Media representatives are invited to experience hands-on science aboard Destiny, one of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s two traveling science laboratories, when it visits Kings Mountain High School and East Lincoln High School next week.
Tuesday (April 8)
8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
9:38 a.m. to 11:08 a.m.
Kings Mountain High School
500 Phifer Rd., Kings Mountain
Students from Kelly Grier’s and Cindy Estridge’s honors chemistry I classes will perform a lab exercise called “Weigh to Go!” They will explore the connections between obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Using hydrophobic interactive chromatography, a key process in biotechnology research, the students will purify a genetically engineered designer protein (simulated modified leptin) from transformed bacterial cells.
Wednesday (April 9)
9:40 a.m. to 11:08 a.m.
1:16 p.m. to 3:10 p.m.
Kings Mountain High School
500 Phifer Rd., Kings Mountain
Students from Mercedes Humphries’ college placement honors biology class and Sara McComas’ college placement biology class will perform “Mystery of the Crooked Cell.” They will discover the molecular basis of sickle cell disease by using gel electrophoresis as a diagnostic tool to differentiate normal hemoglobin from hemoglobin found in individuals with sickle cell disease.
Thursday (April 10)
11:19 a.m. to 12:54 p.m.
1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
East Lincoln High School
6471 Hwy. 73, Denver
Students from two of Heather Ramsay’s honors biology classes will also perform “Mystery of the Crooked Cell,” as described above.
The Destiny traveling science learning program is a science education outreach initiative of Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at Carolina that serves pre-college teachers and students across North Carolina. Destiny develops and delivers a standards-based, hands-on curriculum and teacher professional development with a team of educators and a fleet of vehicles that travel throughout the state.
Destiny and Discovery, two custom-built, 40-foot, 33,000-pound buses, bring the latest science and technology equipment to students who otherwise would not see a high-tech laboratory or what a career in science can offer. The modules described above are among 14 offered as part of Destiny’s curriculum. All of Destiny’s modules are aligned with the N.C. Standard Course of Study. “Mystery of the Crooked Cell” was developed from a Boston University School of Medicine CityLab module.
The abovementioned teachers attended workshops to learn how to incorporate these Destiny curriculum modules into their classrooms, which also made them eligible to request school visits from Destiny’s traveling science laboratories.
Destiny’s current principal funders are the state of North Carolina, the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) Program in the National Center for Research Resources, GlaxoSmithKline and the N.C. Biotechnology Center. Additional support comes from Bio-Rad Laboratories and Medtronic, Inc.
The science buses are powerful visual images that heighten public awareness of the importance of and funding necessary for quality science education. Created by Carolina in 2000, Destiny became a program of UNC’s Morehead Planetarium and Science Center in 2006.
Destiny Web site: http://www.moreheadplanetarium.org/go/destiny
Destiny contact: Claire Ruocchio, clr@unc.edu, (919) 843-5915
News Services contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 962-2093, lisa_katz@unc.edu