Zombies & DNA: Baylor’s first-ever CityLab brings lab experience to local high schoolers

One of the first stops for Baylor campus visitors is the Williams Bear Habitat, home of bear mascots Indy and Belle. The La Vega High School students visiting campus last week for the first-ever Baylor CityLab were no different; the Bear Habitat was tops on their tour agenda — and where their interactive science journey began.

As soon as the tour was over, Baylor students involved in CityLab set up the scenario. They drank from a stray water bottle, began “acting” strange, and soon developed zombie-like symptoms. Now it was up to the high school students to use real-world scientific methods — including DNA analysis and forensics — to determine what was causing this strange behavior and what exactly was in the water bottle.

Baylor CityLab is a science educational initiative in the Office of Engaged Learning (OEL), which introduces Waco-area students to STEM through a fun one-day, hands-on laboratory experience. CityLab also provides opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to serve as teachers and mentors to high school students, to learn and practice effective teaching methods through entertaining and interactive presentations, and to execute experiments in a real college laboratory setting.

How real? The La Vega High School students learned how to use compound microscopes, pipette really small quantities of DNA, and perform gel electrophoresis in pursuit of answers.

“You could tell that they were completely engaged,” says Dr. Dwayne Simmons, Baylor’s Cornelia Marschall Smith Endowed Professor in biology and OEL’s senior director of STEM initiatives. “Having the overarching story relating to forensics and zombies made what they were doing not only engaging, but also fun.” (Before joining the Baylor faculty in 2016, Simmons directed the UCLA CityLab with Los Angeles-area high school students.)

The Baylor CityLab was a collaboration between graduate and undergraduate students and a variety of different Baylor student groups, including SACNAS, BURST, Science Research Fellows, Provost’s Scholars, and PreHealth Studies, all supported by BU faculty and staff. Simmons is driven by a passion for student research and mentorship, having created research programs for undergraduate students for most of his professional career. The best way to learn science, he says, is through the practice of science through research.

“Our objective is not to make the students want to become scientists — although that would not be bad — but to activate the native curiosity that God has blessed humankind with,” Simmons says. “Our goal was to reduce the intimidation of science, to get them to see college as obtainable, and even to see that Baylor is not a universe away, but just a few miles away. We hope that some of them might even consider coming to Baylor for college.”

As the students wrapped up a successful day at Baylor CityLab, they worked through an outbreak simulation where a transmission detector turned positive for “zombie-like symptoms” for each participant. Thank goodness the antidote — a traditional Dr Pepper float — was readily available on the Baylor campus.

Sic ’em, Baylor CityLab!