Exploring the New Lab by Ari Sasson

Hello! I am Ari Sasson, a rising senior at Wissahickon High School in Ambler, PA. I run cross country, participate in my schools debate and speech team, and am a member of my schools health careers club, a club dedicated to science careers. I also participate in my school’s academic trivia team, and even got the chance to compete in Atlanta at the national competition. I am drawn to the sciences, with my academic interests residing with Chemistry and Economics (a social science). In my free time, I watch shows on Netflix, with favorites of mine being House of Cards (minus the last 2 seasons), Breaking Bad, and Chefs Table. Over the next five weeks, I look forward to learning more about how to conduct research in a lab setting, how to communicate my findings, and how science will play a role in my future.

This is my first research program, so coming into the first day, I was not at all sure of what to expect from TRIP. Right off the bat, the most difficult part was figuring out where everything is in the lab. My prior lab experience comes from biology or chemistry classes, which had the same exact setup, so it was hard to get used to a new layout. I’m still having trouble figuring out where things are, but on the second day I was able to locate things (weighing boats, tubes) first try. I have also never worked with a live animal, so flies are very new to me. Coming in, I thought I would hate working with flies (I don’t like bugs). However, after sorting them with the CO2 gun and mat, I realized that my fears were irrational, giving myself much more confidence in the lab. I look forward to working with flies in the upcoming weeks, as it is wildly different from anything I've done before, and something that seems like a vital step in advancing my scientific education.

So far, I have gotten comfortable in the lab, and started working on the first assignment,
which for me involves testing the effects of Holy Basil and UV exposure on locomotion. I enjoyed learning the lab techniques that I will eventually apply to my independent project, such as brushing up on pipettes, and learning how to tell the gender of a fly. I also learned how to use various machines in the lab. One that stands out to me is the UV machine, which administers UV light to flies that are placed inside. I didn’t know this was a thing before Thursday, and it was cool to learn about something completely new to me. After just two lab sessions, I am already seeing my skills expanding, and I cannot wait to see how far they will come before the end of TRIP.  I look forward to next week, when we will continue our preliminary experiment, and have our first presentation about our findings, getting us on track for the August presentation of our independent projects.