Teaching Lab
The Teaching Lab is located at the new Institute's building and offers various techniques, including imaging, electrophysiology and many different neurobiological tools to doctoral students from the International Max Planck Research School for Neural Circuits as part of their curriculum, and high-school students. The experiments are supervised by scientists from our Institute.
The Teaching Lab is funded by the Supporting Members of the Max Planck Society and the Hertie Foundation and officially opened on November 11, 2013. Since its opening we have had many visitors, including students visiting the Girls' Day and local Night of Science. The Max-Planck-Journal wrote a German article about the Teaching Lab. We usually host one class per month. Visits to the Teaching Lab are free of charge. If you are interested in visiting the Teaching Lab, please feel free to contact the coordinator.
Modules
We offer different modules for small groups of students (typically up to five students per experiment), which are supervised by scientists from the Institute and are set in a real lab environment:
- Stain different parts of the cell and watch its fluorescence under a microscope.
- Measure the electrical signals in nerve cells using electrophysiology and learn how these cells communicate.
- Extract DNA from different fruits using different common chemicals and filtration methods.
- Use the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique to multiply a DNA fragment and separate it using a gel (electrophoresis).
- Learn about optogenetics, an exciting new techniques to switch nerve cells on and off using light and how it is used to study spatial navigation.
- Explore microscopy: learn about the different techniques and view different samples under the microscopes.
Impressions
Below you can find some images of the impressions from a hight school visit to the Teaching Lab (Gymnasium am Markt, July 3, 2018, photos by Thomas Michael Braun). Please also visit our Facebook page for photos and reports of recent class visits.
