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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 Pine Forest High School, Terry Sanford and Massey Hill Classical High School next week.

Tuesday (April 29)
8:25 a.m. to 9:55 a.m.
10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Pine Forest High School
525 Andrews Rd., Fayetteville

Students from one of Renie Johnston’s honors biology classes and one of her biology classes will perform a lab exercise called “Case of the Crown Jewels.” They will assume the role of forensic scientists and perform DNA restriction analysis (popularly known as DNA fingerprinting) to analyze drops of “blood” and other kinds of evidence found at crime scenes as they determine which suspects are guilty or innocent.

Wednesday (April 30)
8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.
10:15 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Terry Sanford High School
2301 Fort Bragg Rd., Fayetteville

Students from two of Margaret Michaud’s biology classes 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 (May 1)
11:25 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Massey Hill Classical High School
1062 Southern Ave., Fayetteville

Students from one of Constance Russell’s anatomy and physiology 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 UNC’s Morehead Planetarium and Science Center 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. “Case of the Crown Jewels” and “Mystery of the Crooked Cell” were developed from Boston University School of Medicine CityLab modules.

The above teachers attended workshops to learn how to incorporate these particular 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: Karen Kornegay, (919) 843-7952
News Services contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 962-2093

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