Nantucket High School Students Dive into Hands-On Science

“I’ve never seen them before. They look unworldly,” said Nantucket High School student Edward Holland, looking through the microscope at the translucent, tentacled sea anemone, Nematostella.

Holland and nine other students from the school saw many new sights this week in the MBL’s High School Science Discovery Program.

Guided by MBL Associate Scientist Karen Echeverri, the students dove into fluorescence microscopy, zebrafish development, and gene editing with CRISPR-Cas9.

They knocked out three genes in zebrafish embryos and the next day, observed how this affected the embryos’ development.

“It’s fantastic for them to see in real life what they normally only hear in lectures or on videos. Here, it’s hands-on learning and student-led science,” said Heather Ring, marine science teacher at Nantucket High School, who arranged the students’ participation.

“I’ve been impressed – They’ve been willing to jump right in,” said Brianna Watson, course manager in MBL Education and the high school course’s co-instructor.

The students ranged from sophomores to seniors and had all taken biology before, Ring said. Most had also taken environmental science and marine science.

Dory Dinklage, whose grandfather is sculptor David Bakalar, was one of the students in the group. Four sculptures by Bakalar enhance the MBL campus and Dory, who is interested in pottery, had seen three of them. She also likes science, she said – her career could go either way!

During the three-day program, the students also toured the Marine Resources Center, the axolotl room, Automated Aquatics Facility, and the MBLWHOI Library. They took part in a career discussion with MBL post-docs and research assistants, and discussed the ethics of gene editing after reading several articles about the potential use of genome editing tools  in relation to human health and agriculture.

“It’s great the students are working alongside MBL researchers. They learn a lot from that,” said Sonia Scherr of Egan Maritime, a nonprofit organization on Nantucket that partners with the island’s high school to enable students to access programs like the MBL’s.