The key words of the new bio-lab are efficiency, safety, collaboration, innovation and inclusion.
EFFICIENCY because, having reduced spaces and the impossibility of upsetting the order of the counters for structural and building reasons, we wanted to make a study on how to best use the spaces, completely reorganizing the order of the instrumentation and materials. Living the laboratory weekly, we realized the need to transform a centralized system, with all the tools and materials in a precise point (for example all the scales in a single cabinet), in a widespread system, arranging and distributing all the necessary in the 6 locations. In this way, when the work teams carry out a habitual experience, they will no longer be obliged to 'go back and forth' to take all the basic necessities (scales, heating plates, spoons, filter paper, glassware)but they will be able to obtain them directly from the lockers of each workstation; in this way it reduces the risk of falling of possibly dangerous material and allows to create an orderly and efficient working environment. We attach a diagram of each station.
SAFETY: because reducing the transport of glassware and heavy materials reduces the risk of injury in the laboratory. In addition, we intend, as is now the rule in our High School, to keep all reagents in special cabinets or even ventilated. Regarding heavy or difficult to move instrumentation, we have idealized an island system that allows team collaboration.
COLLABORATION, now fundamental in the researcher’s work, is promoted through an island system for specific phases. To carry out certain experiments, given the heavy and very expensive instrumentation and therefore present in a few pieces, it is necessary to create equipped and permanent spaces. The proposed islands are: growing island (with hydroponic greenhouses), cultivation island (with kits for making bacterial crops), analysis island (with the necessary to analyze water samples), PCR island (with kit and appropriate instrumentation). These are just some of the islands that we aspire to create in our laboratory, but the important thing is to create an environment of comparison.
INNOVATION might seem like something already included in a bio-lab, but we want to overcome it. It happens very often that the class is divided into different teams that are entrusted with the same experiments to compare the results: technology can help us tabulate the different data obtained: how? Through the use of tablets connected to an application system designed with the support of the Informatics department. In this way, the teacher with the laboratory computer can receive all the data and project them in real time through an interactive panel.
INCLUSION, as well as research and our project, is the basis of everyday life must also be established in our laboratories. Our spaces already allow wheelchair access with the appropriate permits. We, in anticipation of possible blind students, wanted to create complete and orderly counters to simplify the workshop and teaching activities for which they are entitled.
