By Jupji Sandhu
Staff Writer | The Pacific Times
More than four dozen sophomores from both of Jasmine Daragahi’s biology classes took a field trip to the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in December.
“This field trip was a great learning opportunity for students to see how science is conducted in a real-life setting,” said Daragahi.
The field trip was sponsored by Daragahi’s friend, Shreya Banerjee, who is a current graduate student in Population Biology at UC Davis. Banerjee is one of 10 marine scientists awarded a grant to conduct research and an outreach project from the Bilinski Educational Foundation.
Banerjee’s research study is on limpets, an aquatic snail. She wanted to conduct her research/outreach study as a learning opportunity for high school students so she planned a field trip for NP3 biology students. The research question the students explored was, “Do the two species of ribbed limpets found in Bodega Bay differ in size?”
Students were split into three groups and rotated through stations. Station one was collecting limpet DNA. Station two went on a tour of the laboratory and explored the nearby beach. Station three was a tour of the aquarium and conducting two lab techniques, Gel Electrophoresis and Polymerase Chain Reactions, on the DNA that was extracted from the limpets in Station One.
“It was awesome seeing how scientists conduct their research and learning about limpets,” said Ayesha Imran, a biology student who attended the trip.
“I was pleasantly surprised at how engaged the students were. They were engaging with the graduate students and asking high-level questions about the research they were conducting,” said Daragahi.
Students left NP3 High School at 6:15 a.m. and returned at 5:30 p.m.
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