A cluster of three eighth graders took turns staring into a microscope getting excited by what they saw. Watch video
EASTHAMPTON – A cluster of three eighth graders at the White Brook Middle School took turns staring into a microscope getting excited by what they saw.
What they saw was the beating heart of a zebrafish and then a few seconds later the pumping of blood.
Although about as thin as an eyelash to the naked eye, beneath the microscope, the fish were gestating before the student’s very eyes.
A National Science Foundation grant, a Smith College biology professor who wants to reach out beyond the college walls and the interest of two science teachers here, brought the fish, the dissecting microscopes, the curriculum and that professor and his team to the school this week for a science project that the students were amazed by.
In 2011, Smith College professor Michael J. F. Barresi received a five-year, $768,640 Career Award from the National Science Foundation that allowed him to develop a curriculum for middle and high school students based on his work with zebrafish.
Barresi’s area of research is brain development and neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s and he uses the zebrafish in that work.
But Barresi, who had one point thought he’d be a high school biology teacher, said he wanted to bring his work to middle and high schools.
Through the program, he’s “trying to ignite them to get excited by science.” The Longmeadow resident said these teens will be scientists and researchers over the next decades. He wants to inculcate “good problem solving skills, help them to understand they why want to do this stuff (research).”
Unlike a human embryo that takes nine months to grow, a zebrafish can go from single cell to the larval stage, meaning they are swimming free and eating, in just three to five days. At 17 hours, a zebrafish embryo is the same size as human embryo at one month.
Skylah Colon, 13, Chris Hillenbrand, 15, and Alison Wiseman, 14, were sharing the single microscope and Hillenbrand first noticed the beating heart. He summoned classmates over to look. He said he was amazed “at how they changed, how they grow.”
And while their gestation is so much faster, Wiseman was fascinated about how the structure of the fish is not so different than humans. “How is that possible?” he said.
But those similarities make them ideal for research and teaching.
Last summer, teachers from area schools, including White Brook science teachers Jan de Ubl and Jeff Bucs, attended a one-week workshop at Smith designed for biology teachers, Barresi said.
Because of that Barresi brought the program to the school along with the microscopes. Barresi said so far, he has reached about 1,000, including students from Northampton, from Hampshire Regional High School in Westhampton and a school in Enfield along with the more than 100 here at White Brook.
“It’s been really exciting,” de Ubl said. While the school has nice microscopes, the dissecting microscopes have brought even greater clarity.
After students marked their observations of what they saw with their embryos, Barresi talked to them about genes and proteins and genetic markers. He then showed them slides of other embryos and had the students discern the difference between those developing normally and those with mutations and why.
At the end of the nearly hour-long, class Hannah Miller had her arms full of books but stopped by to tell Barresi she was a huge fan.
Though just in eighth grade now, she told him she wants to study science and go to Smith. He told her to come to his research lab. When her teacher told the class that Barresi would be coming, “I did a little research” and found out about his work, Miller said. “I always liked science and animals,” she said.