Lia Stevenson

Lia’s poster set an example for what the end result of each experiment should look like.

In science teacher Patricia Richardson’s Advanced Placement (AP) Biology class, she reiterates to her students that their experiments aren’t going to cure cancer; however, when beginning their last big project—an independently designed experiment based on primary research—senior Lia Stevenson took that as a challenge. 

Taking the time to investigate alternative herbal treatments for cancer not only made for an incredibly complex operation, but it also had personal impacts.

“I wanted to do something that I cared about,” Lia said. “A lot of people in my family have had cancer, and a lot of them are Jehovah’s Witnesses, so they don’t get proper medical care because it’s against their religion. I’m just really interested in finding alternative treatments for stuff like that so everyone’s able to still get access to help. I feel like a lot of people nowadays are really quick to dismiss different herbal treatments, but there must have been something for centuries and centuries of people to use those methods to treat things.”

Lia’s focus was specifically on ancient Chinese herbal remedies for the disease, using Milk Thistle and Astragalus. As a model for the cancer cells, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a type of budding yeast) was used as a substitute. Due to its identical reproductive cycle to human cells, scientists oftentimes use the exact same method for investigating cell replication in cancer patients. For her experiment, the ancient herbal treatments were applied, and the rate of growth was recorded in her findings. 

Based on research done beforehand, she found that Milk Thistle, in particular, has a positive reputation for preventing cells from going into the phase of the reproduction cycle where they replicate genetically and perform mitosis. Additionally, the process in which it binds to the harmful cells acts as a tumor suppressant, but most importantly, it wasn’t only Lia’s research that had positive impacts; her experiment did, as well. 

“The results from the Milk Thistle were promising,” Lia said. “It decreased a lot of the growth compared to the control, so that’s something I want to continue working on in the future—use it with different medications, see how it works with and without other treatments. I want to give people other options for cancer treatments. Not only does chemotherapy suck, but it doesn’t always provide good results, so it’s always better that the cure for cancer isn’t just one thing. There are a lot of different options that can work for people because everyone’s different.”

As proven in Lia’s case, the final weeks in AP Bio are dedicated to individual experiments, which influence the class’s students on a wider scale than any other instructed lab conducted earlier in the year. In AP Environmental Science (APES), a similar project is assigned, but their experiments are restricted to something they’re able to use in the final activity: building a sustainable city. In AP Bio, Richardson gives the students free range in terms of topics they can conduct research on, which only heightens the level of interest in the assignment. 

“They want to learn about their topics because it’s something they’re interested in, and I don’t have any expertise in many of the things they’re researching, so it’s not anything I can lecture on,” Richardson said. “Now, they have these skills from things they’ve learned along the way and a background from previous content, so they can apply that to their own passion. There’s way more interest and excitement that way.”

After 12 years of teaching the class, Richardson admits that she’s never had any overlapping topics. There may be scientific questions in a similar area of research, but never has she overseen the same experiment twice. 

Since the entire production is based on individuality, she explains that having each person conduct their own primary research and design a testable experiment based on the questions they have creates a level of enthusiasm in the classroom, especially when they present at the end about the things they’re passionate about. 

The aspect that proves the most difficult year after year is focusing their topic on something they have the ability to test in school. 

“Right now, they’re beginning their research in terms of narrowing down their topic,” Richardson said. “There’s a person who is really interested in moths and light pollution, so how do we take the idea of this huge ecological issue and bring it down to a scale that we can do in the classroom? They have the challenge of narrowing down their specific question, but they also have to ask that question in a way that they can design an investigation plan, collect data, analyze it, and have an answer within the restrictions of the classroom.”

As former students like Lia acknowledge, not everyone is willing or has the time to put in the extra effort to design an experiment surrounding a topic as complex as the cure for cancer. Although Lia is planning on pursuing a career in pharmacy, and this experiment has set her ahead of the game, another previous student, senior Dia Sriram, conducted an investigation that won’t necessarily be something she studies in the future. 

However, Dia’s findings, which brought into question the most effective method of drying hands to maintain cleanliness, have also had a personal impact. Being an individual who’s hyper-aware of staying healthy, her takeaways from the investigation gave her answers to questions she had on a deeper level than the grade she got for the assignment. That passion is something she recommends someone to have for whatever they plan on researching in the class.

“If someone’s researching stuff on the environment,” Dia said, “unless they’re going into an earth science field, I don’t see that being a helpful use of time, especially since through all of AP Bio you learn so many interesting things that can be put towards multiple different fields in the future. Why would you take all that time for the class and not build on it?”

A majority of Richardson’s AP Bio students have had her for a previous science class. This advanced period proves to be the perfect place for the students who go above and beyond to finally immerse themselves in a scientific environment through the skills they’ve acquired over the years. 

This final project allows students to further their specified area of education in an independent manner. The things they learn through this assignment aren’t something they can take notes on from a lecture, a significant benefit that Dia noticed in her experience. Although it’s an involved process, she was able to fully understand everything surrounding AP Bio simply because she could apply her knowledge to something genuine. 

“For me, it’s easiest to learn and understand something when I’m not just memorizing theoretical [concepts] and when I get to actually apply it to something that makes sense in real life,” Dia said. “This is why I never studied as much for physics as I did for regular math: physics, in my head, was more like a real situation, so I could understand it better. Many people ask themselves why they’re learning the things they do in school. You could always memorize the answer from a lecture or a textbook, or you could see it being applied to something and really have that knowledge of something tangible.”