Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Students discuss Scientific Art at Buck Institute

HSB III Students visited the Scientist as Artist display in the Foyer of the Buck Research Institute. Each student was pre-assigned one piece of art to research so they could give us a simple explanation about some of the Science behind the Art. Julie Mangada ( Research Scientist and PHS STEM cafe speaker) joined us to listen and was impressed with the academic effort of our students. Below are the students next to their picture. January 10, 2014
Nathalie 
                                                    This is a topography of the immunochemistry                                                                                                 of a mouse brain. The similarities of the                                                                                                        human brain and mouse brain are shockingly                                                                          similar in structure and organs.

Mariela
With over 3000 mutant strands, C. elegans are widely used in laboratory experiments such as aging, because they are so easily and cheaply maintained

Yadira
This is HeLa cells and it is just a long line of cells that came from a tumor from an Africa American. HeLa cells are used in various laboratories and are used to study the cause of diseases and to examine the offect of medicine. 

Tricia
This is a photo of a crystallized sulfur. Sulfur is inside our bodies and bond together to make several parts of our bodies. Sulfur helps the skin create elasticity, which creates a youthful look for people. Once the elasticity wears down with aging, wrinkles start to appear because of the looser bonds sulfur has with each other. 


Vanessa
The picture shows the co-localization of two enzymes with iron as a co-factor in a dopaminergic neuron. The yellow that is seen represents iron. Iron in the body is good, but high amounts of it has a negative effect. Parkinson's Disease is one of the diseases that is researched because its cause relates to the amount of iron in the body.

Michelle 
The artwork above displays a young and mature round worm. The one on the left is the mature one and as you can see has lost organs and nutrients. The young round worm is thicker and full of nutrients and organs. 

Franco

Cory
The image shown here is of an experiment done with mice with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. The lines are the tracings of the paths that the mice took around a circular arena. The mice on the left with more tracings are the ones that have the symptom of wandering, the mice on the right are healthy.
Julie, showing us how Breast Cancer cells have a distinctly different, unhealthy look- bloated irregular- unsightly for sure !

Karissa

Leanna

Justin

Josh 
This is a picture of a data plot overlaid by a gene interaction network of a cell. A gene interaction network shows how certain parts of a cell

3D view of Juan and the 3D bird !
What you see here is the two different types of fat(adipose) cells put into a collage. The two types are known as white fat and brown fat. White fat tissue serves three main functions: heat insulation, mechanical cushion, and a source of energy. Brown fat is full of mitochondria. Studying fat for aging is vital since fat creates Leptin in our body, an important hormone in regulating appetite.


Julie and the class in front of her picture of Baby brain cells.

HSB at the Buck !!

Then we fed our  hungry brains at the dining hall on the Dominican campus and had an awesome campus tour !

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Harlem Shake worms (C. elegans)




We spent days working with these Nematodes and watching them thrash in different concentrations of alcohol...and we appreciate the movements seen here !
Best Quote- " I never thought it would be so hard to keep these worms alive !"

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Job Shadow internships

Each spring our students venture out with community mentors to learn more about the daily responsibilities in their career interest area. Below are some examples of just how much fun and learning our students had on site in Sonoma County:

Vista Health Clinic: Future Faces of Family Medicine:

FFFM Participants Spring 2013

 
Here is a link to the newsletter article written in Sonoma magazine.




Thursday, June 20, 2013

 
 
 
 
 
 
The Piner HS/SSU Summer Internship Crew
(left to right) Sera Matasau, Victoria Trier, Anissa Garcia, Chris Campbell, Ryan Williamson ( SSU Graduate and Student Teacher), Christian Barnard, Raya Zopolos, Tommy Nguyen
 
 
 
 Students from the HSB program were invited ( and paid) to work with Ryan at Sonoma State in a Biotechnology lab to trouble shoot a lab protocol that Ryan created for students to test the GMO content of foods. They made their own solutions ( using their great Chemistry skills), prepared and run gels such as the one seen below and then like most scientists...had to go through the troubleshooting problems when they did not get anticipated results.



Gel showing GMO markers in Food

Friday, May 31, 2013

HSB Class of 2013 !

Here are our proud graduates of the HSB pathway- Keep making Piner Proud of all of your accomplishments !
And here is my friend Rashna...shaking my biceps off !!

