APHL’ s Public Health Laboratory Ambassadors program seeks to promote public health laboratory science and careers to students and the public through outreach events in their communities. Ambassadors volunteer their time to plan and participate in these outreach events. Recently, Public Health Laboratory Ambassadors from New York State Department of Health-Wadsworth Center planned and held a series of outreach events for high school students. |
Planning took place from May 2024 to January 2025. Guidance and support were provided by Rise High, the Wadsworth Center and the Public Health Laboratory Ambassadors program. Supplies included expired reagents and equipment lent to the cause. Organizers spent $ 200 on external reagents. Through approaching laboratories for volunteers, four organizers and nine in-class volunteers were identified. |
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Planning
Ambassadors developed a course to take place on three consecutive Saturdays in collaboration with the Rise High Program hosted at Center for Advanced Technology in Schenectady, NY. The course was designed to allow ninth grade high school students to experience molecular biology assays and their role in the public health laboratory. Students were given a comprehensive background in public health, taught how to utilize basic molecular biology equipment, engaged in lectures about DNA replication, received instruction on a polymerase chain reaction( PCR) assay used in the newborn screening laboratory and learned gel electrophoresis techniques.
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Implementation
The most difficult challenge of event planning was estimating how much time activities would take. In anticipation of this, multiple back-up activities were prepared. Since the event took place over the course of three Saturdays, organizers were able to reassess plans for the next lesson after each event. Several activities were redesigned for the following week based on the results from the previous week. One key takeaway was the importance of not being rigid in the design – the teaching needed to be flexible to account for unexpected changes. Each week had a different attendance, which changed group dynamics. This was easy to adapt to but was unexpected. In retrospect, for an event spanning multiple weeks,
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6 LAB MATTERS Summer 2025 |
PublicHealthLabs |
@ APHL. org |
APHL. org |