Middle School students experiment in VGCC Biotech lab

Henderson Middle School students recently returned to Vance-Granville Community College’s main campus as part of an ongoing partnership between the college’s Bioprocess Technology program and the Citizen Schools after-school program at HMS. Students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades donned lab coats to perform another scientific procedure in the state-of-the-art VGCC Biotech lab on Nov. 2. Citizen Schools team leader Akin Owopetu accompanied the students.

Citizen Schools is a national non-profit organization dedicated to providing students with access to educational and economic opportunity. VGCC Bioprocess Technology program head/instructor Joseph Tyler is one of the “citizen teachers” in the local community who lead apprenticeships for the program. Under Tyler’s direction, HMS students have been getting hands-on experience and learning about science and technology-related careers. On Nov. 2, the students studied the breakdown of cellulose (an organic compound found in plants and trees) into sugars that can then be used to produce the biofuel, bioethanol.

VGCC’s two-year Bioprocess Technology degree program is designed to prepare individuals to work as process operators in biological products manufacturing facilities. For more information on Bioprocess Technology, call Joseph Tyler at (252) 738-3350.

Above: VGCC Bioprocess Technology program head Joseph Tyler (center) demonstrates the preparation of samples for measuring the amount of glucose enzymatically produced from cellulose for students in the Citizen Schools program at Henderson Middle School, during the students’ visit to VGCC’s biotechnology lab on Nov. 2. (VGCC photo)