outreach.

It was two hands-on session and presentations by students from two US High Schools.

The first hands-on was doing PCR with primers for a fruitfly gene. The trainers recommended the fruitfly (Drosophila Melangastor) as a possible specimen. They are fairly easy to obtain, a well studied animal model and it is likely that you will find a Drosophila geneticist in every research institution. I am personally acquianted with a few.

This was followed by presentations of 5 groups of High School students. The presentation was well prepared and the students shared their science projects on molecular biology. Some of the presentations could be used as experiments in our classrooms or as science project tasks.

The second half was a hands-on session involving Plant Tissue Culture. The trainers demonstrated how easily and accessible Plant Tissue Culture is to the classroom and how it is a potentially useful too to teach biostatistics as well as skills of observations. The Plant Tissue Culture system is also very visible and the developmental changes (such as rooting, shooting, flowering, death) can be easily followed.

Apart from that there were testimonies of dedicated teachers and how they have gone against all odds to make this happen for the sake of their students. I gained much from this one day sesssion.