Flashback Friday: ELLS welcomes its first group of international teachers
EMBL celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2024, and in so doing, we’re digging through the archives for some fascinating stories from EMBL’s past publications to publish in this blog. The following is an EMBLetc. article from Issue 16 in August 2003.
On July 7, 2003, 15 participants arrived at EMBL to take part in the LearningLAB course organised by the European Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences (ELLS), a new facility at EMBL devoted to science education. Teachers came from Portugal, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, and Switzerland, eager to update their scientific knowledge, do practical experiments at the lab bench, and bring the latest research back to their classrooms. The facility also welcomed the first of its visiting scientists when two San Jose University (CA, USA) professors came to work with the teachers and the ELLS staff.
Teachers explored the behaviour of microtubules at various stages of cell division and throughout early embryonic development in sea urchins, fruit flies, zebrafish, medaka fish, and mammalian cells. The function of microtubules in different biological processes represents an important research area for many EMBL scientists.
“We were very pleased with our first course,” notes Alexander Picker, who organised the course along with fellow Education Officers Alexandra Manaia and Trista Dawson. “We had a great group of teachers who really enjoyed the course, rating it as ‘excellent’ overall.”
The teachers were especially excited by the chance to interact with EMBL scientists. The Ellenberg, Wittbrodt, Neumann, and Ephrussi groups all helped to make the LearningLAB practical activities a great success.
“My group really enjoyed working with the teachers during the LearningLAB course on sea urchin fertilisation and mammalian cell division. The teachers were all very enthusiastic to do hands-on experiments and they asked great questions,” notes Jan Ellenberg, Group Leader. “Helping to improve how science is taught to our kids in school by working with their teachers is a really important and fun thing for a scientist to do.”
Formerly known as European Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences, ELLS, EMBL’s Science Education and Public Engagement office now not only leads the institute’s science education activities but also coordinates its efforts in outreach and public engagement. You can find articles here about some of its current education and outreach projects.
For uncatalogued archival material about ELLS, you can contact the EMBL archivist at archive@embl.org.
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