Mad about MBL Students spend week in professional research lab

By Harper Harris | Features Editor

A group of nine students and four teachers packed their bags for the Marine Biology Lab in Woods Hole, Mass., in March. Over the next week, the students learned about marine biology through labs and lectures. This year's focus was marine embryology.

MBL, a professional research institute, is affiliated with The University of Chicago and first connected with Hockaday through former Head of School Dr. Karen Warren Coleman, who previously worked at the university. In 2019, The University of Chicago contacted Coleman, asking if the school would be interested in partnering with MBL.

The university and members of the science department, including Dr. Barbara Fishel and Brandi Finazzo, had a meeting about what a high school course would look like at a college-level lab.

“So then began a number of conversations between the people at MBL, and those of us who teach biology,” Fishel said. “In November 2019, we took kids and we really helped MBL fine-tune the course.”

Since then, students have been going to their labs each spring.

Students spent each day similarly, beginning with lectures, then going into the labs to practice what they learned that morning.

Finazzo said they spent most of the time in the labs, which Dr. Nipam Patel, head of MBL, taught.

“Depending on the day, there would be a lecture or two, but most of our time was spent in the laboratory,” Finazzo said.

In these labs, students learned how to use specific microscopes, called stemiscopes, which helped them when dissecting embryos.

“They worked with these really cool stemiscopes to observe different kinds of embryos,” Finazzo said. “They looked at squid, zebrafish, all kinds of different things and then they went out and collected samples from the environment and brought them in and looked at all those.”

While learning to use the microscopes, students also learned about certain embryos and structures. Junior Aria Bhatki said her favorite part of the labs was the dissection.

“We were able to take different specimens from this aquarium space,” Bhatki said, “and we were able to look at them under the microscope and see different parts of these living organisms that look so normal when they're not in a microscope.”

Bhatki said she applied to MBL to explore biology more and get hands-on experience in a college-level lab.

“I am really interested in science, particularly