Jen Gruber, a senior at Rockville’s Magruder High School couldn’t believe her luck. As a member of the class who helped the MdBioLab reach a major milestone, she immediately took to social media tweeting, “Woooo 100,000th [student] class @mdbiolab.”
For MdBioLab, MdBio Foundation’s unique custom-built 45-foot mobile bioscience laboratory for Maryland high school students, February 28, 2013 was a day to celebrate. After 10 years on the road and 100,000 students served, the MdBioLab has become one of Maryland’s most sought after and impactful educational experiences.
Magruder High School was just one of 32 schools that the lab visited during a busy 2012/13 school year. In all, over 10,000 students from nine different school districts across Maryland were served. The districts included Baltimore City and Frederick, Harford, Howard, Kent, Montgomery, Queen Anne’s, Wicomico, and Worcester counties.
In addition to school visits, MdBioLab also partnered with Johns Hopkins University, the Universities at Shady Grove and the University of Maryland by participating in several community-based events and programs. These programs include Frontiers in Science and Medicine Day, Journeys in Engineering, Technology, and Science Day, and Maryland Day.
Scheduling for the 2013/14 school year is already set. Within 15 minutes of registration opening at 9:00 a.m. on August 1, teachers and administrators from across the state flooded MdBio Foundation’s website to request a free-of-charge visit to their schools. In all, the lab will be visiting 34 schools from seven school districts in the state.
