Complete with a multi-casualty scenario, presentations on topics ranging from DNA barcoding to restriction enzymes, and an awards ceremony, BioScience students celebrated this year’s achievements at their annual fiesta last night.

Admitted freshmen, who will join the Academy as Cohort Nine next year, were invited to attend the fiesta with their parents.

“Any time we have a group event like this, it builds community relations and opportunity for students to gain experience and learn about the field they’re interested in,” BioScience coordinator Darcy Duffy said.

The Academy’s founder Wendi Butler arrived at the event shortly after seven o’clock and was welcomed by many of her previous students. Butler started BioScience at Foothill eight years ago.

Freshman students and their parents were invited to tour the junior and senior cohort classrooms after dinner to get a glimpse of what they will be doing in the Academy over the next three years.

“I hope to further my knowledge of the sciences, which I have always found interesting,” freshman Matt Gonsales said.

“I joined because I want a career in the medical field,” freshman Sarah Fahr said. “[BioScience] will give me knowledge and opportunity.”

The junior class introduced their Disease Projects, in which each student researched a different disease for their Medtech class. Medtech, short for Medical Technology, is a rigorous laboratory science course that applies the knowledge learned in physiology to real life skills and procedures.

“I’m a first aid kind of person,” BioScience junior Natalie Waechter said. “It’s fun to learn them from a different perspective, not a lifeguard perspective.”

Waechter is enjoying Medtech’s current microbiology unit and looking forward to the Disease Project presentations next week.

The juniors also enacted a multi-casualty scenario following classroom visits. Some of the students portrayed victims following an earthquake while other students responded to their injuries.

Among other casualties, Waechter performed CPR on a dummy, Ami Ballmer treated a victim with a blocked airway, and Seychelle Kauffman cleaned wounds from glass shards on a victim’s face.

Members of the community who volunteered their time for the sophomore BioScience survey speaker series were recognized afterward.

The final event of the evening was an awards ceremony for the academy’s graduating seniors.

Looking back over their three years in the program, the academy has affected the members of Cohort Six in different ways.

“I joined because I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” senior Emily Rath said.

Next year, Rath plans on studying psychology at the University of Redlands.

For senior Shaena Singer,  who will be attending Muhlenberg College in the fall, the Academy was an opportunity to pursue her goal of becoming a doctor.

“That’s what the Bioscience Academy puts you on track to do,” she said. “I’ve learned so many first aid skills.”

For senior Anna Shang, the program helped her eliminate certain career choices.

“Not that I didn’t learn a lot, but it showed me what I didn’t want to do with my life,” Shang said.

Shang plans to pursue a business major but has not decided on which college she will be attending in the fall. 

While students in the Academy do gain many biotechnology and medical skills, they also take time to explore their own personalities and learning styles.

When asked what she gained most from the program, Rath responded, “I learned most about myself.”

Senior Hannah Alday received the Medical Technology award, senior Luke Barnett received the Biotechnology award, and senior Elena Schink received the Bioscience Leadership award.

Alday and Schink have taken their passion for medicine outside of the Academy by forming a first aid club on campus for their senior hero projects.

Schink was the head of the Bioscience Leadership Team this year, and she has always been very active in the Academy. She had the opportunity to showcase her leadership when she led the parents of the incoming students through a presentation overviewing the Bioscience program at the beginning of the night.

Credit: Kienna Kulzer/The Foothill Dragon Press.