Community Outreach
School Visits
The staff of the Outreach Office and graduate student teaching assistants from WCGS visit local high schools at the request of secondary school science/biology teachers, free of charge. The visits help teachers present laboratory projects that they have completed at the Graduate School or Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers workshops, present lectures to students, or lead discussions on any biomedical topic.
To arrange for a classroom visit, please contact Dr. Xiaoai Chen at 212-746-6585 or by e-mail at xic2001@med.cornell.edu
Click Here to Read About Our Visit to The Brooklyn International High School.
Professional Development Workshops
The Outreach Office of Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, in collaboration with the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers (CIBT), based at Cornell University in Ithaca, organizes four professional development workshops for secondary science/biology teachers annually. The goal of the program is to update science/biology teachers in topics related to biomedical science so that their lessons remain as current as possible. The program provides classroom lab exercises and connects the faculty with local secondary school teachers and students.
To be notified about future Professional Development Workshops, please provide contact information. For more information, contact Dr. Xiaoai Chen at 212-746-6585, or send an e-mail to xic2001@med.cornell.edu.
The Outreach Office is funded by a generous grant from the Washington Mutual Foundation.
Science Equipment Lending Library
The Outreach Office has an array of science-equipment kits available for use by secondary-school teachers in their classrooms. The kits and expendable materials come at no expense and are shipped free of charge to and from the schools. Borrowers must have attended a Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences or Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers workshop in the past.
To request a kit, please visit the Lending Library web site.
Summer Academy in Molecular Biology for High School Students
Each summer, high school students participate in a course in molecular biology on the Graduate School campus. The course, organized by the Outreach Office and run by graduate student teaching assistants, is designed to provide the students hands-on experience in biomedical laboratory research techniques.
During a recent Summer Academy class that focused on manipulating DNA and protein, a group of select high school students learned to apply many commonly used molecular biology techniques, including restriction enzyme digests, DNA ligation, PCR, DNA gel electrophoresis, bacterial transformation, bacterial lysis, protein purification, protein gel electrophoresis, and western blotting.
Using these techniques, the students performed a number of advanced laboratory procedures, including splicing a GFP gene into a plasmid vector, confirming the successful ligation using PCR, transforming the vector into E. Coli to express the protein, and performing western blot analysis of bacterial lysates to confirm the presence of the GFP protein. The highlight of the course was the induction of the GFP gene in bacterial colonies causing them to glow green under UV light.
The course was developed by 15 WCGS graduate students who then tested the curriculum, presented the lectures, and ran the labs for the high school students.
Funding for this course was generously provided by a grant from the Washington Mutual Foundation.
