Guest Blog Post by Vicki Anderson, VISTA Member, STEM Educator and Curriculum Developer at Flagstaff Bordertown Dormitory Kinlani Flagstaff Bordertown Dormitory has a Robotics/AISES (American Indian Science and Engineering Society)/STEM Club with 15 members so far! They are making robots with our Lego Robotics Coach-Mentor Larry Marek. They began using the NAU Cline Library MakerLab on September 14th with Bryan Johnson, the Tech Services Coordinator. Club members will learn TinkerCAD to use NAU’s 3D printer for their Engineering STEM Challenges prototypes. On September 9th, nine high school students participated in an Indigenous Youth STEM Academy with the Flagstaff Open Space Program. This program aims to connect Indigenous youth with cultural and natural resources at Picture Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve. The Preserve provides a unique opportunity for learning about the connection between culture, community, and stewardship as it is home to Northern Sinagua petroglyphs and habitation sites, and represents a place of cultural importance for many surrounding tribal communities. Each session encompasses a full day of activities, including an interpretive tour of the Preserve, a lunch panel discussion with local STEM professionals and students, and a hands-on service-learning project. This program is organized by STEM VISTA Member Erin O'Keefe.
STEM Engineering Challenges competitions are also open to all students biweekly. All STEM activities are coordinated by AmeriCorps VISTA educator Vicki Anderson, and our motivated FBD staff. As you can see, we are “steaming” ahead in our STEM Education projects! The students attended the Flagstaff Festival of Science “Engineering Solutions” kick off with keynote speaker Kyle Maynard on September 22nd at NAU’s Ardrey Auditorium. He was born without a complete set of arms and legs. With engineering solutions from Kahtoola, a Flagstaff company, and serious determination, he has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa and Mt. Aconcagua in South America. Get out for some of the 100 free events at the 28th Annual Flagstaff Festival of Science and you will see the Kinlani STEM students!
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The dozen high school students in the iCREATE CTE Bioscience class toured two very different labs at NAU on Monday, April 24th. First, they ventured to the Geochronology Lab in the Science Lab Facility building where Lab Manager Katherine Whitacre described the process of amino acid racemization and how it is used to date small specimens including single microorganisms or bits of mollusk shells, egg shells, etc. Northern Arizona University has one of the few amino acid geochronology labs in the United States and has analyzed samples from all over the world for almost 20 years under the leadership of Lab Director and Regents Professor Darrell Kaufman. Below, graduate student Ethan Yackulic showed one of his sediment cores from Crater Lake in Colorado. The lab has a large walk-in refrigerator with lake cores from all over the world, collected by NAU researchers and graduate students. The cores are kept cold so unwanted microorganisms don't grown on the surfaces. Ethan uses a Specim hyperspectral single core scanner designed for studying lake sediment core samples. By changing the range of wavelengths, he can detect locations of specific minerals or organic compounds, to help pinpoint where to collect his samples. In the photos above: Katherine is dissolving mollusk shells with hydrochloric acid, an iCREATE student looks at shells under the microscope, and graduate student Kara Gibson uses a particle size analyzer on soil samples for her dissertation research. Many of the research results from this lab focus on understanding paleoclimate change, which may then inform our understandings of, and models for, present climate change. You can learn more about this research here. The next tour was to Nathan Nieto's lab in the Wettaw Biochemistry Building. Dr. Nieto has studied numerous animals in the past, but these days his lab is overwhelmed with ticks being mailed to him from all over the country. On an average day, the graduate students and undergraduate researchers in his lab will identify, grind, extract DNA and run real time PCR on 200-400 samples to determine whether the tick is host to pathogens such as Lyme disease and tick-borne relapsing fever. One week in May of 2016 he received over 2,000 ticks in the mail and it looks like he may exceed that this May. The tick study will identify what regions of the country have which species of ticks and what diseases they are carrying. This project will create a "heat map" of tick-borne diseases that can then be used by doctors and epidemiologists. Photos above: Nate looks over where some of the many ticks are being mailed from, just a few of the mailboxes of ticks in his lab, and undergraduate Shienna Braga who is identifying the species of ticks at the microscope. Photos above: Nate shows an iCREATE student the number of eggs one female tick laid, and graduate student Tanner Porter leads the lab tour for the students, including the refrigerator with thousands of samples from numerous animals including coyote tongues (possible reservoir for Rocky Mt. Spotted Fever), mice, squirrels, bats and more! Nate's lab website explains what keeps him busy: "Our research focuses on the ecological maintenance and evolution of infectious diseases in wild animals and how this translates into transmission of disease to humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. We use a mixture of microbiology, molecular biology, phylogenetics and population ecology to investigate empirical infectious disease dynamics in wild animal populations. Thank you Katherine, Nate, and generous students for sharing your time and knowledge with the iCREATE bioscience class!
