Life of a Biologist
From the Field to the Lab
Cassandra Ziegler
Cassandra Ziegler
Oof. This month has been nothing short of chaotic in so many aspects, but in a good way. Approaching the end of the year, most college students are stressed for their finals but then relieved for the break before the spring semester starts to relax and rejuvenate. For many graduate students, however, it is a month of potential productivity. We are no longer teaching classes, taking classes, having meetings, and fighting for a good parking spot amidst the normal hustle and bustle of a busy campus. This is the time to catch up on the writing or experiments that we now have about 3 weeks to work on with barely anyone on campus. One of my weeks was devoted entirely to preparing 88 samples for DNA sequencing, a long and tedious process, and another week working on grant writing. But in the midst of the serious side of science and grad work, there have also been a lot of fun activities. At Duquesne, we have a Women in STEM organization that will occasionally participate in outreach activities. This month, a group of chemistry and biology graduate and undergraduate students went to Ringgold North Elementary School to do some hands-on experiments with about 74 4th grade students. On the biology side, we had the kids do a DIY lava lamp with cleaned recycled bottles filled with water and oil. The kids add some food coloring drops to the mixture before adding in an Alka Seltzer tablet, and viola! A DIY lava lamp (which made me nostalgic for the actual lava lamp I used to have when I was a teenager). I’ll say this - if you ever need a quick, fun experiment to do with kids, this is always an absolute hit. (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-activities/make-a-lava-lamp). The other activity was a strawberry DNA experiment using strawberries, water, dishwashing detergent, coffee filters, rubbing alcohol, and a toothpick or wooden skewer. The idea is that you’re extracting DNA from the strawberries but you have to break open the cells so that the DNA is released and observable when the rubbing alcohol makes the DNA strands clump together. This one took a bit more explanation and guidance but with really cool results since strawberries have a LOT of DNA (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-activities/strawberry-dna-extraction). All in all, the kids loved it and we all had a great time together. Our biology department at Duquesne also holds a yearly Christmas party to celebrate the end of the semester by unwinding with some great food and activities. One of the most competitive events we have is a door decorating contest for the labs. Each door that participates has to include elements of science, creativity, and holiday spirit that will be evaluated by a group of judges to determine the winner (the winning door wins a pizza party for the lab). Last year, we were (shocker) too busy to want to participate with the door contest, but this year, even though we were arguably busier than last year, we decided we needed to have some fun and decorate the door. Our theme was The 12 Days of Christmas, entirely science themed in relation to our lab that studies fish, birds, diatoms, and more. We also have a small army of undergraduate students that do research in our lab so we had a lot of options to fill the 12 Days, with our pride and joy being Dr. Porter (our research advisor) in a Pear Tree. It just couldn’t get any better. We also made snowflakes out of centrifuge tubes. Our creativity paid off! Much to our surprise and excitement, we tied for 1st place with another lab. In the end, what I want people to take away from all of this is that being a graduate student is a lot of work and not for the faint of heart, and even though your science might be stressing you out, there are a lot of fun, creative ways to celebrate and experience science. Happy holidays and maybe do a DIY science experiment at home!
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AuthorBird Enthusiast and Graduate Student Archives
February 2024
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