Page 16 - Armed Forces Directory - Aberdeen Proving Ground

Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD

This was a unique opportunity for the campers.

“Junior high students do not typically have a lot of contact with microscopes in
the classrooms, and to be able to look at the insects they just collected under
the microscopes has been very engaging and enjoyable,” said McDowell.
“They’ve identified what they found with entomologists who are very engaged
and passionate about entomology.”

Advanced laboratory techniques

Wednesday focused on tick surveillance, with Robyn Nadolny, chief of the
DCPH-A vector-borne disease branch, leading education about ticks, organisms
“vying for the ‘most dangerous’ animal, along with mosquitoes,” said Carder.
Students donned Permethrin-treated coveralls to flag for ticks in wooded areas
before working in the sophisticated tick laboratory.

“They got to run a gel with some already prepared products and see how
their PCR products separated in that gel,” said Carder. “Not using little plastic
pipettes, but the actual ones our researchers would use in the lab.”

Halgas was impressed by the laboratory’s capabilities.

“It was really cool because the lab has futuristic tech for us to use,” he said.

Kevin Harkins, an entomologist with the Entomological Sciences Division at
DCPH-A, emphasized the unique value of having students conduct their own
collecting rather than working with pre-collected specimens.

“Having them collect insects is a change from how we generally interact with
these students,” said Harkins. “Usually, we’re bringing insects that we’ve already
collected. Having them do the collection themselves and using equipment
that we provide, including professional traps for collecting mosquitoes, or
flags for collecting ticks, they’re making a connection now that maybe they
wouldn’t normally make.”

The hands-on approach proved highly effective with the target age group.

“Kids like hands-on activities, right? Anytime we’re doing hands-on anything,

A14