Guest Blog Post by Larry Hendricks, PR and Publications Coordinator, Coconino Community College CCC CAVIAT Students Focus on Health Professions
They’re taking college classes, but they’re still in high school. Not only that, but they’ve proved their mettle in problem solving in the health occupations, and they’re on their way to a statewide competition in April. Twelve students in Coconino Community College’s Dual Enrollment/CAVIAT BIO 298 class took exams on Creative Problem Solving through Health Occupation Students of America (HOSA). This class is taught by CCC Science Faculty and Bridges to Baccalaureate Principal Investigator Dr. Aaron Tabor, NAU Graduate Students and CCC Instructors Christina Baze and Bobby Woodruff. “Four of the students qualified to go to the state level,” Tabor said, adding that all of the students are equally intelligent and deserving of accolades. The team placed ninth overall. The four students, all 10th graders, are Cate Cole and Ethan Perelstein from Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy; and Kaleb Herrelko and Jacqueline Slack from Coconino High School. According to information from HOSA, its mission is to “promote career opportunities in the health care industry and to enhance the deliver of quality health care to all people.” The focus is on health science education and biomedical science programs to promote interest in pursuing careers in the health professions. To prepare for the exams, Slack said that the team began by reading books on creative problem solving and by researching various health-related problems in the community. Cole added that the team tested one another with problems as well as timing the testing for solutions. During testing, the team had 30 minutes to prepare and had 8 minutes to present their case in front of a panel to judge. They made the grade, and now they’re heading to Tucson for the statewide competition. “I personally am excited to meet other students like us, who are science minded,” Perelstein said. Herrelko added, “That could be fun.” Slack said, “I’m very excited to compete.” Cole said, “I’m really excited to see what we can come up with – real-world problems that affect millions across the globe.” The team members are part of the iCREATE High School Bioscience program. The class offers six credit hours from CCC to apply to a college degree. The students meet five days a week at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Northern Arizona University for lectures and labs. The program is offered through the Coconino Association for Vocations, Industry and Technology. “I love coming here and getting a taste of what college and medical school will offer,” Cole said. Perelstein said, “For me, this class is challenging, it’s engaging, and that’s what I really love.” Herrelko said, “I like the challenge and it requires more persistence.” Slack said, “I’m excited that every day after school, I get to be around science-oriented, like-minded people.” For Tabor, he said he thoroughly enjoys being the instructor for the class. “Frankly, it’s the students,” he said. “I never in a thousand years anticipated teaching K-12 students at all, but this group of students is one of the best I’ve ever encountered.” Tabor added that his job is to educate the students on the translational sciences and the epidemiology field, but he also is to assist them with their professional growth – creating curriculum vitaes, attending conferences, performing public speaking, seeking publication, and more. As for the state competition in April, Tabor said the students can go to the national level in the event if they are rank high enough for it. So, the journey may not be over for one or several of them after the state competition. And as for the future, all four team members have plans. Cole’s goal is to become a physician, an obstetrician. Perelstein is interested in mechanical engineering, particularly “biomimicry,” or solving problems through evolutionary processes. Herrelko is still exploring, but he knows he wants to be an engineer of some sort. Slack is dedicated to becoming a neurosurgeon. “We challenge one another and work to put our best foot forward as a team,” Perelstein said. The iCREATE HS Bioscience program is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Community partners include CCC, CAVIAT, NAU, TGen North, North Country HealthCare, Coconino County Public Health Services District, and Flagstaff STEM City. Dr. Darlene Lee, an anatomical and clinical pathologist at Flagstaff Medical Center, led thirteen high school students in the iCREATE bioscience class on a fascinating tour of the Clinical and Pathology Laboratory at FMC on Monday, November 14th. Pathology is the study of disease, and a pathologist is a medical doctor (MD) who specializes in studying disease, including the source, extent, and cause of the disease in a patient. The students got to see many aspects of what this career entails. The students began the tour by seeing some of the high-tech diagnostic tools available to test patient samples. These included urinalysis, PCR, flow cytometry and light microscopy. Jane Talisman, one of