As the school year ends, young students look forward to the summer months ahead that promise to hold endless sunshine and time with friends. For many of these students, summertime marks the end of school days and the start of camp days filled with waterslides, ice cream, sports and outdoor games. In many local schools, however, camp has taken on a new meaning. At Biotechnology High School (BTHS), camp isn’t water gun fights and face painting; it’s gel electrophoresis and DNA fingerprinting.
Biotech Boot Camp began 10 years ago, not long after the founding of BTHS, as a way to expose middle school students to the types of research done at the life sciences-oriented county vocational school. Since it began, the camp has been run by Danielle Jensen, who teaches IB Biology at Biotech. (IB programs – International Baccalaureate – allow students to take college-level courses while in high school.) The counselors are primarily rising juniors at the school.
“As a counselor, the best part of boot camp was being able to apply the lab skills that I learned the previous year and to share those skills with aspiring middle school scientists,” she said. “It was super flexible on both sides. Everyone basically learned and taught as much as they wanted.”
Essentially, counselors will present the basic premises of a procedure, including the techniques and applications, before students will conduct the experiments themselves. Labs include DNA extraction, bacterial transformation and gel electrophoresis. Campers also learned about topics in genetics and about viral structure and infection.
“I’d never been to Biotech before this, and I might want to go here for high school,” one camper said.
The camp, made up of approximately 15 students each week for three weeks in July, is held in one of the school’s main laboratories.
Biotech isn’t the only local school opening its doors to curious young minds. High Technology High School in Lincroft offers a total of nine camps throughout the summer. Middle school students can still register for a variety of courses, including car engineering design, programming robotics, digital circuit technologies and programming.
Either way, they go home with skills well beyond their years and a brief glimpse into what may, or may not, lie ahead.
This article was first published in the July 26-Aug. 2, 2018 print edition of The Two River Times.