Here is our latest newsetter

Health and Science Investigation Pathway.

 


              We are proud to present the graduates of our HSI pathway. Each student ** has completed 2-3 years of challenging curriculum in addition to the required internship hours. The following list shows the exciting next step for our graduates !! Good luck !

Student

Community Internship
Future plans….
Jessica Aguilar **
Monica Okuhbo SRJC
SRJC> UOP or SJSU- Kinesiology
Keishla Batista **
Vista Clinic – Family Medicine
4 year college – RN or Nurse practioner
Devyn Breslin
Kaiser: ICU- Pulmonary
Santa Rosa Junior College- EMT ? DB degree
Jonathan Campos **
Vista Clinic – Family Medicine
4 year college- Professional soccer
Jennifer Gonzales**
Vista Clinic – Family Medicine
 Santa Rosa Junior College> 4 year: Biology
Ivonne Gutierrez **
Kaiser- Occupational medicine
SRJC> Psychologist
Gissell Jacome
Vista Clinic – Family Medicine
UC Santa Cruz- Health Science major
Pardeep Kaur **
Kaiser - Orthopedics
Santa Rosa Junior College
Mercedes
 Koumarianos **
Kaiser: admitting and  nutrition and Family Medicine
Santa Rosa Junior College with plans to transfer to UCLA- Psychologist
Arley Lara  **
Pet Care Hospital
SEJC> Veterinary program UC Davis
Karina Lozano **
Vista Clinic – Family Medicine
SRJC> Nursing
Holley Maassen
Memorial: Dr. Wilbur: pathology, Dr. Marcus: Cosmetic Surgery
UC Davis- Biology
Yessica Moran
Vista Clinic – Family Medicine
Dominican University- Biology
Jose Ochoa **
Monica Okuhbo SRJC
Santa Rosa Junior College
Alexander Pulley **
Family dentist
SRJC
Samantha Rauscher **
Wikiup Vet Hospital
SRJC- Law school !
Noemi Sanchez **
Vista Clinic – Family Medicine
SRJC> Med School Family Physician
Melissa Sandoval **
St. Joseph Urgent Care,
Dr. Shettlyer DDS
Santa Rosa Junior College
Rashna Sharma
Kaiser- Redwood Radiology
Santa Rosa Junior College- Rad Tech
Kristine Soy
Vista Clinic – Family Medicine
Arizona State University- Biology
Hao( Dave) Tran **
Marc Archambault-  Back to Golf
San Jose State University- kinesiology
Brennen Urrutia **
Blood Guys-Memorial Hospital
BYU in Idaho
 

 


 

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Piner High Students visit Medtronic: May 15 2013
Andrea Robles and Victoria explore pig hearts that have stents implanted.

Students were introduced to the many biomedical devices used in a product fair put on by Medtronic engineers.

 
Medtronic hosted Piner High students to a STEM Awareness day to present projects and demonstrations of what their engineers and scientists do to create their life saving biomedical devices. Alarming statistics were given to the students  that science and technical careers comprise 1 in every 5 US professional careers yet many companies hire outside of the US. Companies like Medtronic are joining others in a national push to increase student enrollment in Science Technology Engineering or Math careers and this day of outreach is their way to motivate students to take the challenge and step up to a STEM career.
 
A product fair was organized by engineers and scientists to show off the many biomedical devices Medtronic has developed. Students observed and interacted with coronary stents, endovascular stent grafts, percutaneous heart valves, renal denervation systems and various catheter delivery systems.  They also poked around the valves of a dissected pig heart, analyzed the caffeine content of power drinks using a gas/mass spectrophotometer and were in awe of a 3D printer that makes moving workable prototypes from a computer assisted drawing.
 
Many students found the day to be an exciting preview of the science and technology they have to look forward to in their future careers. Many of these students already have a passion for math and science and gained additional insight into the challenges and rewards that await them should they chose to pursue STEM pathways in their future.
 
Piner High already has three such career pathways in place for their students:  Geospatial Technology, Health Science and Biotechnology and MAKE classes with a new MAKE physics program being offered next year. Medtronic is interested in strengthening these pathways and will be offering such a day to other Sonoma County high schools in the future.