Media Advisories Kannapolis students to get hands-on science lesson on board Carolinas Destiny bus
| Kannapolis students to get hands-on science lesson on board Carolinas Destiny bus |
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| Monday, April 21, 2008 | |
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Media representatives are invited to experience hands-on science aboard Destiny, one of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s two traveling science laboratories, when it visits A.L. Brown High School this week. Thursday (April 24) 10:15 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. 11:50 a.m. to 1:10 p.m. A.L. Brown High School 415 East First St., Kannapolis Students from one of April Baucom’s honors biology classes and one of Diane Crawford’s biology classes will perform a lab exercise called “From Finches to Fishes.” They will learn the fundamental principles of evolution and natural selection. Protein gel electrophoresis will be used to acquire molecular data with which the students will construct an evolutionary tree for five fish species. The students will examine proteomics as the new frontier of molecular biology and its importance to understanding the structure and function of the human genome and the genomes of other organisms. The Destiny traveling science learning program is a science education outreach initiative of Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at UNC-Chapel Hill that serves pre-college teachers and students across North Carolina. Destiny develops and delivers a standards-based, hands-on curriculum and teacher professional development with a team of educators and a fleet of vehicles that travel throughout the state. Destiny and Discovery, two custom-built, 40-foot, 33,000-pound buses, bring the latest science and technology equipment to students who otherwise would not see a high-tech laboratory or what a career in science can offer. The module described above is one of 14 offered as part of Destiny’s curriculum. All of Destiny’s modules are aligned with the N.C. Standard Course of Study. The above teachers attended a workshop to learn how to incorporate this particular Destiny curriculum module into their classrooms, which also made them eligible to request a school visit from one of Destiny’s traveling science laboratories. Destiny’s current principal funders are the state of North Carolina, the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) Program in the National Center for Research Resources, GlaxoSmithKline and the N.C. Biotechnology Center. Additional support comes from Bio-Rad Laboratories and Medtronic, Inc. The science buses are powerful visual images that heighten public awareness of the importance of and funding necessary for quality science education. Created by Carolina in 2000, Destiny became a program of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Morehead Planetarium and Science Center in 2006. Destiny Web site: http://www.moreheadplanetarium.org/go/destiny Destiny contact: Claire Ruocchio, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , (919) 843-5915 News Services contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 962-2093, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |