Blog | BABEC: Bay Area Bioscience Education Community

Spring 2018 – Mitochondrial DNA Workshop

Save the Date! Saturday, February 10th 2018

Discover where you are really from! Learn about Mitochondrial DNA and its role in human ancestry.

Join us and learn how this curriculum makes teaching NGSS easy! We will be covering PCR, Sequencing, and SNPs.

Register Here!

Breakfast, lunch, and a $100 stipend will be provided
Its FREE! To reserve a seat, please pay a $25 deposit fee which will be refunded to you upon arrival (if you need to cancel, please do so within 72 hours or the deposit will be forfeited)
Take BART! BART is only 2 flat blocks away (24th & Mission Station). If driving, we encourage carpooling and parking at the nearby garage will be fully reimbursed.
High school and community college science teachers have priority for this workshop.

Location

City College of San Francisco, Mission Campus
1125 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

Transportation

BART: 2 blocks from the Mission & 24th Station
Driving: Parking fees will be reimbursed by BABEC when parking at the Mission-Bartlett Garage

Time

Saturday, February 10th 2018
8:30am – 3:30pm
Please plan to arrive at 8:30am for a breakfast and networking. Workshop will start promptly at 9:00am

On November 1st, 2017, six teachers joined us for an informal Wolbachia training, which grew out of individual teacher’s need to get experience. Wolbachia lab empowers educators to bring real-world scientific research into the classroom with inquiry, discovery and biotechnology. Teachers learned techniques to test for the presence of the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia in insects of various orders. Ralph Hammond subsequently did the lab in his Biology classes, reporting that 40% of samples tested positive for Wolbachia. Good Job Westmoor Students! Do you need training on a specific protocol? Please contact us, and we can explore options together

Bacterial Transformation with a NGSS Twist

On October 28^th, 2017 teachers from the Bay Area joined us at our Bacterial Transformation workshop. After observing phenomena of natural and induced bacterial transformations, teachers incorporated a green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the bioluminescent jellyfish Aequorea Victoria into a plasmid along with a gene for resistance to the antibiotic ampicillin. Teachers were excited to learn how to make white bacteria turn green!

Getting Started Workshop – October 7th, 2017

On October 7^th BABEC introduced the new getting started series with Bioscience lab skills that have been NGSS-ed. Dr. Ying Tsu engaged teachers with anchoring questions and investigating phenomena to drive instructions.

New and veteran teachers practiced micropipetting while creating art projects. The Electrophoresis lab included food dye to teach how molecules of dye migrate at different rate through a matrix based on their molecular structure, charge, and molecular weight. Teachers also extracted food coloring from Skittles and predicted what “known” dyes make up the color of Skittles.

Check-in with us Later for More Information!

NGSS Rollout #4

On September 12-14 2017, Ying-Tsu went to the Alameda County NGSS Rollout #4 to further supplement BABEC’s understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards to make sure we are doing our fullest in updating our curricula to best fit into the scope of NGSS.

In the High School Biology breakout session, more concrete examples were given regarding phenomenon and the difference between anchoring and investigative phenomenon. Below are some resources:

Using the CA Science Framework to Implement NGSS
California 2016 Science Framework

Summer Vacation!

Oh, what a better way to enjoy summer than making sure our equipment is up to spec for circulation for the next school year. Many thanks to Mr. Jimmy Ikeda for lending us (letting us take over) space in his awesome classroom and lab for us to do this!

This is just a snapshot of some of the equipment collected back from schools from the previous academic year that needs maintenance.

Maintaining all of our equipment requires collaboration from many sides (community, schools, teachers, and us) to make this happen and we are extremely grateful for all the help we get.

Much time and effort is spent on this maintenance project and is just part of how BABEC enjoys giving back to the community that helps with thrive.

With the help of our summer interns, we are ready to tackle the 2017-2018 school year!

(Which started two months ago…oops!)

From a consortium of groups all over the Bay Area collaborating to make bioscience more accessible to high school classrooms, BABEC continued to grow into our current day Community

We at BABEC would like to share bits and pieces about us to show that we care about what we do and how we do it

“Inspiring all students to engage in science by empowering all teachers”

-BABEC Team

(More posts to come soon!)

Getting Started with Bioscience Lab Skills

Save the Date! Saturday, January 27 2018

Join the Bay Area community of bioscience teachers for a day of hands-on learning and collaboration. You will learn the basics of micropipetting and electrophoresis – key skills that are needed to teach molecular biology to your students.

Register Here!

This event is free, but to reserve a seat please pay a $25 refundable fee. It will be returned to you upon arrival.
A $50 teacher stipend will be given to all teachers who attend
Breakfast and lunch will be provided
Active high school and community college teachers have priority

Location

City College of San Francisco, Mission Campus
1125 Valencia Street, Rm 364
San Francisco, CA 94110

Transportation

BART: 2 blocks from the Mission & 24th Station
Driving: Parking fees will be reimbursed by BABEC when parking at the Mission-Bartlett Garage

Time

Saturday, January 27, 2018
8:30am – 3:30pm
Please plan to arrive at 8:30am for a breakfast and networking. Workshop will start promptly at 9:00am