Seniors in the Biomedical Innovations course at Pattonville High School presented their capstone research projects on May 10. 

“They have been working on this project in some capacity for the entire school year and were excited to share what they learned,” Project Lead The Way biomedical science teacher Jamie Jobe said. 

The students were able to choose what they researched and planned their ideas with Jobe after taking a field trip to a working science lab at Washington University in St. Louis in the fall. 

“We spent the first semester figuring out that idea and then making sure it was doable with the constraints of our classroom and the time that we had to actually collect the data,” she said. “They wrote a literature review which they included in their final presentation and then figured out what materials they needed.”

Jobe encouraged students to pick topics they were interested in and the only requirement was that it had to be something related to biomedical science in the healthcare field. 

“We kicked off the second semester with getting those materials and doing two months of data collection and statistics and practicing these presentations and writing an entire research paper.”

The skills they gained are invaluable. 

“All of these students can go into college next year and see a professor and be like, ‘Hey, I did this kind of research in high school. Can I work in your lab?’” she said. “Not every college freshman gets this kind of opportunity in high school.”