RNA Celebrates Darwin's Birthday

We began the festivities by enjoying cupcakes before researching the life of Charles Darwin. Using the web site http://www.aboutdarwin.com each student selected an aspect of Darwin's life and shared it with the others. It was a wonderful way to understand and learn how such an important scientist lived. One student found and shared Darwin's daily schedule; another shared Darwin's interests. Another student told the group about childhood stories that Darwin wrote in his autobiography.

This sharing led to lively discussions on how evolution is viewed throughout the country and the world. Our students are very diverse-some come from different countries, such as India and Germany (of African descent.) Others have lived here all their life, but clearly have the cultural influence from their family's homeland of Mexico, China and Vietnam. We discussed everything from the impact of religion on science, all the way to religious freedom and culture around the world.

It was an truly inspirational meeting that I know Darwin himself would have enjoyed!

RNA at MSI Special Event

On Saturday, January 21, 2012 the members of the Rickover Naval Academy Biology Club attended an exclusive event at the Museum of Science and Industry “New Worlds, New Discoveries.” This special event allowed the general public an opportunity to learn about the latest findings of space exploration and search for life beyond earth from NASA scientist, Dr. James L. Green. The event was divided into two sections-a lecture, followed by a question and answer session. The audience was very diverse and so were the questions. All of the RNA Biology Club members were involved in the question and answer session and thoroughly enjoyed the event!

Club members and sponsor pictured from left to right: Sintayehu Regassa, Geo Bedrejo, Nam Duong, Mrs. Palmer (club sponsor) Duc Tran, Ricardo Morales and Alejandro Moreno. Picture taken by chaperone, Ms. Ortiz.

I urge all of you to get involved with Save The Frogs Day--see the link below. This is one of the best ways to get your students--at any level--involved with a very important biodiversity problem. There are a lot of great ideas on the web site to engage your students, capture their attention, etc. PowerPoint presentations are avialable for you to use in your classroom or in your community. My BioClub at Ware Shoals High School has adopted this as their annual community service project. They are already preparing for the next event that takes place on April 28, 2012. Again, please check out the website; if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask me or send them to the Save The Frogs organization.  http://savethefrogs.com/day

New BioClub chapters!

Please join me in welcoming the newest BioClub chapters to our growing list. They are:

Ronald Reagan College Preparatory School, Milwaukee, WI--Advisor is Kathleen Westrich

Grafton High School, Grafton, WI--Advisor is Fran Grant

Canyon Springs High School, Moreno Valley, CA--Advisor is Theresa Buggage

Animo Leadership Charter High School, Inglewood, CA--Advisor is Mark Friedman

Serrano High School, Phelan, CA--Advisor is Julie Gallagher

The BioClub reception at the Anaheim meeting was well attended, and Carolina Biological had some great refreshments for us!! Be sure to thank them for sponsoring our reception and for all the great perks that they provide for us.

Please post what your group is doing.

Till next time--George

The NABT club at Northridge High School has had a great year. The 52 members have raised money to pay for their paper recycling project. They also collect cans and bottles in the school weekly. They are creating an informational DVD to help get other NABT clubs created in our area. It will be distributed in April to area schools. Earth Week will be wonderful with a recycled sculpture contest, corporation wide. We are also adopting 4 endangered species and trying to buy clean air credits. They are also reading environmental trivia and helpful hints on the announcements. They have obtained 100 trees and are passing them out to people who can use them. There will also be a car pooling contest for earth week. Lots of fun and educational too--Dawn Kessler, BioClub Advisor

Project: Adopt and Save a Baby Bonobo

Students in Minnetonka Biology Club are working to make and sell buttons and magnets to raise funds to Adopt and SAVE Baby Bonobos! All sales proceeds will go directly to adopt baby bonobos orphaned by the bush meat trade in the Democratic Republic of Congo/native habitat to the Bonobos. For more information see the following links:

http://www.friendsofbonobos.org/

http://duke-roots-shoots.blogspot.com/2010/12/high-schools-skype-to-save-bonobos-and.html

http://sites.google.com/site/fieldbio1/home

LSU Lab School BioClub Seniors

Eighteen members of the LSU Lab School BioClub graduated on May 22, 2010. They were able to pose back-stage for a few photos to show off their green graduation cords.

Thanks NABT & Carolina !!!

Rain Garden/Green Wall

The Vincennes University Biology club has had a great year. We applied for and were awarded a GreenVU grant to build a rain garden and a green wall. We were able to get matching funding from the Knox County United Way because it was a water quality project. We also got funding from the student government association to make the project even better. We talked to local greenhouses and got discounts on plants and materials. We teamed up with the horticulture club, and they came up with a great design for the project. Here is a picture of the very loud air conditioner that is by the entrance to our career center.

Here is an after picture

These trees will continue to grow and provide a sight and sound barrier from this AC unit. All the employees at the career center are very grateful.

