UNE faculty, staff participate in annual Maine Bioscience Day at local school

“What’s your favorite cake?” one seventh grader asked University of New England Associate Biomedical Sciences Professor Kerry Tucker, Ph.D. Tucker had just been teaching students at Saco Middle School about eukaryotic cells and compared it to a volcano cake, which prompted the question.

The activity was all part of Maine Bioscience Day, which was held on Nov. 13 at 46 schools across Maine. Faculty and staff from UNE’s Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences were paired with seventh graders at Saco Middle School to host various hands-on activities to teach them how the human brain interacts with the world.

One of those activities had students wear “upside-down goggles,” which turn everything upside down and backward, the way our eyes initially see the world until our brains step in and make the proper adjustments. Students were then challenged to walk around and complete different tasks while wearing the goggles.

Another experiment taught students about how genetics play a role in how strong their sense of taste is by using a PH test strip to measure the strength of their tastebuds.

“The teachers were just as excited to try out the experiments as the kids were,” said UNE Lab Manager Eliz Bean. “The students’ descriptions of how the test paper tasted were pretty funny - one student thought it tasted like what she thought earwax would taste like.”

In all, UNE was one of 20 organizations to send volunteers to local schools for Maine Bioscience Day. The event reached more than 5,400 students, according to the Bioscience Association of Maine, which organizes the event.