[Histonet] Middle School Science Day and OT diatribe

Sun Apr 6 15:24:13 CDT 2014

Hello everyone, thought I'd chime in here as I just returned from helping and judging at the 2-day WSSEF (Washington State Science and Engineering Fair) in Bremerton, Washington.  Had 500 incredible projects from all over the state.  It is our state fair that leads into the ISEF, giant Intel science fair in May that draws 1,600+ students from all states and 70 countries and territories to compete for prestige, recognition and a million dollars of prizes and scholarship money.  So if you have little/no interest in subject heading, please save yourself a bit of reading and just hit delete right now. 

The data is in and is incontrovertible.  The US is getting their teeth kicked in by the world when it comes to hard science and math in education and jobs.  At 2-4th grade we are above the other countries of the modern world in science and math.  At 5-7 grades, we are at around the same level as other countries and by time of graduating high school, we are down to 25-40th place in science and math amongst those same countries depending on which educational group is testing.  So at the elementary and middle school level, I'd encourage all parents and school districts to get more STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) involved before our students start falling off the cliff in STEM education by the end of high school.  Michael Titford offers a great suggestion.  Staying within the confines of histology/pathology/lab medicine of research these are some of the things I've done in elementary and middle school school either at individual school fairs or my school-district fair.  If you can't go full blown with a microscope and such, just having a few paraffin blocks and along with those blocks a cut and stained slide and a photomicrograph, you can reveal some amazing information about lung (being lacy and full of air) or brain or gut (being a tube) or as much as the student can follow along.  One thing that I use, rather than a microscope where only one student can look before changing, is one of those old microfiche readers that you can get for a few dollars.  Just put a slide in the plate where the microfiche went and see a rather startling enlargement.  Yes, is not 1,000x oil immersion resolution but you can see growth plates on appropriately stained bones or bronchi in lung sections or normal skin stained with a melanin stain and a skin with melanoma nodule stained with melanin stain or (fill in as many examples as you want limited only by your imagination and ingenuity).  Get a plant stem from garden, process it and cut cx and ls and see tubes or if your student is dissecting a spotted frog, get a piece of skin, fix in isopropyl alcohol for safety, process and on section can see groups of black melanin corresponding to the spots on the gross frog even if you can't see at cellular resolution.  The possibilities and permutations for showing such science to a middle-schooler are nearly limitless. And is even great in lab itself to demo faults, folds, chatter, etc.  Maybe only downside in real lab is if one of the regulators requires the "instrument" to go through QA/QC/verification etc. 

Actually at our WSSEF fair, there were several GREAT projects relating to such things as urothelial carcinoma and IL-38 and a few such subjects and there were some histology micrographs scattered amongst those and some other projects 

Here is a quote to think about "We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated but the winner of the science fair."  When talking about education and jobs now and into the future from Barack Obama in his Jan 25, 2011 State of the Union address. 

Hope everyone will support STEM, including histology, pathology, lab medicine and lab research at any science fair for any student.  Off my soap box. 

Ray, in suddenly sunny Seattle 

----- Original Message -----

From: mtitford <@t> aol.com 
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu 
Sent: Sunday, April 6, 2014 9:58:17 AM 
Subject: [Histonet] Middle School Science Day 

Carol  Tanck asks about material for a Middle school science day. 

Good items to get hold of are plastinated organs that the young people can pick up and handle. If you have a medical school or community college  near by, their cellular biology or anatomy departments  (Titles vary in these modern times) may be able to lend you some. These organs have been thoroughly fixed, infiltrated with plastic, and then hardened. They are safe to handle and can survive a drop or two. They are especially good for showing lung tissue from smokers showing emphysema, etc. 

Regards 

Michael Titford 
USA Pathology 
Mobile AL USA 
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