The other part of the project was a rain garden, which will keep puddles from forming and will also help clean the water. Here are some before pictures:

After:

Some students hard at work:

The educational thank you sign

LSU Lab School wins grant, participates in Coastal Roots

Planet Connect Grant Winner
LSU Lab School’s Environmental/BioClub is one of ten winners of the Planet Connect $1000 grant. They were chosen based on their proposal for a rain garden and storm water control. Congratulations to MerryJean Losso, Lindsey McCain, Mr. Babcock and the rest of the club.

Coastal Roots Project
Students from the LSU Laboratory School and Westdale Heights Academic Elementary Magnet School traveled to Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville, La, to participate in a coastal restoration planting with the LSU Coastal Roots Program. Having grown southern bald cypress, oak and loblolly pine trees in our school’s can yard under the guidance of LSU College of Education faculty, the students transplanted the seedlings to the new site to provide food and habitat for the site’s animals, as well as to provide a way to stabilize the soil there. Plants grown by the students in their school-based nurseries are chosen by the restoration site manager based on particular location’s needs.

BioClub Midland Park High School

The Midland Park High School's Bilogy club has been involved in a variety of activities. We build bird houses, did some research on how packing peanuts disintegrate, set up a water garden and used our microscopes to discover the unvisible world of microbes!

Our biggest project this year was to build bird houses and hang them up on school grounds. The students organized two fundraising events (mud cup sales, always a big success!) to fund the project. At the moment our members try to solve the following problem:"Why did our water garden turn green?"

Thanks a lot to George Sellers for all his hard work, to the NABT for the green cords (the kids just loved the ceremony!) and to Carolina for sponsoring the Clubs!

Raina Parvanov-Dawson
Midland Park High School

NABT BioClub in the News!

There is a very nice article about the NABT BioClub in the May 2010 Carolina Tips. You may read it at: http://www.carolina.com/category/customer+service/news/what+is+happening+at+carolina+may+2010.do?s_cid=em_ctArtOnly_05202010

Prince of Peace BioClub Busy Year

Prince of Peace College Preparatory, in Clinton IA on the Mississippi River hosted all elementary and middle school classes at our small K-12 school for National Chemistry Week's "Mole Day" by preparing scented sugar scrubs and hosting a hand-washing extravaganza. The founding Advanced Placement Biology class worked with their teacher to "de-bug" a cheap and fast enzyme assay that works well for students to investigate their own questions on how enzymes really work. The club took a spring field trip to the Devonian Fossil Gorge in Coralville IA, where fossil-rich bedrock was uncovered by the disastrous floods of 2008. In the first week of May, BioClub and other High School classes created experiments for "hands-on" National Lab Week experiments for elementary classes.

Douglas High BioClub

The BioClub of Douglas High School in Douglas, Alabama has 86 members. Our club participates in many altruistic events through out the year. Our club does not have a requirement for altruism but many of our members are very aware of the needs of our community and surrounding areas. We take a trip to Six Flags each year during the Science and Math days in April. Members must earn the right to purchase tickets by participating in at least two altruistic events during the year. We have great participation among our members, we take around 52 students each year to Six Flags.

Our BioClub has participated in many events at our school this year. We work with the Chorus Director of our school to help make an awesome Veteran's Day Event. We help each year by providing paper products and the students themselves volunteer their time during school and after school to make it possible.

The BioClub has an annual Tree Planting Ceremony. Each year the club honors a retiring teacher by planting a tree or beautification around sidewalks, and holds a breakfast with special speakers to honor that teacher. This year the club honored Mrs. June Jenkins shown below with club officers and student speaker.

East Chapel Hill High Scores!

Our large club has been very busy with competitions this year! We placed third in the state at our first ever Ocean Bowl competition. Then we placed third in the state in the Science Bowl competition (sponsored by the Department of Energy). This is a very tough collection of schools so we were pleased with our third place finish. Our JV team came in 4th so we are hopeful for next year. Then 70 students went to nearby Greensboro on February 20th for the Regional Science Olympiad competition. Our varsity team came in first and 2 of our 3 JV teams came in 1st and 2nd among all JV teams. We have had many late afternoon study sessions. If you were here, you would see students out in the commons testing trajectories and mousetrap cars, groups of students in lab aprons and goggles testing powders for Forensics, students at computers studying bird calls for Ornithology, students poring over websites to prepare for Disease Detectives, and students cramming for the Cell Biology event. It is fun, lively, and littered with pizza boxes! This is an entirely student-led club. Our success this year are due to an incredible group of officers!

