Recent Firsts at Wake Christian

By Senior Evie Fordham

Dr. Lucy Brock, who received her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, teaches a myriad of high school science classes at Wake Christian Academy, including Anatomy/Physiology and Advanced Placement Biology. She’s excited to announce that these two classes in particular have “experienced a couple of firsts” for the school.

First, Dr. Brock reported that her AP Biology class is the first science class in Wake Christian history to have “successfully amplified a segment of DNA” through a process called Polymerase Chain Reaction.

“The process … requires specialized biotech equipment and skills,” she explained, adding, “The real world applications [of Polymerase Chain Reaction] are more familiar to the viewers of crime scene programming. When DNA is recovered from a crime scene, suspect, or victim, the DNA sample is too small for any kind of analysis. The investigator needs to amplify [or increase] the sample first so that it can be examined.”

Dr. Brock also wants to draw attention to the fact that the equipment required to perform this process is very expensive, but the school is able to give its students an enhanced experience in its science classes because “of large and generous donations of equipment and lab furniture from such companies as Gilead Sciences.”

After the AP Biology class amplified DNA through Polymerase Chain Reaction, the Biotechnology Research class “repeated the feat,” in the words of Dr. Brock, who stated, “This lab activity is now part of the regular tool chest of laboratory activities for our high school science students.”

Second, “the other first” Dr. Brock is proud of involves long-distance learning. Through an app called DisplayNote which acts as an online whiteboard she was using while instructing her Anatomy/Physiology class, a student absent from the classroom who still wanted to be able to experience the day’s lessons was able to access in real time Dr. Brock’s lecture.

Dr. Brock looks forward to exploring other features of the app for her students’ benefit, including its ability to save lessons and incorporate a microphone function. Although she has taught at Wake Christian for decades, Dr. Brock still scouts for ways to improve the effectiveness of her science classes.