This spring, the BioEYES program celebrates a major milestone: It will serve its 100,000th student.
That means in the 14 years since BioEYES began, 100,000 elementary, middle, and high school students from Philadelphia and four other sites have been exposed to innovative, hands-on lessons that get them excited about and interested in science.
That’s a lot of students. And that’s a lot of zebrafish.
The zebrafish are at the center of the BioEYES program: Live fish are brought into the classroom, and for a week, students observe the embryos and larvae, recording what they see, hypothesizing and testing ideas, and asking questions. In short, they learn to think and act as scientists do.
“Students get to be scientists and not just learn from scientists—they have to take ownership of the scientific process,” explains Jamie Shuda, director of outreach and education at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and the co-founder of BioEYES. “We’re across grade spans but we are specific to what teachers have to teach. It’s not an addition, but a complement to what we’re asking students to master.”
Read the full story on the Penn Current here.