{"id":95949,"date":"2024-09-25T13:29:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T17:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=95949"},"modified":"2024-09-25T16:55:33","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T20:55:33","slug":"lab-in-a-box-brings-science-to-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2024\/09\/lab-in-a-box-brings-science-to-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab-in-a-Box brings science to community"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Brock University community outreach program is making science education more accessible for youth in Niagara and beyond.<\/p>\n

Offered by the Faculty of Mathematics and Science\u2019s Lab Links team, Lab-in-a-Box brings science \u2014 and the Brock students who enthusiastically study science every day \u2014 to schools and community groups for free.<\/p>\n

The initiative has been running for two years with generous contributions from the national science education outreach program Let\u2019s Talk Science<\/a>, and recently received a major boost when Professor of Biological Sciences Jeff Stuart received a National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) PromoScience grant<\/a>, which is funded by the Government of Canada.<\/p>\n

The three-year grant has allowed the Lab-in-a-Box program to expand considerably by purchasing new equipment and hiring more Brock students to develop and deliver learning modules to schools and community groups, including those serving underprivileged youth and students whose parents didn\u2019t receive a post-secondary education.<\/p>\n

Stuart came up with the idea for Lab-in-a-Box with Jacinta Dano, Supervisor of the Roy and Lois Cairns Health and Bioscience Research Complex greenhouse facility, who wanted to expand on the success of the Lab Links to Careers undergraduate laboratory skills certification program.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrock has a large group of highly skilled undergraduate and graduate students who are excited to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with young people,\u201d says Dano. \u201cThey have been instrumental in developing the laboratory exercises that they then bring directly to young people in their classrooms and clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

Brock\u2019s Lab Links team.<\/p><\/div>\n

The team, led by Lab Links Co-ordinator Alysha Johnson, has now assembled an equipment lending library that allows it to leave sophisticated university-level equipment behind after visiting a school.<\/p>\n

Teachers love the Lab-in-a-Box program and want to offer similar engaging lessons on their own, but many don\u2019t have the required resources, says Johnson.<\/p>\n

“Modern science often requires specialized and expensive tools and instruments that are not available to all individual schools. Lab-in-a-Box addresses this need by making lab equipment, expertise and support available. Our learning exercises range from photosynthesis experiments using live algae, to coding, engineering and climate change,\u201d says Johnson.<\/p>\n

Equipment can be borrowed through Lab-in-a-Box for a few days to several weeks to allow for ongoing projects or to conduct several interconnected experiments.<\/p>\n

Lab-in-a-Box learning modules follow the Government of Ontario\u2019s science and technology curriculum and can be modified to engage students whose first language isn\u2019t English, for example, or to consider Indigenous ways of teaching and learning.<\/p>\n

The program is already booked until next March, with sessions planned at District School Board of Niagara and Niagara Catholic District School Board schools as well as community groups such as Welland Community House, Boys and Girls Clubs and Anishnabeg Outreach.<\/p>\n

Samantha Booth, Program Chair of Science for Saint Paul Catholic High School, says Brock\u2019s Lab Links team \u201cdelivers high quality labs that students wouldn\u2019t have the opportunity to otherwise have in a high school setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her Grade 12 students learned \u201cinvaluable skills,\u201d such as how to use a spectrophotometer and how to identify, calibrate and use different micropipettes, she says.<\/p>\n

Paul Flower, a Grade 4 teacher at Kate S. Durdan Public School, says the program offers students the opportunity to become more interested in science.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy participating in hands-on activities, our students have become more curious about the world around them. It serves as an excellent introduction to science for many of our young students,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Brock\u2019s team hopes to expand its outreach programming even further by developing a professional development program that would allow Grade 1 to 12 teachers to learn how to use the advanced scientific equipment and then bring that equipment back to their classrooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re certainly very excited by what\u2019s happened with Lab-in-a-Box in just two years, and we\u2019re grateful to be able to expand on what we can offer to the community,\u201d says Stuart. \u201cThanks to NSERC funding and our ongoing support from Let\u2019s Talk Science, Brock University will continue to help local youth engage in STEM.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teachers can request a Lab-in-a-Box kit for their classroom by emailing letstalkscience@brocku.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Brock University community outreach program is making science education more accessible for youth in Niagara and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":95954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9794,7484,41,1],"tags":[10590,49,221,4402,703,797,8907,348,2130,3826,10700,5978,3328,1099,13854,353,3666],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95949"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95968,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95949\/revisions\/95968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}