Following a hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, six students from Harborfields High School are participating in this year’s newly redesigned Science Journal Club hosted by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Library and Archives. This year’s course is being led by Library and Archives Executive Director Mila Pollock, MLS and Science Informationist Sasha Luks-Morgan, PhD. With students ranging from 10th-12th grade, they have been meeting twice a month to learn about cutting-edge scientific research. Their science teacher, Michael Pinto, has participated in every session.
Since starting the course, the students have visited two research facilities and been able to engage with plant biology and chemistry researchers.
Joshua Homer a Postdoctoral Fellow from Dr. John Moses’ Laboratory gave a tour and demonstration in CSHL’s new state of the art chemistry lab (photo 1). Students were able to learn about the value of click chemistry in new drug development, as well as the importance of collaboration across scientific disciplines.
CSHL Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Zach Lippman’s Laboratory, Matthias Benoit and graduate student Lyndsey Aguirre discussed plant genetics projects and demonstrated experimental plants at the Woodbury Greenhouse that students visited in the last session (photos 2-3). They learned about the projects going on in the Lippman Laboratory and their work using genome editing to increase crop yield and improve prospects for urban agriculture of plants in the Solanaceae family.
With three sessions completed, students together with their science teacher, and instructors are looking forward to exciting future meetings of the Science Journal Club in which students will learn how to use special databases for the retrieval of scientific literature, and independently prepare and present scientific journal articles. This Journal Club empowers students to engage with the scientific process, ask questions and build confidence in presenting scientific literature.
