Professor Stephen Smith and Ya Yang, a postdoctoral fellow in the Smith lab, ran a high school
biology teacher workshop on genes and genomes, Wednesday, July 16, on the University of Michigan central campus.
A dozen teachers from southeastern Michigan high schools attended the workshop to learn the latest genetic research so they can take that information back to their own classrooms.
The full-day workshop was part of Smith’s NSF cacti and carnivores (caryophyllales) grant. Part of the broader impacts of this transcriptomic grant was teaching teachers about genes and genomes so they could pass that information on to students.
“The goal of the workshop was to give a broad overview of the importance and application of genomics in science and medicine, especially since the genomics revolution,” said Smith. “We also gave exercises using common genomics tools that they may then want to use in the classroom.”