The Amador Valley Biotechnology Club serves as an inclusive, educational environment for all students to share their collective interest in the field of science.
“I’m really into biotechnology, and I want to pursue that as a career later, maybe something in the field of genetics,” said Officer of Public Relations Tanishka Tambe (‘25).
The Biotechnology Club switches up their meeting styles in order to appeal to their members’ interests. From member presentations to labs and experiments, the club hopes each member will get a well-rounded learning experience.
“Last semester, we had more presentations about different sorts of biotech topics, and we did a bacterial growth lab and strawberry DNA lab. This semester, we’re interspacing more labs and member presentations,” said Tambe.
Current events
When they are not learning about new biotechnology topics, the club hosts biology-related labs, and officers help guide members through the experiments.
“Right now, we’re doing bacterial growth labs. So the members come in at lunch to create the agar plates, swab different surfaces and the agar plates, and look at their results,” said Tambe.
By encouraging members to use their background knowledge for experiments, these labs help members of the club sharpen their biotechnology skills.
“I enjoy doing labs because I get to apply what I learned from biology. I’m thinking of going into the medical field in the future, so I think this club will really help me hone my lab skills and push me in the right direction,” said Joyce Huang (‘25).
Lessons and future goals
The club hopes to curate larger laboratory experiments and introduce new and improved labs in the future. Though the club has grown over the last couple of years, they are still looking to grow and expand their outreach to the Amador community.
“We’ve gotten a lot more members since last year; we have about 40 members. So we’re just trying to expand the club and do a couple of bigger labs. I love doing different labs, and it’s really fun to teach people how to do these labs,” said Tambe.
Some members have expanded their knowledge in biotechnology, and plan to apply that to their future careers. They have also learned how to navigate through failures and problem-solve.
“Sometimes things don’t always work out properly, like how there was an issue last semester with a bacteria lab, so we just have to improvise a lot. Also, I’ve learned how to analyze problems better through labs,” said Huang.
As the Biotechnology Club continues to expand and develop its upcoming projects, the officers hope to spread knowledge to all Amador students and stay available to anyone who aspires to advance their comprehension of biotechnology.