the laboratory lead technicians, even did a rapid test from Cate’s mucosal sample to determine if she had MRSA. Read to the end of the post to find out the result! The students then watched Garn Bailey, the Pathologists’ Assistant, as he prepared to dissect an excised gall bladder. The students were able to touch the gall bladder to see what it felt like. The dissected gall bladder had several gallstones in it that were too large to exit the gall bladder on their own. A frozen tissue sample from a patient came in, and the tour immediately switched over to observing the pathology team process this sample for the surgeon and patient waiting for it in the operating room. The pathology team can receive and process a sample, and return a diagnosis to a surgeon, within 20 minutes. This intraoperative pathology consultation helps guide the surgeon through the remainder of the procedure, so the patient has a better outcome. Garn put the sample on the cryostat, a machine that keeps the sample frozen while shaving off very thin slices for placing on microscope slides. Audrey McMillon, a histotechnologist, then stained the samples with a specific stain to highlight what the surgeon needed to view. Histology is the study of the microscopic structure of tissues. There are four pathologists at FMC and one at Verde Medical Center. In order to become a pathologist, you need a four-year college degree, then a four-year medical school degree, and then you need to complete your pathology residency for another four years! If you want to do a subspecialty fellowship, that takes another 1-2 years. After the students completed the tour, Dr. Lee shared a presentation with three different case studies for the students to discuss. Just as Garn had previously, Dr. Lee reaffirmed that in order to recognize an abnormal pathology you need to know what the normal anatomy and histology looks like. During the cases, Dr. Lee asked the students what they thought, and what tests they would run to try and solve the case. At the end of the presentation, Cate got the results from her diagnostic test. We were all thrilled she did not have Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA! Note the sign above the door in the photo above. This important message reflects the commitment of the pathology team: Patients are our Purpose.
STEM City and the iCREATE collaborative thank Dr. Lee and the entire team in the Clinical and Pathology Lab for being such willing presenters, and for providing important and engaging information to the students. Thank you! Post written with significant contributions by Brent Nielson, CAVIAT Superintendent.
The CAVIAT Medical Professionals Foundation class includes students from four Flagstaff high schools as well as home school students. In addition to the Arizona State Board Skills Standards, her students have been collaborating with the Northern Arizona Health Education Center (NAHEC) to learn human body systems and how to teach the In-A-Box kits to local 4th to 6th grade students. The photos below are from a recent presentation in Michelle Despain's combined 4th-6th grade class at Montessori Charter School of Flagstaff. Thank you to Dr. Rieck and her students, CAVIAT, and NAHEC, for this wonderful STEM collaboration!
Superbowl of STEM The 3rd Annual Flagstaff Community STEM Celebration kicked off the week on Monday, March 7th at the NAU Skydome with almost every school, STEM business, government agency, and non-profit in Flagstaff! You can relive the excitement with Flg4TV's 2 minute video here! High-Altitude Balloon Launch On Wednesday, March 9th, Teacher Kaci Heins and 100 NPA 6th graders sent their payload to over 106,000 feet on a high-altitude balloon from the Flagstaff Airport. Community Leader Bruce Sidlinger and his Aeronautics Engineering class from Flag High, Airport Director Barney Helmick, the Coconino Amateur Radio Club, the Civil Air Patrol, and many other community partners were there to assist. You can see images and hear the story from KNAU's science and technology field reporter Melissa Sevigny here. Women Executives in STEM Panel NAU hosted the panel on Thursday, March 10th. All of the women had connections to NAU and facilitator Elizabeth Glass recommended that the many students in attendance use their alumni network as they search career opportunities. AZ North Regional The Skydome was brimming again on Friday and Saturday with the CocoNuts and 52 other teams, for NAU's inaugural FIRST Robotics Arizona North Regional contest, which pitted robots against each other to try to take down a castle. You can read Corina Vanek's article on the event here. Microchip sponsored pit tours by volunteers from many of the teams, as well as a VIP luncheon that was well-attended by Flagstaff's government, business, and education leaders. FIRST, which stands for --- , is a non-profit founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway. It encourages students to pursue STEM and also develops skills in teamwork, problem-solving, creativity, and gracious professionalism. Congratulations to everyone on helping make STEM Week 2016 the best ever in Flagstaff STEM City!
