Secondary and Sixth form sessions

Baylab has developed a new and exciting workshop focused on the cardiovascular system. The workshop will look at the composition of blood, the circulatory system, structure and function of the heart as well as looking at heart disease, heart health and lifestyle.

The students will have a go at making their own fake blood, using microscopes to look at blood smears, modelling the circulatory system as well as getting hands on with anatomy models, blood vessels and much more.

By the end of the workshop, students will have a good understanding of the core structures and function of the heart and cardiovascular system, heart diseases and their impact, and ways to look after their own hearts though healthier lifestyle choices.

This workshop gives students the chance to think about what makes human beings unique. They learn more about DNA, what it is and where it is found, and how the structure makes each person different, exploring mutations and their effects on displayed characteristics.  It links to the real world in many ways, such as studying the genetic causes of disease, development of diagnostics and drugs, and also in forensic science and sequencing genomes.

Here, students will extract their own DNA from their cheek cells and walk away with a small piece of in a necklace or keychain.

This workshop covers a lot of cross curricular areas, from plants, farming challenges, climate change to the future of farming in order to obtain food security. We explore current population stress on resources, the importance in understanding plants on a molecular level, the challenges farmers face in different continents and how the future of farming aims to tackle some of the world’s major issues, from world hunger to climate change.

We use a variety of equipment to investigate plant health and the effects of varying conditions on photosynthesis.

The workshop links to the Biology and Geography National Curriculum; photosynthesis, plant structure; cells, leaf structure, xylem and phloem, transport, plant disease and genetic engineering

AQA  4.7.5.1 Factors affecting food security and AQA Required practical activity 6: investigate the effect of light intensity on the rate of photosynthesis as well as OCR B6.2 Feeding the Human Race

Geography  OCR B Resource resilience, 8.2, Can we feed nine billion people by 2050? And AQA, Resource Resilience covering;

• Reasons for increasing food consumption: economic development, rising population
• Factors affecting food supply: climate, technology, pests and disease, water stress
• Strategies used to increase food supply

Human remains have been discovered with links to four missing persons. Can the DNA profile from the remains be linked to this investigation?

In line with real-life forensics operations, students will look at Short Tandem Repeats as a means of identifying individual DNA. They will then amplify that DNA before separating the fragment sizes through gel electrophoresis and interpreting the resulting profiles.

Students will gain a greater understanding of our genetic material and its use in forensic identification as well as hands-on experience with a variety of techniques and equipment including micropipettes, agarose gels and the PCR thermocycler.

Enzyme are the chemical work horses of our body. They exist to facilitate reactions that would otherwise require lots of heat and/or pressure to make them happen. Without them, we would not be able to digest food, replicate our DNA, repair our damaged cells or send messages throughout the body. We look at what enzymes are made of, how they are used in the production of medicines as well as their other medical and biotechnological uses. Students will discover that the human body is full of enzymes.

Practically we will characterise some of our enzymes, study their action and efficacy as catalysts using a variety of different substrates (sugar, starch, sugar analogues). Finally they will discover the biotechnological uses of enzymes and the enzyme inhibition that form the chief characteristics of many drugs.