Massachusetts Nonprofit Ensures Hands-On Lab Experience for Students During Online Learning (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Well there is no question that a year of online learning has been challenging

Speaker 2: for both students and teachers. Lab courses like AP biology present a special challenge because of the nature of the work. But one Massachusetts nonprofit made sure that students didn't miss out. WBZ's Paula Eben has

Speaker 3: tonight's eye on education. I have to say it was a little bit rough to start with just trying to navigate online learning and trying to specifically for a science teacher trying to figure out you know a key component of learning for students

Speaker 4: is the hands-on like labs. A course like AP bio is a big one for high school students and labs are a crucial part of the learning process 25% of the course work but for 200 Boston students when distance learning began in the fall lab kits came home to them. We really didn't want the kids to fall through the cracks and not have any kind of a lab experience. The nonprofit Mass Insight created the science from home program. Teachers like Ivy Rose Lycus of Boston XL High School say the creative at-home lab kits produced solid experience and

Speaker 3: enjoyment for her students. What's really cool about this and interesting to see develop as we're doing these labs is students having the equipment at home they are able to visualize those concepts. The kits were paid for by

Speaker 4: outside Massachusetts funders and the hope is to keep the lab equipment with each school and expand the program. At the end of the year we will collect that

Speaker 1: equipment back and we'll leave every classroom with what they need. They're

Speaker 3: really enjoying the fact that they're getting equipment, they're doing the labs, they're collecting the data, they're able to explain their understanding. With unexpected added benefits for the whole family. It's become like a family affair like well I've had kids of like brothers and sisters and cousins in while we're doing the labs or if they're monitoring it for a longer period of time like parents are getting involved in seeing kind of like what's happening what they're doing and as our kids are collecting data. It's

Speaker 1: been really fun to be on a zoom with a whole bunch of kids who don't want to necessarily open their screens but then they open their screens because they want to show us what they're manipulating and they're getting it and we're being zoom bombed essentially by their little siblings. You know heads are popping in going I want to do this. So that's been pretty fun. So the

Speaker 4: Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, Mini PCR and the PTC Foundation all funded this program and David and Lisa this is one of these positive developments we can take with us from this past year. It was such a success. There are plans to expand the program to Worcester as well as Central and Western Massachusetts.

Speaker 1: That is so smart. Yeah success for everybody I would say except for the

Speaker 4: frogs. Right exactly they always get the bad end of that deal.