Holy Cross Students Get Science Lesson Aboard BioBus

This is a story I covered on children in a Catholic elementary school in New York City who were learning about science through a group that brings hands-on science education to schools across the country. The story appeared in Catholic New York Newspaper on March 21, 2012.

Students and faculty at Holy Cross School on Manhattan’s West Side last week enthusiastically welcomed the BioBus, a mobile research-grade microscope laboratory dedicated to providing students an interactive science education experience.

The vehicle, a converted 1974 transit bus, also offers lessons about the environment. It is 100 percent carbon neutral, operating on waste vegetable oil from restaurants, with solar panels and a wind turbine. A “green” roof cools the bus during the summer and a pellet stove provides winter heating.

The Bio Bus, founded in 2008, has traveled to some 150 schools in New York City, offering students of different grades a visual and hands-on education in science. Operated by the nonprofit Cell Motion Laboratories Inc., the bus and its staff are supported by corporate and foundation grants and individual donations.

The March 8 visit to Holy Cross, which came at the school’s invitation, was the first by the BioBus to the Times Square area. The bus was parked outside the West 43rd Street school, with students from different grades climbing aboard throughout the school day.

“There are two main ways the bus helps kids: one is that they use $70,000 microscopes and can see things (ordinarily) unable to be seen,” observed Ben Dubin-Thaler, founder and chief scientist of the Bio Bus.

“The second thing is that they get to meet scientists,” he said.

Another scientist on board, Sarah Weisberg, showed Holy Cross fifth-graders how to use a microscope to get an extremely close-up view of a tiny creature known as a “daphnia” that operates on its arms rather than legs.

Eva Leclercq, a parent with two children, Dylan, 7, and Liliane, 4, enrolled at Holy Cross, said the BioBus brings “an actual science lab” to students.

“This is not something you’re reading about,” she said. “They’re meeting real scientists, and are able to ask questions.”

Sister Mary Theresa Dixon, O.P., principal of Holy Cross School, said, “The response so far has been really positive, they’re really excited about it. The organization did a wonderful thing in giving them materials ahead of time.”

“You can see the students are asking questions but it’s because they’ve had some background,” she said.

When asked what she thought students liked best, she responded, “We don’t have these kinds of microscopes in school and the fact that they can see something at different angles, different levels and understand how really minute and small a microorganism is when you have the equipment...I think that is one of the biggest joys for them.”

She noted that the parent of a third-grader who owns a restaurant donated waste vegetable oil to fuel the bus.

A fifth-grade student shared her thoughts about what she had learned.

“The BioBus teaches us a lot of new things about animals that we really don’t know about,” said Barinken Mitchell. “It’s very exciting when you look at the animal and its intestines and learn how it’s similar but also different from us.”