Cornell Adult University Teen Program
Cornell Adult University (CAU) Teen Program offers youths a taste of what college life is like. Teens between 13 and 15 years old are led by counselors through a week of varied camp activities, field trips, and educational sessions. Once every week for three weeks, we taught a science sampler class to a group of about 20 students. We discussed the basics of synthetic biology and biotechnology, asked them of their thoughts about genetically modified organisms, and did fun science activities with them. One week we taught them how to extract DNA from a strawberry using simple household chemicals. The teens really enjoyed this activity and had a lot of fun playing with the gooey strawberry DNA.