Students enrolled in the Syracuse University Project Advance anatomy and physiology class in the Syracuse City School District's Henninger High School received a brief introduction to college-level developmental biology and genetics during a recent visit to Syracuse University's Life Sciences Complex. The event was hosted by the Department of Biology in SU's College of Arts and Sciences and organized by Katharine Lewis, associate professor of biology.

After touring the Life Sciences Complex and Lewis' research laboratory, the students conducted some of the same laboratory exercises in developmental biology done by Lewis' undergraduate students. In addition to identifying male and female zebrafish, the students learned to identify normal adult pigment and fin phenotypes, mutated adult phenotypes, and they examined normal and abnormal fish embryos.

Assisting Lewis and the high-school students was biology Professor Emeritus Larry Wolf.  Wolf conducted the tour of the Life Sciences Complex. Several undergraduate and graduate students helped the high-school students with the laboratory experiments.

SU Project Advance partners with high schools to offer qualified high-school students the opportunity to enroll in SU courses for university credit.

Yifan Gong, a biology graduate student, adjusts the microscope for Stephanie Williams, Francine Yanchik, and Dakota Pettit. Chao Lin a biology gad student, works with Joe Tran.