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Three Carthage High School students, whose names will be released at a later date, have been selected to participate in the Project Lead the Way National Symposium deep in the heart of Texas.
Only seven schools and their PLTW Biomedical Sciences program will be showcased at the Symposium from Nov. 12-14, and Carthage R-9 will be the only Missouri school represented.
“It’s quite the honor,” said Chris Adams, PLTW instructor who will accompany the students to the Lone Star State. “This is the first time they’ve invited schools to participate” in the biomedical science curriculum “in this way. We’ll be the only ones from Missouri there. It’ll be exciting and also a bit intimidating, because they’ll be up on the national stage.
“It’s an honor of (the students).”
Carthage is only one of five Missouri school districts participating in the Bio-med program, Adams said, and is a test pilot school for the organization. When new curriculum comes out, Carthage is one of the first in the nation to receive the information and put it before students inside the classroom, serving as instructional guinea pigs, so to speak. Adams and others at the high school will then give the organization feedback on how things went, in which case the curriculum is tweaked and revised before it’s finalized and issued nationwide.
The three students will choose to demonstrate on stage at the Symposium one of three experiments. For any dedicated CSI viewer, the demonstrations will instantly be familiar. The first is a urine analysis, using artificial urine, where students must determine, through a battery of tests, what disease killed a fake patient. Tests are microscopic. In class, there are a total of six patients, each with a different condition.
The second experiment uses the familiar micropipettes, straight out of CSI or Bones. The students undertake Gel electrophoresis studies, which essentially are a technique used to separate deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), ribonucleic acid (RNA), or protein molecules using an electric field applied to a gel matrix.
The third experiment uses lab view software to study a person’s heart rate, blood pressure and EKG. Students utilize handheld monitors to analyze the condition of a person’s heart, if there’s a heart problem, valve problem, that sort of thing.
If all of these experiments sound like they’re preparing Carthage students to enter the world of bio-medical science, perhaps to work as forensic scientists, then you’d be correct. It’s the whole idea behind the class. PLTW was created 20 years ago because America wasn’t producing enough indigenous engineers; many companies were forced to hire foreign students. Carthage R-9 was one of the first districts to accept the engineering curriculum, and it’s the same with the bio-medical instructions. Carthage has had the PLTW engineering program for five years running.
Three years ago, 35 U.S. schools participated, including Carthage R-9. Since then, the number of participating districts has risen to 170.
Three Carthage High School students, whose names will be released at a later date, have been selected to participate in the Project Lead the Way National Symposium deep in the heart of Texas.
Only seven schools and their PLTW Biomedical Sciences program will be showcased at the Symposium from Nov. 12-14, and Carthage R-9 will be the only Missouri school represented.
“It’s quite the honor,” said Chris Adams, PLTW instructor who will accompany the students to the Lone Star State. “This is the first time they’ve invited schools to participate” in the biomedical science curriculum “in this way. We’ll be the only ones from Missouri there. It’ll be exciting and also a bit intimidating, because they’ll be up on the national stage.
“It’s an honor of (the students).”
Carthage is only one of five Missouri school districts participating in the Bio-med program, Adams said, and is a test pilot school for the organization. When new curriculum comes out, Carthage is one of the first in the nation to receive the information and put it before students inside the classroom, serving as instructional guinea pigs, so to speak. Adams and others at the high school will then give the organization feedback on how things went, in which case the curriculum is tweaked and revised before it’s finalized and issued nationwide.
The three students will choose to demonstrate on stage at the Symposium one of three experiments. For any dedicated CSI viewer, the demonstrations will instantly be familiar. The first is a urine analysis, using artificial urine, where students must determine, through a battery of tests, what disease killed a fake patient. Tests are microscopic. In class, there are a total of six patients, each with a different condition.
The second experiment uses the familiar micropipettes, straight out of CSI or Bones. The students undertake Gel electrophoresis studies, which essentially are a technique used to separate deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), ribonucleic acid (RNA), or protein molecules using an electric field applied to a gel matrix.
The third experiment uses lab view software to study a person’s heart rate, blood pressure and EKG. Students utilize handheld monitors to analyze the condition of a person’s heart, if there’s a heart problem, valve problem, that sort of thing.
If all of these experiments sound like they’re preparing Carthage students to enter the world of bio-medical science, perhaps to work as forensic scientists, then you’d be correct. It’s the whole idea behind the class. PLTW was created 20 years ago because America wasn’t producing enough indigenous engineers; many companies were forced to hire foreign students. Carthage R-9 was one of the first districts to accept the engineering curriculum, and it’s the same with the bio-medical instructions. Carthage has had the PLTW engineering program for five years running.
Three years ago, 35 U.S. schools participated, including Carthage R-9. Since then, the number of participating districts has risen to 170.
“We currently have 65 freshmen enrolled in principals of bio-medical science, which is the freshman course. That’s 65 out of 300 freshmen, so we’re retaining quite a few of them,” Adams said.
Twenty-eight of the original 40 students who joined the class are still with it today.
Why?
“It’s the curriculum,” Adams said. “That’s the exciting part. It’s lab-oriented and that’s what makes project lead the way classes so appealing – whether it’s engineering or bio-medical, everything is hands-on, challenging, activity-based and there’s never a ‘right-or-wrong’ or ‘yes-and-no’ answer, kids have to analyze, demonstrate and compare similarities to a number of high-level questions.”
Ultimately, “it really prepares them for the future.”