Local Trappers Teach Students about Wildlife

Dryden High School is located in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. This is the second year that we have organized a BioClub, but only our first attempt at blogging!
The DHS BioClub has a distinct environmental slant to it. The students in this club are working hard to prepare for a regional Envirothon -this involves regular, weekly meetings, guest speakers, field trips and workshops. Last November (before the temperature plummeted to 30 degrees below zero C), the club headed out to a local trap line to learn about wildlife habitat. The trappers walked the students through a variety of forest types to describe how, where and when they set their traps for specific animal species. What a wonderful way to learn first hand about animal habitats!
Last week we followed up on our bush visit with an indoor trapping workshop. Students had the opportunity skin martin, beaver, muskrat and squirrel - with expert trappers on hand to assist. They also took some time learn how to identify local animal species by looking at pelts, skulls and teeth.

re: Winter 2009

Our BioClub has begun annotating a bacteriophage genome. A few years ago my microbiology classes were able to go Phagehunting for the Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. They collected soil samples and isolated 8 phages which were sent to the PBI to be sequenced. One of those phages is now ready for annotating, which is finding the genes in the sequence. Once the annotation is done it will be deposited in GenBank and the students who helped on the project will be listed as authors.

Keystone High School Biology Club

Hello NABT chapters! This is Keystone Biology Club’s first blog post, and we have ever so much to relay about our unique, online chapter!

We recently elected co-chairs for our three committees: the Blogster, Reporter and Social committees. Congratulations to our co-chairs: Elizabeth B., Sara S., Nisa A., Sumayyah U. and Hemi M. Our club held an online election on January 19, 2010 during which members voted on the candidates. The candidates all gave presentations detailing why they are a good choice and how they would manage the committee they were running for.

Our club is currently organized into committees and each have their own “duties”. The Social Committee, for example, organizes “fun meetings” and other socials for the members. The Reporters form three groups and research topics based on personal interests. Topics in circulation currently include prokaryotes, the chaos theory as it relates to Biology and processed foods. The Blogsters devotedly work on publishing a blog piece every month.

We are also very excited at our new newsletter mini-committee. The newsletter is to be distributed in the form of Word documents to all members each month.

To start the biology club, we first solved the murder of Mr. Brooks. His body had been found in the park where it appeared that he had been having a nice picnic before he was murdered. This whodunit started some discussion on the biology club’s group site, and speculation over which of Mr. Brook’s girlfriends had killed him, and why. For the second puzzle we worked on, we were stranded on an island with only wheat and a cow. We had to decide how to use the wheat and the cow so that we could survive the longest. These puzzles were interesting, and started the club with fun activities that kept the members interested and attending meetings.

We also completed activities in meetings. In the January meeting, the attendees brought a piece of tinfoil or paper and attempted to cut it in half as many times as possible. The activity emphasized the fact that a tinfoil molecule is minute, because we would have had to cut the piece of tinfoil into thirty-six pieces to obtain a foil molecule. The most cuts that were made by the attendees were seventeen.

Some groups have presented research projects during the meetings. One group created a presentation about Vitamin D, and another did a report about Tamiflu. The biology club members also learned about H1N1, also known as Swine or Novel flu, which interested people because it is a current biological event.

We have drafted a multitude of new, intriguing ideas for our club. From a play dealing with world pollution and an ingenious onion car to a movie night, Keystone’s Biology Club is ready to start off the New Year spectacularly. We are also reforming our Reporter group to go beyond PowerPoint presentations and possibly include game show style presentations. Combining engaging activities with our projects allows members to retain more Biology related information easily. We are exploring even more ideas, including a wacky web cam day, virtual science fair, virtual tour through 360 degree panoramas, and much more.

Existing as an online extra-curricular has its disadvantages. Communications being misinterpreted and dissimilar time zones pose a difficulty. However, our members have risen to the challenge by being as accommodating as possible. In this way, we have gleaned necessary life skills through Bio Club. Though we have not met each other personally, we are a tight knit community who learn from each individual member. And there are more advantages: we have the freedom to attend our monthly meetings from any computer in the world.

Whiting High School, Laramie, WY

The Whiting High School Bio Club has started a great investigation into pollution. In the winter, the city piles snow that has been removed from the streets along the banks of a creek. The students have been taking samples from these snow piles, and are starting to calculate the amount of particulates in these samples. They will then monitor the health of the creek when all of this snow starts to melt, to determine the effects from the runoff created by these snow piles. Interesting, to be sure! Pictures soon to follow....

Visit from the zoo!

During the unit on birds/reps/amphibs/mammals, I get our zoo educator, Jaime, to bring in some live specimens since we have completed some dissections. It is a relief for some of our students prior to exams and a great chance to get to see living organisms they never would see otherwise. (It is also really neat to have a penguin waddling around in the room!) I am hoping to spark my Bioclub into an interaction with the zoo in the form of a project for science fair.

York High School Bio Club

We started the year performing a PTC Tasting PCR lab. The kids extracted their DNA, did PCR, then cut the product with a restriction enzyme. The next week we electrophoresed, and then viewed the results. Afterwards, they tasted PTC paper to compare with the results. The test results matched their ability to taste! Very cool. We watched a TED presentation of Bonnie Bassler talking about quorum sensing in bacteria. We were able to obtain some bioluminescent bacteria and plated them. This week we saw them glowing in the dark! After Winter Break we will try raising zebra fish.