The Metagenomics Education Partnership, funded by a Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), seeks to build understanding of best practices contributing to student motivation and participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at the high school level. The program introduces teachers to innovative technology that uses a hands-on, cyber-learning approach to increase knowledge of bioinformatics and bioinformatics software. Participation in the program encourages teachers to incorporate bioinformatics studies into the classroom setting and provides ongoing support to students as they pursue STEM career plans. June of 2020 begins our first year of this new five-year program, which includes collaborations with the University of Buffalo, WNY Rural AHEC, Erie-Niagara AHEC, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeepers, and several school districts in our catchment area.
For Mrs. Peterson’s AP Bio class, their partnership project with the University of Buffalo (UB) started in September, where they took water samples and collected Metadata from the stream at Channing Philbrick Park in Penfield. Mrs. Peterson then traveled with these samples to the labs at UB to have the water filtered. The filter papers were brought to Gananda in October, where Dr. Sandra Small helped students sample the papers for the DNA of bacterial species living in the Channing Philbrick Park waterway. This DNA was compared to known species and identified; with some plated on petri dishes to be grown.
On February 27th, Dr. Small returned to Gananda with 1 species from the growth plate, and students participated in whole genome sequencing to determine the DNA sequence of this unknown species.
In May, all findings of our students will be presented as a Capstone project poster to various participating districts at the UB Medical School.