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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 Person High School in Roxboro next week.

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 Person High School in Roxboro next week.

Thursday (Oct. 9)
9:40 a.m. to 11:10 a.m.
1:25 p.m. to 2:55 p.m.
Person High School
1010 Ridge Road, Roxboro

Elizabeth Pentecost’s students will perform a lab exercise called “Case of the Crown Jewels.” Students 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.  The 9:40 a.m. session is for honors biology students (grade 9) and the 1:25 p.m. session is for advanced placement biology students (grades 10, 11 and 12).

The Destiny Traveling Science Learning Program is a science education outreach initiative of Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, serving 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 buses equipped as mobile science laboratories, bring advanced science and technology equipment to students who otherwise might not see high-tech experiments or what a career in science can offer. The mobile science labs are powerful visual images that heighten public awareness of the importance of and funding necessary for quality science education.

To be eligible to request a visit from a Destiny mobile science lab, each participating teacher must attend workshops to learn how to incorporate module activities and experiments into his or her classroom.  Destiny offers 15 different science modules, each aligned with the N.C. Standard Course of Study.

The Destiny program was created by UNC-Chapel Hill in 2000.  Its principal funders are the State of North Carolina and GlaxoSmithKline, with additional support from Bio-Rad Laboratories and from Medtronic Inc.  Since 2006, Destiny has been administered by Morehead Planetarium and Science Center.

Destiny Web site:  www.moreheadplanetarium.org/go/destiny
Destiny media contact:  Karen Kornegay, (919) 843-7952, kck@unc.edu
News Services contact: Susan Houston, (919) 962-8415, susan_houston@unc.edu

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