A group of Mary McLeod Bethune School students expressed their enthusiasm as they gathered for a workshop on how to extract an organism’s hereditary material, known as DNA, from strawberries.  

The experience left sixth grader Omar Cordova impressed.  

“When you open up a strawberry, you don’t actually see the DNA,” Cordova said after participating in the workshop. “You had to use chemicals to see the DNA. I always wanted to learn about science and the stuff that goes through your body.”  

The workshop was part of the second annual Health Careers Exploration Day held March 5 at Mary McLeod Bethune School in North Philadelphia.  

The event, presented by the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and Temple Health, focused on educating middle school students about health careers.  

“We want to introduce the students to all the wonderful opportunities that a hospital and a medical school can provide for a community,” said Amy Goldberg, Marjorie Joy Katz Dean of the Katz School of Medicine.  

“This is the seed to a much larger tree that we would like to plant and grow.”  

During the exploration day, about 150 sixth, seventh and eighth graders participated in 30-minute workshops led by doctors, nurses and other Temple professionals. The workshops covered topics such as CPR, life in the emergency room, learning to check vital signs, understanding GYN exams, surgical knot tying and ultrasound basics.  

Seventh grader Kristina Crawford enjoyed participating in the ultrasound basics and surgical knot tying workshops.  

“I learned how to stitch wounds in the surgery knot tying workshop. I really had fun doing this and learning something new,” said Crawford, who recently became a Temple Future Scholar, a new program that will guide participating seventh-grade students in Philadelphia public middle schools through their academic journey to college. 

The Health Careers Exploration Day is led by Abiona Berkeley, senior associate dean of health equity at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine.  

She addressed the importance of showing Bethune students the gamut of professional options available at Temple University Hospital.  

“We were asked to not just bring physicians,” she said. “We needed to come here and show the kids all the potential of what they could be.”  

Aliya Catanch-Bradley, principal at the Mary McLeod Bethune School, is appreciative of this initiative.  

“This kind of fair that is going to highlight students’ ability to see careers at Temple, which are degreed and non-degreed, but are accessible and literally in their backyard, is a very powerful experience,” she said.