Science Education for the Youth (SEFTY): A Neuroscience Outreach Program for High School Students in Southern Nevada during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Laboratory outreach programs for K-12 students in the United States from 2020 to 2022 were suspended or delayed due to COVID-19 restrictions. While Southern Nevada also observed similar closures for onsite programs, we and others hypothesized that in-person laboratory activities could be prioritized after increasing vaccine doses were available to the public and masking was encouraged. Here, we describe how the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Precision Medicine at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) collaborated with administrators from a local school district to conduct training activities for high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Science Education for the Youth (SEFTY) program's curriculum was constructed to incorporate experiential learning, fostering collaboration and peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. Leveraging neuroscience tools from our UNLV laboratory, we engaged with 117 high school applicants from 2021 to 2022. Our recruitment efforts yielded a diverse cohort, with >41% Pacific Islander and Asian students, >9% African American students, and >12% multiracial students. We assessed the impact of the SEFTY program through pre- and postassessment student evaluations, revealing a significant improvement of 20.3% in science proficiency (p < 0.001) after participating in the program. Collectively, our laboratory curriculum offers valuable insights into the capacity of an outreach program to actively foster diversity and cultivate opportunities for academic excellence, even in the challenging context of a global pandemic.

Science Education for the Youth (SEFTY): A Neuroscience Outreach Program for High School Students in Southern Nevada During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Laboratory outreach programs for K-12 students in the United States from 2020-2022 were suspended or delayed due to COVID-19 restrictions. While Southern Nevada also observed similar closures for onsite programs, we and others hypothesized that in-person laboratory activities could be prioritized after increasing vaccine doses were available to the public and masking was encouraged. Here, we describe how the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Precision Medicine at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) collaborated with administrators from a local school district to conduct training activities for high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Science Education for the Youth (SEFTY) program's curriculum was constructed to incorporate experiential learning, fostering collaboration and peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. Leveraging neuroscience tools from our UNLV laboratory, we engaged with 117 high school applicants from 2021-2022. Our recruitment efforts yielded a diverse cohort, with >41% Pacific Islander and Asian students, >9% African American students, and >12% multiracial students. We assessed the impact of the SEFTY program through pre- and post-assessment student evaluations, revealing a significant improvement of 20.3% in science proficiency ( p <0.001) after participating in the program. Collectively, our laboratory curriculum offers valuable insights into the capacity of an outreach program to actively foster diversity and cultivate opportunities for academic excellence, even in the challenging context of a global pandemic. Significance Statement: The Science Education for the Youth (SEFTY) program at UNLV successfully engaged 117 diverse high school students in neuroscience-based experiential learning, demonstrating the viability of in-person education during a pandemic. Significant improvements in science proficiency (20.3% increase) underscore the program's effectiveness in fostering academic excellence and diversity. This initiative potentially serves as a model for maintaining high-quality, inclusive science education in challenging times.

Identification and genome sequencing of an influenza H3N2 variant in wastewater from elementary schools during a surge of influenza A cases in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Real-time surveillance of infectious diseases at schools or in communities is often hampered by delays in reporting due to resource limitations and infrastructure issues. By incorporating quantitative PCR and genome sequencing, wastewater surveillance has been an effective complement to public health surveillance at the community and building-scale for pathogens such as poliovirus, SARS-CoV-2, and even the monkeypox virus. In this study, we asked whether wastewater surveillance programs at elementary schools could be leveraged to detect RNA from influenza viruses shed in wastewater. We monitored for influenza A and B viral RNA in wastewater from six elementary schools from January to May 2022. Quantitative PCR led to the identification of influenza A viral RNA at three schools, which coincided with the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions and a surge in influenza A infections in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. We performed genome sequencing of wastewater RNA, leading to the identification of a 2021-2022 vaccine-resistant influenza A (H3N2) 3C.2a1b.2a.2 subclade. We next tested wastewater samples from a treatment plant that serviced the elementary schools, but we were unable to detect the presence of influenza A/B RNA. Together, our results demonstrate the utility of near-source wastewater surveillance for the detection of local influenza transmission in schools, which has the potential to be investigated further with paired school-level influenza incidence data.