Trends In Education
RESEARCH
Indian River State College opens its new center
for science, technology, engineering and math
Dr Jennifer Capers, right, assistant biology professor, monitors Christina Hunter as she exams cells while students Pedro Lara and Jason Skaryd wait to use
the microscope.
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Just stepping inside the new $19.5 million Thomas
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Center at
Indian River State College’s St. Lucie West campus is
enough to make anyone stop and marvel.
A staircase with colored steps, twisted in the shape
of a double helix DNA strand rises gracefully to the second
floor. The terrazzo lobby floor repeats the DNA design.
It is clearly a home for the sciences, a place where laboratory
research is taught with the latest in equipment, and
students can quickly be drawn into a variety of disciplines,
from molecular biology to the latest in ecology, engaged
and eager to learn.
It is the most recent link in a chain of buildings in the college’s
master plan, designed to inspire students and train a
work force for research companies that are here or will be here
in the future, according to college president Edwin Massey.
Upstairs, a fast ION Torrent genome sequencer is in hot
demand. It is used by students, by researchers from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and it may be used by scientists
at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. While nearby
biomedical research firms have their own sequencers, students
who learn to use the Ion Torrent sequencer
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The spiral staircase, above, which rises from the lobby to the second floor
replicates the shape of a double helix found in a strand of DNA.