Upcoming Events
Teacher Workshops
Professional Development
ABE Ireland Labs 1–4
About these events:
These training workshops are for teachers new to the ABE Ireland programme, or who haven't implemented ABE labs in a number of years. The workshops will cover ABE labs 1–4 covering micropipetting, gel electrophoresis, DNA digestion and ligation. There will also be sessions with a veteran ABE teacher on implementing the labs in school, and a guest speaker on their career in research. After the workshop attendees will be able to book loans of all the equipment and samples needed to run ABE Ireland practical labs in their school.
These workshops run in September each year.
Please contact abe-ireland@ucd.ie with any questions.
Locations:
- UCD
- Drumcondra Education Centre
- Laois Education Centre
- Monaghan Education Centre
All workshops run from 10am - 3pm.
We will be in contact in the run up to the workshop with more information and to check that you can still make it.
ABE Ireland Labs 1–4 Pilot with Irish Sign Language Interpreters
About:
This year we will be piloting the use of Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreters for ABE Ireland Labs 1-4, using the molecular biology signs found in the ISL STEM Glossary that we worked on with Dublin City University. This workshop will most likely take place sometime in early November 2024, if this is something you'd be interested in taking part in, please email abe-ireland@ucd.ie to express interest.
ABE Ireland Lab 5: PCR
About:
This workshop is for returning ABE teachers who have carried out ABE labs in the classroom at least once already. After taking part in this workshop, you will be able to run the PCR lab in your own classroom with your own students. The workshop will cover all things PCR, giving you two options to carry out in your classroom (i) the PTC Taste lab where students get to extract DNA from their own cheek cells and run a PCR on them and (ii) the Covid-19 Waste Water PCR lab which is based on research that is carried out in UCD to track the Covid-19 levels in Ireland.
Location and date:
10am - 1:30pm, Saturday 22nd March, UCD
ABE Ireland Lab 6: Introduction to Genomics and Bioinformatics
About:
This workshop is for returning ABE teachers and their students. Bioinformatics is the use of computers, statistics and online software to analyse genetic information from different organisms. It is biological research done on computers instead of in a wet lab. This lab will introduce this cutting edge area of research and describe some of its uses. The lab contains lots of hands-on activities including a food detective scenario which uses the online BLAST database to uncover how many different animals' DNA was in a supermarket sausage.
This workshop contains a peer learning element. On the advice of the teachers who helped design and pilot ABE Ireland Lab 6 we invite teachers to bring two or three students with them to the training workshop. These students can then help co-deliver Lab 6 in school by helping their peers navigate the websites and online databases used in bioinformatics activities.
Location and date:
Zoom, usually mid October