FRANKLIN STUDENTS LEARNED FINANCIAL LITERACY ON JA DAY
BIOLOGY STUDENTS WORKED WITH CANCER RESEARCHERS ON THREE DAY LAB ethel Park
FRANKLIN STUDENTS LEARNED FINANCIAL LITERACY ON JA DAY
Franklin students learned about financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship during JA Day, sponsored by Junior Achievement.
Teaching grade appropriate lessons to the students were Bethel Park High School students in Mrs. Dzanaj’ s Child Development Classes, who worked together in teams to provide a meaningful day for the elementary students. The lessons included activities, songs, games and vocabulary. Each grade level participated in five different lesson plans. For example: Kindergarten students learned about the different types of coins and made their own piggy banks.
First Grade students discussed the idea of needs vs. wants and used their map skills to learn where community businesses are best located.
Second Grade students manufactured donuts using quality control and learned how to pay taxes on the items they sold.
Third Grade students built a city and learned about zoning. They also hired and employed personnel for a pizza shop.
Bethel Park High School students enjoyed helping the Franklin students complete their age appropriate lessons.
Fourth Grade students discussed what traits make a good entrepreneur and they operated a hot dog stand to problem solve and understand the concepts of risk and rewards.
Franklin students enjoyed being taught by the high school students, and Franklin Fourth Grade Teacher Mrs. Luzader was especially impressed with how well the high school students were prepared, calling them,“ good role models” for her students.
BIOLOGY STUDENTS WORKED WITH CANCER RESEARCHERS ON THREE DAY LAB ethel Park
BETHEL PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT
Students worked together to transfer their DNA samples into containers that would be run through the thermocycler to“ unzip” the DNA helix.
Bethel Park High School Biology students worked with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh’ s Women’ s Cancer Research Center at the Hillman Cancer Center on a three-day lab exercise that involved DNA extraction.
Students were asked to bring samples of their favorite snack foods, such as chips, cereal, tortillas and crackers to school for analysis. The students ground up the snacks and used a chemical to extract the DNA from the food to determine if Genetically Modified Organisms( GMOs) were present.
The second day of the lab had students mixing their samples with additional chemicals that would make more DNA. Then the Pitt researchers took those samples back to Pitt and ran them
74 BETHEL PARK through a machine called a thermocycler, which used high temperatures to help“ unzip” the DNA helix.
On the third day, the students’ samples were returned and they used pipettes to insert their DNA samples into a gel, which was then placed into a machine to separate the DNA by sequence through a process called electrophoresis, in which an electrical current runs through the gel.
Once the electrophoresis process concluded, students stained their gels blue and used a light table to view the DNA sequences in the gels, to determine if GMOs were present.
The students talked about reasons that GMOs would be used in the food supply--to increase yield, make crops more disease and insect resistant, help them to stay stronger in bad weather, produce more seeds and to taste better.
Women’ s Cancer Center Researcher Dr. John Skoko helped to guide the students through the lab and he explained that this same process is used by Researchers to test for genetic diseases in people and by Forensic Scientists to extract DNA from crime scenes.
This is the fourth year that Bethel Park High School has partnered with Pitt on a multi-day lab and the third year the students have participated in the GMO extraction exercise.
Dr. Skoko encouraged the students to consider applying to Pitt’ s Summer Internship Program, where they can work alongside UPMC Researchers on real-life studies. Senior Angela Burns has participated in this program the past two summers.
This experience was made possible by BPHS Science Teacher Barbara Eisel, who established the relationship with the University of Pittsburgh to bring this cutting-edge technology into the classroom.