CSI meets biology class in State College program

Braden River High School biology teacher Jodie VanSeggern is crafty, her students say.

She knows how to teach complex scientific concepts using materials found in any desk drawer — a pair of scissors and paper cutouts are all she needs to teach students how to analyze DNA.

But on Friday, those scissors and paper cutouts were replaced with thousands of dollars worth of equipment, a college-level laboratory and a crime scene investigation.

The State College of Florida’s Biotechnology Outreach Program brought two groups of Braden River biology students to SCF’s science labs for a daylong workshop, where students analyzed DNA and solved a fictional crime.

“It’s really nice for them to see a real operating lab and to actually get to do the things that we talked and studied about,” VanSeggern said. “We do labs, but this is different, getting to do what real scientists do.”

The program is a partnership with Manatee County Public Schools, which awarded the program a $10,000 grant. Groups from Bayshore and Manatee high schools have also completed the workshop.

The students spliced and analyzed DNA samples, trying to match the DNA of one of four “suspects” to a sample found at a pretend crime scene.

The process makes dissecting a frog look like child’s play.

It goes something like this: Add enzymes to five different DNA samples to break the DNA into fragments. While waiting for the enzymes to work, create a floppy gel square with tiny wells to house the DNA. Once the DNA is broken down, inject the fragments into the gel wells, place the gel into an electrophoresis gel box and charge it with electricity. When the gel is charged, the negatively charged DNA fragments are pulled through the gel to the positive end of the apparatus. The DNA’s journey across the gel creates a unique pattern. Add a dye, look at the gel under an ultraviolet light, and see which of the two DNA patterns match.

Simple, right?

The Braden River contingent was largely composed of college-bound students, some with Ivy League ambitions who recited the top colleges Manatee County students have gotten into in the past decade. But Brian Sidoti and Nancy Stults, the SCF adjunct faculty members who run the program, said they do the same experiment with regular-level classes, and students without prior ambitions for college have changed their minds after seeing the hands-on lab work scientists do.

“A lot of those kids really thought it was cool and were successful working with their hands,” Stults said.

Daniel Rodrigues, a 17-year-old junior, said his class had studied DNA extensively, but getting to use real lab equipment gave him a much-better understanding.

“The equipment here has given us the opportunity to take up knowledge we learned from textbooks and videos and apply it hands on and really learn what it would be like to pursue a career in science,” Rodrigues said.

One of the aims of the program is to equip teachers to run the lab in their own classroom. Once a teacher has been trained in running the experiment, they can borrow a box containing $50,000 of equipment from SCF.

“The goal is to get to the point where teachers aren’t intimidated by the activity,” Stults said.

Under a previous grant that expired in 2014, about 10 teachers from Manatee and Sarasota counties were trained to run the lab in their own classroom. Four teachers have been trained so far under the grant from Manatee Schools.

Students on Friday said they want to see the program continue. And it may have even spawned one future crime-scene investigator.

“This is fun because you get to do a hands-on experiment with materials you wouldn’t really get in a high school classroom setting,” Braden River senior Lauren Kvederis said. “It’s actually kind of made me want to go into forensics.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2017 at 12:27 PM with the headline "CSI meets biology class in State College program."