A two-week summer exploration of the extraordinary variety of life around us, Expedition: Bio gives rising seventh and eighth grade students a fun, hands-on scientific immersion. Guided by expert instructors with more than 30 years of public school teaching and curriculum-building experience, and with the assistance of Whitehead Institute undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral scientists, the middle schoolers learn first-hand how researchers are answering some of biology’s most challenging questions — and they have an awful lot of fun doing it! More than 475 budding scientists have participated since the program was launched in 2013 (as “CampBio”).

In this photo, students examine fruit flies under a microscope during a hands-on laboratory session with Amelie Raz, postdoctoral fellow in the Yamashita lab. Students learned how these tiny organisms are an incredible system in which to study cells and genes.