On a recent Friday morning, a class of fifth-graders at Coldstream Park Elementary were not so much attentive as enthralled. Some students oohed and aaahed over a microscope where an anesthetized zebrafish larva lay, its heart visibly beating through its transparent body. Others hunkered over petri dishes, murmuring and pointing. At one table, a serious boy named Jamaal Boozer gently removed debris from a dish with a pipette, careful to avoid the fish larvae that floated there. “We’re cleaning the dish now, taking out the bacteria,” he said. Saquoia Matthews, a petite girl with long braids, watched with concern. “If you go too fast, you can suck ’em up,” she said, pointing to the larvae.

If the students were more captivated by their schoolwork than one might expect, it was because this was no ordinary class. It was the last day of a week-long program called Project BioEYES, an outreach effort of the Carnegie Institution for Science. The mission of the nonprofit program, in Baltimore since 2007, is to foster enthusiasm for science in elementary, middle, and high school kids. In Baltimore City, schools with large populations of poor and minority children are largely given priority, and the program is free for the schools that participate. The curriculum varies according to the age of the students: In high school, the fish are used to teach genetics; in lower grades, students learn about everything from ecological habitats to the difference between gills and lungs. No matter their level, over the course of a week the students mate zebrafish, collect the eggs, observe the developing embryos, make hypotheses, and eventually get to see the thrilling pulse of a live zebrafish heart. If Devorah Harper’s fifth-grade class is any measure, fostering enthusiasm in the midst of all that hands-on hubbub isn’t a problem.

BioEYES—an organization with affiliates thus far in Baltimore; Philadelphia; South Bend, Ind.; and Melbourne, Australia—is the brainchild of a scientist named Steven Farber. Farber uses zebrafish in his research of how cells absorb fats and nutrients; the transparency of the small tropical fish makes them ideal for visually observing such processes. Farber’s interest in working with kids began with a Take Your Child to Work Day back in 2000, when his lab was at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. “Someone had the bright idea, ‘Let’s take them to Farber’s lab—it’s like the aquarium,’” he says. He set up observation stations for the visiting children. “There was an evaluation afterward and guess which visit the kids liked the most?”

After that, the tours came thick and fast; Farber was soon overwhelmed. He hired a science educator named Jamie Shuda to help develop BioEYES, and in 2002, the Philadelphia program was born. After Farber moved his lab to Baltimore several years ago, he launched the program here. BioEYES has since taught more than 4,500 students in the city (plus a large number in surrounding counties). During the 2009-’10 school year, BioEYES visited 34 city schools.

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