Science meets music: John Bapst students visit The Jackson Laboratory

Date: April 2, 2010
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Bar Harbor, Maine -- Research shows that music education can enhance learning of math and science. On Wednesday, March 31, students of John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor visited The Jackson Laboratory for a combination of arts and sciences.

The students toured the Laboratory and learned how Maine’s largest nonprofit biomedical research institute is working to improve human health. They met with scientists studying the genetics of cardiovascular disease, visited the Cryopreservation laboratory, saw how high-tech imaging equipment works, got a peek at the JAX Mice & Services operation, and learned about the institution’s historic Summer Student Program.

Then the students broke for a pizza lunch and music in Roscoe’s, the Laboratory’s dining facility, with the school’s Chamber Orchestra, Choir and piano soloist Tom Jones performing. Julie Ewing, John Bapst’s music leader, was instrumental in helping The Jackson Laboratory acquire and upgrade the piano that now graces Roscoe’s.

The visit was covered by WLBZ/WCSH-TV and WABI-TV.

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif. Its mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and education for the global biomedical community.


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Photos to download (jpeg, 300 dpi):

  • Photo 1 - Julie Ewing conducts
    Description/caption: Science meets music: John Bapst High School music director Julienne Ewing leads the school’s Chamber Orchestra during a special performance in The Jackson Laboratory’s dining facility. Earlier that day, these musicians were among more than 60 Bapst students who toured the Laboratory’s facilities.
  • Photo 2 - In the cryo lab
    Description/caption: Science meets music: Kurt Christiansen (right), The Jackson Laboratory’s supervisor of reproductive sciences, demonstrates cryopreservation techniques to John Bapst High School students. These were among more than 60 Bapst music students who visited the Laboratory and who also performed a lunchtime concert in the institution’s dining facility.

Contact(s): Joyce Peterson, 207-288-6058

For information on automatic email delivery of news releases (journalists only), please send an email request for details to news@jax.org. Please address other inquiries to pubinfo@jax.org.

Media Relations, Communications Office
The Jackson Laboratory
600 Main Street
Bar Harbor, Maine 04609-1500
Phone: 207-288-6058 (journalists only)
Main Jackson Laboratory phone: 207-288-6000
Fax: 207-288-6076
Email: news@jax.org