"Science Field Trip to MIT" High School Outreach Program effort led by Mandana Sassanfar On March 24, 2003, during Spring Break at MIT, we organized a "Science Field Trip to MIT" that involved approximately 90 students from four Boston area high schools and their teachers. Highlights of the day included lectures by Professor Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute and Susan Lindquist, director of the Whitehead Institute. After the lectures, students broke out into smaller group activities such as: a discussion with Professor Gobind Khorana, 1966 Nobel Laureate, about cracking the genetic code, and an account of his personal journey from his native India to America; an exercise on protein structure and function adapted from our Swiss Protein Viewer project; and a lab exercise based on microscopic observation of Zebrafish embryos. The several hundred embryos at different stages of development were generously provided by the Sive and Hopkins labs. The protein structure-function exercise was done in the TEAL room which allowed students to each have a laptop computer (see picture). Due to the high demand in 2004, we held lectures and hands-on activities on two successive days allowing over 200 students from 9 schools to participate. Professor Hazel Sive gave a lecture about vertebrate development, and Professor Jonathan King gave a lecture on protein structure. Students were then able to study and manipulate the structure of the hemoglobin and porin proteins on laptop computers using Swiss Protein Viewer, and observe wild type and mutant Zebrafish embryo at various stages of development under the microscope. Coverage in the MIT press

Professors Gobind Khorana and Graham Walker speaking with a high school teacher

One teacher wrote in a letter of thanks: "My students enjoyed our trip so much! Thank you for this opportunity. Their favorite part of the field trip was the zebra fish lab. They enjoyed looking through the microscope at the embryos. The mutants and watching the circulatory system fascinated them. My students were greatful that they had the opportunity to learn "real" science that is happening currently. It opened their minds to possiblities they might not have known of before..." More about the Biology Department's Outreach Efforts

Zebrafish embryos A sophomore from Holliston wrote: "I really enjoyed yesterday's field trip to MIT. The lectures were interesting and informative, and since I had some background information in the two topics covered, I was able to understand what the two professors were talking about. My favorite part of the day, were the two labs. Both labs were extremely interesting. It was fun to play around with the computer program, as well as look at the zebrafish. I especially liked being able to see the mutant zebrafish under the microscopes."