Ashlynn Gallagher, left, and Kate Amrine, both juniors at W.F. West High School, set up plates for testing at BioTech Day at Centralia High School on Thursday morning.
While wandering around Ron Brown Court at Centralia High School during the annual Biotech Day science bonanza, it can be difficult to gather one’s bearings. With 300 science-minded students bustling about on Thursday in order to examine genetic evidence, the atmosphere was notably charged.
In the midst of such a seemingly serious science undertaking, one student asked another, with absolute seriousness, “How do you spell Zuul?”
Zuul, of course, is a demigod made famous in the 1984 film “Ghostbusters.” In the film, Zuul is the minion of Gozer, The Destructor, who wishes to unleash neverending terrors on the people of New York City in forms that included, but were not limited to, an oversized and marauding Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
As it turned out, the question of how to spell the demonic gatekeeper’s name was not merely some off topic dalliance of a distracted high school student. As co-director of Biotech Day for the second year, Jenna Halsey explained that Thursday was the 20th annual rendition of the Biotech event, and each year a new theme is chosen in order to add a bit of intrigue to the scientific inquiries of the day.
This year, the theme was Genebusters, a playful knockoff of those proton pack-toting Ghostbusters. Halsey said that the 300 students in attendance for the event were told to proceed as if some nefarious soul had stolen all of the ghosts the Ghostbusters had captured and was threatening to unleash them at the obvious otherworld vortex of Seattle’s Space Needle. In order to prevent that from happening, the students would have to use genetic evidence left at the crime scene in order to determine the identity of the ghost thief.
Of course, the scenario was fantastical, but the investigative methods employed by the students were very much rooted in reality.
“They have to collaborate just like real scientists in the real world,” said Halsey, who teaches biology and genetics at Centralia High School. “It gets students excited about science. They see what’s going on in our school and they see leaders from their school getting involved and they want to become involved themselves.”
On Thursday, students from nine schools were represented, including Centralia, W.F. West, Adna, Napavine, Pe Ell, North Thurston, Harbor Homeschool, J.M. Weatherwax of Aberdeen and Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School of Vancouver.
One of those students was Ashlynn Gallagher, a junior from W.F. West. Gallagher first attended Biotech Day last year as a sophomore and served as an adviser for a research group. This year, she moved her way up the totem pole and found herself in a lab coat as director of the Polymerase Chain Reaction machine that breaks down the genetic codes found in individual evidence samples.
Her work was deemed so important that her availability to this reporter was cut short by Halsey, but not before The Chronicle was able to glean a bit of information from Gallagher regarding her obvious fascination with scientific inquiry.
“I’ve always been interested in science and I definitely want to pursue it after high school,” said Gallagher, who wants to major in microbiology with a minor in genetics, or vice versa, when she gets to college.
Gallagher was quick to throw out a sincere thank you to the Chehalis Foundation for helping to provide the myriad resources required for the large scale, and growing, event.
“We’re being able to learn things that undergraduates in college don’t even get to learn,” said Gallagher. “This helps to engage students in science careers.”
Gallagher’s assistant on Thursday was Kate Amrine, a junior from W.F. West. Amrine also participated in the event last year before being bumped up to the PCR gene machine this year. Amrine said she is seriously considering pursuing the field of science in college and possibly as a career. First though, she says she’s looking forward to coming back for one more go round at Biotech Day next year as a senior. She’s hopeful she might even get to be head honcho on the PCR gene machine in 2018, but she’s flexible on that point too.
“I don’t care what job I have as long as I’m here,” said Amrine with a smile.
Like Halsey, Matthew Bremgartner was also in his second year as co-director of Biotech Day. Most days, Bremgartner can be found teaching chemistry and genetics at W.F. West, but on Thursday he was helping students get accurate genetic results from the residue of ghost slime. Bremgartner noted that participants in the event are typically juniors and seniors but that overachieving underclassmen often find their way into the mix as well.
“I think the value is just exposing them to biotechnology and some of the techniques that we use,” said Bremgartner. He noted that the problem solving aspect of the Biotech Day mysteries forces students to coordinate their efforts and troubleshoot on numerous levels in order to accurately solve the neoclassical who-done-it scenario.
Bremgartner added that the basic lab techniques employed at Biotech Day are applicable to more than just Genebusting ghost poachers. He says that students who master the skills taught in high school genetics classes and employed at Biotech Day will be well prepared for collegiate studies in medicine, research and other scientific fields.
“I think it’s pretty broad as far as where they could go or what they could do,” said Bremgartner.
