Outreach
Elementary School Outreach
Over the years, members of the Jeong Lab have facilitated outreach activities with Crocker Farm Elementary School in Amherst, MA.
Our latest activity involved teaching kindergarten students about the world of microbes. We swabbed parts of the classroom as well as students' hands before and after washing, then grew the microbes on Petri dishes for two days. We returned to the classroom to show the young learners how many microbes are living amongst us, especially when we don't wash our hands!
We also worked with a fifth grade classroom at Crocker Farm. Specifically, young students, with the help of members from our lab, peer reviewed an article for a journal called "Frontiers for Young Minds." In reviewing this article, students learned about phytochemicals, which are chemicals naturally made by plants. They also learned about the importance of peer review.
Many thanks to the teachers and students at Crocker Farm Elementary School for allowing us to share science with your classroom!
Outreach with Being Human in STEM
Professor Jeong and Professor Purdy have been mentoring the Elementary School Outreach Group for Professor Jaswal's Being Human in STEM (HSTEM), a course at Amherst College that "aims to foster a more inclusive, supportive STEM community by helping students, faculty, and staff collaboratively develop a framework to understand and navigate diverse identities in the classroom, lab, and beyond".
In 2019, the HSTEM Elementary Outreach Group, Alicia Ugenti '21, Kate Weiss '19, and Lauren McNeil '21 worked with young students at the Amherst Elementary Science Night to extract DNA from strawberries.
Read more about this initiative at the following links:
Spring 2019 Spring 2018 Fall 2017
Outreach Articles
Several members of our lab have written science articles for young students. Check them out below: