Fall 2022
Students with blindness or low vision (BLV) often face bias in the world of science, especially chemistry. Chemistry is often viewed as “too dangerous” for them, leading to exclusion from the lab and impeding understanding in other areas of STEM. By making data and tools in the chemistry lab accessible to people with BLV, we hope to include them in the sciences and aid in their chemical understanding.
To begin, in the fall of 2022, we launched our first outreach event with the students from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI). This event spanned a total of three days, with one day of us teaching the students down at TSBVI, and two days of the students in the lab here at Baylor. In this event, we began making labs at Baylor completely accessible to those with BLV. We began with covering a basic organic chemistry reaction, esterification, and with electron microscopy. Upon completion of this program, students felt an increase in inclusion in the sciences, especially in chemistry.
Fall 2023
In fall 2023, we expanded our efforts to make the lab accessible via robotics, fluorescent microscopy, and gel electrophoresis. Students were able to learn about lab automation via robots in the lab, by aiding in making a “protein charge ladder.”
We make protein charge ladders for our research by hand, so showing that it can also happen by directing a robot helps the students see that their reactions can be automated via robotics. We also showed the students fluorescent microscope images.
The students got to view bovine lung cells (which were fluorescently labeled) and bugs such as cockroaches (which have autofluorescence), and they got to learn more about fluorescence microscopy.
The students learned about amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. As they were learning about proteins, they also were able to do protein gel electrophoresis.
Spring 2024
In the spring of 2024, the students with blindness or low vision from TSBVI joined us at Baylor once again! This time, we had a theme for the event: The Great Molecular Race. For their time being experimental scientists, we focused on various laboratory separation techniques.
The goal was to help students understand which molecules would “win” the race, depending on the racecourse presented to them. Specifically, we focused on size exclusion chromatography (SEC), SDS-PAGE, and thin layer chromatography (TLC). Students helped purify one of two proteins, alpha-synuclein or Cytochrome c, by adding their respective protein to a SEC column and collecting the fractions.
Students then performed another separation technique, SDS-PAGE, to determine if their fractions had the protein of interest in it. After students analyzed their protein gels, they then pooled the proper fractions together and flash froze them. At the end of the three-day event, students then synthesized an ester, methyl salicylate, and executed thin layer chromatography to separate the reactants (methanol and salicylic acid) from the product (methyl salicylate).
