Medical Science Teacher Wins Grant to Engineer Tissue in Classroom

Shorecrest Upper School teacher Lisa Peck was awarded an Allen Distinguished Educators grant from Vulcan Inc. for a project developed for her Intro to Medical Sciences class. The Allen Distinguished Educators (ADE) award program recognizes and rewards teachers who break the mold of traditional schooling to provide students with opportunities to become thinkers, makers, and creators. They look for teachers who emphasize hands-on, real world and/or project based learning while incorporating 21st century skills such as collaboration, creative problem solving and/or design thinking.

Educators can share their innovations as DIY manuals in an online network for other teachers to use, to increase the number of students who have the kinds of learning opportunities that awardees have created for their own students. DIY projects are awarded grants of up to $1000 in schools where students learn to think, make, innovate, and create by teachers who are inspired and empowered to redefine excellence and reinvent classrooms. These guides include open source project plans, interactive guided tours and online discussion opportunities.

Ms. Peck’s grant application to formulate the ADE DIY Guide “Tissue Engineering” was approved for $720. Through this project, Shorecrest Upper School students will experimentally develop "fake" tissue to mimic muscle, tendon and fat. Many countries can not afford cadavers for their medical students to practice suturing, thus there is a need for a substitute tissue to practice suturing skills.

This award befittingly follows the announcement of Shorecrest’s formation of The Center for Medical Sciences, an in-depth applied sciences academic track for high school students.

“Shorecrest students will experimentally test the suturing viability of the tissue created in our lab. Our Medical Science program is becoming so robust!” shared an excited Lisa Peck after receiving word of being awarded the grant.

About Vulcan Inc.:
The projects and investments pursued by Vulcan Inc. are inspired by the ideas of their Founder, Paul G. Allen (best known as the co-Founder of Microsoft, alongside Bill Gates.) With the goal of igniting the type of progress he envisioned, Paul founded Vulcan in 1986 with his sister and business partner, Jody Allen.

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