Expedition Express: What the Cell?!
We are cruising through our biology and genetics expedition in preparation for our fieldwork next week. The students will put their knowledge to the test when they visit Stanford University, Invitae (a genetic testing company), UC Davis Veterinary Genetics, and two museums. After our fieldwork we will shift our focus to natural selection, evolution, and how changes in a species occur.

Questions to Ask:
I hope your child has been coming home with new ideas and information about heredity and genetics. Also the debate between nature vs. nurture has come up in the crew several times when talking about characteristics we have. I hope the conversations at home have been as interesting as the conversations we have had in crew.

Crew News
Progress reports are going home this Friday. These reports are taken directly from Aeries and are basically an average of the student’s grades in each subject. If you have questions about the grade, I recommend that you check Aeries to see a more detailed look of the individual assignments.

SELS News
4/21: Progress reports sent home
Middle school dance: 4/21, 7:00-9:00 in the gym
4/25-4/28: Bay Area Fieldwork (arriving around 3:15pm on Friday afternoon)

Highlights
Student: All of our student liaisons have worked very hard to put this fieldwork together. Marc and Declan for Stanford, Jada and Lizzy for Invitae, Lucy and Maia for UC Davis, Macy and Haley for the San Jose Tech Museum, and Abby and Audrey for the Exploratorium. Thank you for all of your hard work!

Parent: Thank you to Jen and Erica for helping set up all the logistics for fieldwork. It is so helpful to have such great organization of the volunteers and supplies so I can focus on the academics. Thank you!

The photo above is of our 150 new additions to the Williams Crew. These are Lahontan Cutthroat Trout eggs. If you look carefully, two have already hatched (they are called alevins at this stage, and have a pink yolk sack attached to them). They use the yolk sack as their only nourishment for the first couple of weeks until they start eating real food. We will be caring for them for the next 2 months until we release them into Donner Creek. Ask your child about the amazing history of this native species that at one time we thought were extinct.