Brit Mott

A group of middle school students donned in white lab coats and protective goggles gently squeeze a drop of distilled water onto a microscope slide. They place a colony of bacteria on the slide and not a single “oooh gross!” erupts from their mouths, rather their eyes watch in wonderment.

The young scientists pass the slide through a Bunsen burner three times before coating the bacteria with crystal violet stain, along with Gram’s iodine solution. So many steps…so much patience.

After a minute ticks by, the iodine has absorbed into the bacteria. The students rinse the slide in water, but wait, there’s more… .

Holding the slide at a slant, they flood it with acetone-alcohol as the crystal violet dye leaches from the cells. A glimmer of light peers through the students’ eyes as they watch the decolorization process.

With a final touch of red safranin, the young scientists are able to view their specimen under the microscope. Rod-like-shaped bacilli emerge into focus. To the boys, the bacilli look like worms; to the girls, the bacilli look like pink and purple beads for stringing a necklace.

Every summer, mindbending fun, like microbiology, is offered to Frisco ISD middle school students through the Mindbender Academy. The week-long camp is the brainchild of Leadership Frisco Class 11 and is operated by the Frisco Independent School District (FISD). Students participate in hands-on projects in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. View a Slideshow

Around 100 young scientists participated in the camp last June, which was organized by volunteers and employees of Raytheon, Sci-Tech Discovery, and FISD.

The camp took place at Frisco’s new Career and Technical Education Center, which is modeled after a school building. The students were assigned into various groups and rotated from one classroom to another. They explored robotics, mechanical engineering, microbiology and nanotechnolgoy, Potoshop Elements, and podcasting.

Allison Miller, director of the Frisco Education Foundation, said, “It is a fact that there is a shortage out there of students going into these fields which directly affects the workforce pool for the business community. One of the goals of the camp is to enlighten the students on career opportunities in these fields with hands-on activities and projects.”

She continued, “With the help of FISD staff and Raytheon and Sci-Tech volunteers, we were able to offer a variety of programs this year. The students were in awe of the coursework possibilities they will take advantage of once they're in high school, such as animation, engineering, Cisco networking, and video broadcasting.”

Miller has received positive feedback from the students who participated this year and said that most all of them are anxiously awaiting next year’s camp. Mindbender Academy is tentatively scheduled for June 14–18, 2010 and will once again be held at the Career and Technical Education Center.