STUDENT OUTREACH

In order to reach out to students from the inner-city elementary schools the Márquez-Magaña lab hosted an “I’m Going to College” outreach program. The students came into college for a day and experienced little classes and workshops. The purpose of this outreach event was to expose these young students to the university atmosphere at a young age. These students may have not had any other exposure to the college or university level.

The young students get to become young scientists. Students in the Márquez-Magaña lab act as guides and role models throughout the experiment. The experiment that was conducted was strawberry DNA extraction. This experiment introduced molecular biology in an easy to follow and exciting way. After the successful extraction of strawberry DNA these young scientists took a final exam. Upon completion of the final exam the students had their exams graded and had their strawberry DNA checked. These events stimulated examples of university education. The young scientists were able to store the strawberry DNA in an eppendorf tube and received a strawberry smoothie to take home with them.