Startups

MdBioLab, science laboratory on wheels, rolls through the SEED School

More than 15,000 pipette tips, 12,000 pairs of gloves and 15,000 liters of agarose are stashed on the MdBioLab, a modified tractor trailer kitted out with research laboratory-worthy equipment, which parked itself last week at the SEED School of Maryland, located in southwest Baltimore near Gwynns Falls Park. The MdBioLab is the flagship program of […]

More than 15,000 pipette tips, 12,000 pairs of gloves and 15,000 liters of agarose are stashed on the MdBioLab, a modified tractor trailer kitted out with research laboratory-worthy equipment, which parked itself last week at the SEED School of Maryland, located in southwest Baltimore near Gwynns Falls Park.

The MdBioLab is the flagship program of the MdBio Foundation, founded in 1997 to sound the bugle horn of bioscience awareness in Maryland. The foundation itself is a subsidiary of the Tech Council of Maryland. The MdBioLab was created in 2003, and in that time the MdBioFoundation has poured some $2 million into the tractor-trailer laboratory, which teaches on average 500 classes each year to predominantly high school students in all the school districts in the state.
“It’s basically a marketing campaign for science,” says Jennifer Colvin, director of education and workforce programs at the MdBio Foundation, which funds all those pairs of gloves — and all the other equipment — on the mobile lab. (It’s not the only mobile tech member in Maryland these days.)
Each year, the retrofitted mobile lab will teach about 10,000 kids, and classes are facilitated by two full-time instructors: Timothy Carter, 29, and Reimi Hicks, 26, both of whom are University of Maryland, College Park, graduates. The truck, which can accommodate about 38 kids, contains individual lab stations along both sides with an aisle in the middle, and typically spends about a week at each school it visits each year, working with science teachers to augment their planned lessons. During the summer, the MdBioLab puts on a summer camp for middle school students.
Technically Baltimore stopped by the SEED School on Thursday to catch students in the midst of a gel electrophoresis experiment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIY0UXUScU8&version=3&hl=en_US
The MdBioLab, by the numbers:

  • 33,000: the number of pounds the mobile lab weighs
  • 15,000: the number of miles the truck drives each year
  • 2,800: the number of classes conducted on board the lab
  • 10: the number of years the mobile lab has been around
  • 100,000: the number of students who have taken classes on the lab in that 10-year period
Companies: MdBio Foundation

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

Baltimore is setting a national standard for diversifying its economy

19 tech and entrepreneurship events to check out before the holidays

Tech lab space opening in new 4MLK building, thanks to $2M in public funds

EDA officials are ‘hopeful’ Tech Hubs program will live on under Trump

Technically Media