Next-Level Technology Beyond the Textbook

Did you ever wonder what it would be like if your camera had an X-ray lens? What about X-ray combined with 3D? That’s the kind of “superhero powers” FAU’s Imaging Lab is offering students as they are introduced to hands-on learning beyond the textbook.

The state-of-art lab is housed at FAU High School, a dual-enrollment high school located on FAU Boca Raton Campus. While high school students use the lab for classes, clubs and science fair projects, as well as research under the guidance and mentorship of FAU faculty, students in grades pre-kindergarten through middle school use the cutting-edge equipment for educational purposes, said Tricia Meredith, Ph.D., director of research at A.D. Henderson University School and FAU High School, and an assistant research professor in the College of Education.

The lab creates a space for learning that involves equipment otherwise unavailable to these students. “How many pre-K kids get to use a scanning electron microscope? They love it,” she said. Rather than using light to illuminate a sample, the electron microscope scans using a beam of electrons, which provide more depth, creating a more 3D image.

In addition to a scanning electron microscope, which could be used to see something as tiny as the individual scales on a butterfly wing in extraordinary detail, the lab is filled with other high-tech equipment, with abilities that range from allowing you to see the interior of a specimen without destroying it to being able to preserve tissue samples. “Using our micro-CT scanner is like having X-ray vision, only better. It allows researchers to see the inside of the specimen without destroying the object itself,” Meredith said. Abilities like these are usually limited to “superheroes,” but in the lab, the students are the ones with the X-ray vision.

“The lab is a collaborative research hub for STEM education and mentorship to develop the next generation of researchers,” said Meredith. For example, middle and high school science fair students have projects that range from documenting microplastics in local beach sand to examining how the color-changing cells in chameleon skin work. Teachers at the school also parallel their curriculum with visits to the lab. For example, the second grade was learning about magnifiers in their science unit. So, the entire second grade zoomed (because of the pandemic) into the lab “to get a tour of all the magnifiers, learn how they work and why they’re cool,” she said.

For the high school students, it’s also a chance to conduct original research with mentors at FAU. Projects have ranged from looking at treatments for citrus greening disease to developing a shark skin inspired bandage and imaging skeletal deformities in sea turtle embryos. Students have co-authored 47 scientific publications, and one student has a patent as a result of their research, with three pending, according to Meredith.

The high-tech equipment also produces unique photographs. In fact, one of Meredith’s such photographs — a microscopic image of a spider’s spinnerets — recently earned first place in the 2020 Art of Science photography contest, hosted by FAU’s Division of Research. Meredith collected the spider from a local on-site daycare with a Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program. Technicians scanned the spider’s exterior and “were able to ease the fear of the students when they were able to see the scans of the spinnerets up close, replacing fear with knowledge and curiosity,” said Meredith.

“The high-tech research equipment gets kids excited about science,” she said. “It really levels-up our ability to provide hands-on learning.”

See more of what the imaging lab does:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUiy9XEJYos&feature=youtu.be

Check out Meredith's winning photograph.