Maine Middle School classrooms enjoyed a dose of real-world science during the 8th annual Maine Bioscience Day over the week of November 13th, 2023. Created to spur excitement and participation in the life sciences for 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade students, this annual event is hosted by the BioScience Association of Maine, which invites science professionals from across the state to show students the different ways life sciences are being studied and applied right here in their home state.
FlowCam team members Louise Brogan, Ph.D. Application Scientist, and Mike Gray, Field Service Engineer, happily engaged with more than 75 students across 4 South Portland Middle School classrooms. The timing couldn't have been better, as science teacher Jeremy Ritz shared that his students are currently learning about the biological structures of living things and have just started a unit on cell and cell organelles. Seeing single-celled organisms with FlowCam provided students with an example of how cell biologists perform research in the real world.
Pictured here: a student pipettes a water sample into the sample port of the FlowCam 5000 instrument.
Across all four classrooms, the kids were curious about how FlowCam works. They learned how a water sample is collected and analyzed using FlowCam 5000 and how the data and images are generated. They eagerly gathered around the table to watch the images of particles appear on the monitor screen.
FlowCam is an asset to all educational classrooms, from graduate studies and undergraduate to high schools and earlier. Middle school is a special time to foster scientific curiosity and confidence in young learners. We are grateful to Mr. Ritz and all middle school teachers across the state for helping to instill this interest in our natural world.