Critter Kids Unleashed is the Second Chance Center for Animals (SCCA) summer day camp. The camp, taking place this week, immerses students in animal-related learning activities, animal interactions, and engaging visits with special guest speakers. Campers also help with projects benefitting both local wildlife and the animals at the Second Chance Center. The camp is instructed by humane education coordinator Sherie Jones with assistance from high school camp counselor Layni Wells. Ten animal-lovers, ranging in age from seven to ten, discussed the importance of prairie dogs in our grassland communities. The campers then pulled up the tall weeds in the SCCA's Gunnison Prairie Dog Habitat to improve the landscape so prairie dogs could more easily scout predators. Sherie ensures that the students in the camp learn about our native wildlife as well as domestic animals in the summer camp. A speaker from the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery team visited with the students earlier in the week. Layni, a Flagstaff High School junior, has been volunteering at SCCA for the past seven years. She recently attended the summer Veterinarian Program for Future Veterinarians at Colorado State University. Sherie is a Certified Vet Tech, has been at SCCA since it opened in 2004, and has been working in animal welfare for 20 years. Sherie believes "Educating the public is so important in our mission to enhance the human-animal bond. Helping children learn to respect and care for all living things and the environments they live in is why I am here." SCCA has educational components as part of their volunteer program. A new program, Animal Science Kids (ASK), will have monthly animal and veterinary education for high school students. Sherie also gives tours to STEM clubs and classes visiting the SCCA. She also presents information at school sites. There is almost no limit to what Sherie can discuss when it comes to animals! She has presented on veterinary medical procedures, pharmacology with science and math connections, animal nutrition, animal diseases and much more. Contact Sherie or Mindy if you are interested in learning more about SCCA outreach.
A big thank you to Sherie, Layni, and the Second Chance Center for Animals! Flagstaff Medical Center’s Future Health Leaders Summer Camp Flagstaff Medical Center, a member of Northern Arizona Healthcare, held its first Future Medical Leaders summer camp for high school students from Monday, July 6, through Thursday, July 9. The event, sponsored by Patient and Family Experience Services, was designed for incoming high school freshmen through senior students interested in becoming healthcare professionals. More than 40 students applied to attend the camp, but only 24 were selected to participate. There were nineteen young women and five young men representing five high schools in Flagstaff (Coconino High School, Flagstaff High School, BASIS Flagstaff, Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy and Northland Preparatory Academy) as well as one home-schooled student. The students spent the week attending lectures about contemporary healthcare topics; visiting different departments and discussing ethical issues. They met with Rob Thames, NAH’s president and CEO, and spent time with physicians, nurses and other colleagues who care for patients. They also participated in hands-on activities, such as a trauma lab, where they practiced patient-care scenarios and learned CPR and first-aid. On the last day of camp, they worked on their public speaking skills and developed basic resumes. Flagstaff Medical Center is a member of Northern Arizona Healthcare, which also provides healthcare services through Verde Valley Medical Center, Team Health, Verde Valley Medical Clinic, Cancer Centers of Northern Arizona Healthcare, EntireCare Rehab & Sports Medicine, Fit Kids of Arizona, Guardian Air, Guardian Medical Transport, Heart & Vascular Center of Northern Arizona, Northern Arizona Homecare, Northern Arizona Hospice and Valley View Care. For more information on Flagstaff Medical Center programs and services, visit FlagstaffMedicalCenter.com. “Like” FMC at Facebook.com/FlagstaffMedicalCenter. Thank you to Patient and Family Experience Services at NAH who hope to host this event again next year. And a special thank you to Sophia Papa, Public Relations with Northern Arizona Healthcare, for the primary writing of this post.
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