TOMS RIVER REGIONAL SCHOOLS STEAM ACADEMY
Toms RIver Regional Schools STEAM Academy & Au- thentic Science Research Course District students have the opportunity to apply for the three year Authentic Science Research Course. 10th- 12th grade students compete in local, state, and national competitions with their research. ASR students present their research to the public at the annual ASR Sympo- sium. Dr. Mary Beth Kretz is the Director of ASR at TRHS East and Mrs. Christine Girtian is the Director ASR at TRHS North and TRHS South. The TR HS East Authentic Science Research (ASR) STEAM Academy students are collaborating on hydroponics projects with Ocean Coun- ty College’s Dr. Angel Camillo, Eric Antonelli & Dean of STEM Dr. Sylvia Riviello. The STEAM Biomedical Strand is part of the RWJBH CMC Hospital Healthcare Learning Collaborative, Live Stream Surgery sponsored by Liber- ty Science Center and The Rutgers Cadaver Lab. The Engineering students participate in and collaborate with Ocean County College and their Engineering Club as well as Aviation STEM Day and Lakehurst Naval Base Labs. Global Wolbachia Project This year students from all three Toms River ASR pro- grams will be participating in The Global STEM Wolba- chia Project. The Global STEM Wolbachia Project is a local & international initiative to contribute to the na- tional Wolbachia database helping high school students learn more about molecular, microbiology, & mosquito management techniques. Toms River Regional Schools Authentic Science Research (ASR) students will partner with Israeli students from Shimon Ben-Zvi in Givatayim, Israel & exchange data on the prevalence of Wolbachia in local mosquito populations. The Israeli students are led by Dr. Pirchi Waxman. In the summer of 2018, Dr. Pirchi
Waksman, TR HS South AP Bio teacher Michele Martini & TR North & South Director of Authentic Science Re- search Christine Girtain did biotech training together. In Feb of 2020, Dr. Waksman stayed with the Girtain family. Dr. Waxman visited with the district’s ASR students, helped judge one of the intermediate school science fairs and spoke about the Global STEM collaboration at the Central Ocean Rotary Club’s lunch meeting. The Bordenstein Lab at Vanderbilt University will be partnering with Toms River Regional Schools supplying controls, primers & virtual assistance. The objective of this particular initiative is to teach teachers & students techniques used in molecular biology, including pipet- ting, PCR, & gel electrophoresis, in order to engage them in a possible future career choice & a capstone research project. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/wolbachiaproject/ Wolbachia is a bacterium that lives within arthropods & filarial nematodes. Wolbachia infected mosquitoes are expected to reduce the spread of Dengue & Zika. Wolba- chia research may contribute to a decline in New Jersey mosquito-borne diseases in the future. TR STEM Camps TR Schools partnered with the Camp Invention, https:// www.invent.org/programs/camp-invention NAVAIR at Lakehurst Naval Base, The DNA Learning Center from Cold Spring Harbor Labs https://dnalc.cshl.edu/ & Rich- ard Chan from MiniOne https://theminione.com/pcr-sys- tem/ to offer several STEM camps for students. Camp Invention is for students entering grades K-6, World of Enzymes is for grades 6-9, and BioCoding and DNA Bar- coding are for high school students.
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