Independent Studies in Computational Biology
Introducing High School Students to Computational Biology
How can we introduce the methods of science to high school students and also include the culture and experience of doing science?
Our solution is to introduce students to the real world tools used in computational biology. A student with access to a fast Internet connection and a computer can be successful in the project without their school investing in any additional supplies.
High School Students
The Center has created a course tailored to magnet high school students that are ready and willing to accept the challenge of learning about cross-disciplinary science.
We have leveraged The Jackson Laboratory’s strong and evolving relationship with elite public science and math residential schools: the Maine School of Science and Mathematics (MSSM) and The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM).
Distance Learning
The Jackson Laboratory has conducted a research oriented summer student program for over 78 years to encourage high school and college students to conduct independent, hypothesis-driven projects as members of a sponsoring scientist’s laboratory team.
We adapted this structure for use throughout the regular academic year with distance learning and web based tools so our research class could be taught remotely.
Lectures
Our students are prepared for conducting team oriented independent research via a lecture series that covers the core processes of:
- Introductory Statistics
- The R computer language
- Asking meaningful Scientific Questions
- Reading the scientific literature
- How to give a scientific presentation
- Writing a NIH grant proposal
- Genetics of the laboratory mouse
- Quantitative Trait Loci
- Microarray analysis
- Cluster analysis
In the first semester the students attend lectures given remotely from The Jackson Laboratory and work with an onsite instructor for supplemental materials throughout the school week. We introduce the students to Quantitative Trait Loci analysis, Microarray analysis, Pathway analysis, and other current computational biology methods through a series of journal clubs and lectures given by a top researcher in the field. The students learn to read and present scientific papers through their participation in journal clubs. The deliverables for the first semester are a review article on some of the papers they have read and a NIH formatted proposal for original team based research that they want to conduct in the second part of the course.
Example lectures:
Introduction to Genetics Research - Fall 2006 (PDF)
Introductory Statistics with R - Fall 2006 (PDF)
Research
In the second semester the students receive feedback and suggestions on the proposals and then conduct team research on the chosen aims. The students meet weekly with their mentors at The Jackson Laboratory using remote learning software to present their work and receive suggestions for the next steps in their research. The deliverable for this research is a poster, an oral presentation, and a written report.
