For 15 years, Boston University’s CityLab program has invited students from middle and high school with limited science equipment to work in the university-quality laboratories at the BU Medical Campus.
Created in 1991 with a grant from the National Institutes of Health, CityLab provides students with a chance to perform experiments in BU labs, an opportunity that may not be available in their own schools. CityLab, run through the BU Medical Campus, is funded by grants and BU’s biochemistry department. The program also has a popular mobile unit that travels to local high schools.
Since 1992, more than 70,000 students from the northeast have used CityLab, Director Don DeRosa said.
For students from smaller high schools without the funds for labs or equipment, the program offers the opportunity to experience scientific experiments firsthand.
“We recognize that teachers and students benefit from opportunities to experience laboratory-based investigations in authentic settings,” DeRosa said in an email. “[The School of Medicine] has generously made such opportunities available through the CityLab program.”
Students from Newmarket High School in Newmarket, N.H., recently traveled to BU to complete a science lab through the CityLab program.
Newmarket High science department chairman James Fabiano said the school has been bringing science students to CityLab for the past 10 years, in addition to trips to the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the University of New Hampshire.
“I perpetually look for means of having my students experience real-life science,” Fabiano said in an email. “I wanted to give my students a chance to work in a state-of-the-art microbiology lab.”
CityLab offers two classes for high school students at the medical campus each day. The mobile unit also travels to one school each day, according to CityLab Assistant Director Meg Moriarty. CityLab has two labs on the BU Medical Campus set aside for 50 students and their teachers.
For large schools lacking space and funds for science labs, CityLab is the best solution, Moriarty said.
“Most schools cannot afford equipment themselves,” she said. “There is no charge for CityLab.”
CityLab offers classes the choice of six labs and leaves teachers to lead experiments.
“The students perform classical experiments to learn science and life science,” biochemistry department chair Carl Franzblau, one of CityLab’s founders, said.
While the CityLab program is free, use of the mobile lab starts at $300, depending on the distance and amount of time it will be traveling, according to the CityLab website. The fee is waived if a school cannot afford to pay, DeRosa said.
Attached to CityLab on the medical campus is the CityLab Academy, which trains students with a high school education or equivalent degrees in the sciences.
“They graduate with a certificate and skills ready for an entry level job,” CityLab Academy Biomedical Laboratory and Clinical Sciences Program Director Connie Phillips said.