This week I had the awesome opportunity to work with the teachers, staff, and principal at Aberdeen High School here in Mississippi as part of their Summer Enrichment Program. To make up for missing out on in-person opportunities Aberdeen high school students typically have, the school invited a couple MUW faculty (myself and Dr. Heda) to spend a week at the school facilitating activities for their students. Dr. Heda, and his two research undergraduates (Sara Sligh and Zithlaly Amezquita) focused on teaching their summer students about research methods investigating proteins. Working with Mrs. Triplett’s class of 4 students, my activities focused on evolution. We did multiple versions of the bird game, looking at drift, selection, and speciation.
Explored the vertebrate tree of life using animal toys!
Built phylogenies out of pipe cleaners, and compared similarities of differences across primate and hominid skulls.
Our activities were also featured in a Monroe Journal newspaper article!