Dr. Todd Evans teaches fifth grade what can be learned from the heart of a zebrafish

By Francesca Di Cristofano, News Editor

COLONIAL SCHOOL — Dr. Todd Evans came to teach the fifth grade about the heart of the zebrafish, a species found in the puddles of India.

“Science is a way to solve problems,” said Dr. Evans. “How do you think you fix a heart? To fix it, you need to know it. To know it, you need to study a simpler one, a zebrafish one.”

Dr. Evans, the father of Julien (5U) and Max (KS), works at Weill Cornell Medical Center, and studies the zebrafish heart. It’s like a simpler version of ours. To figure out our heart, you can study the one of a zebrafish.

“A zebrafish grows around a yolk,” Dr. Evans said. “Eventually, in about a day and a half, it becomes a fish.”

Dr. Evans showed a movie clip about the growth of the fish. The filmmakers took many pictures, and turned it into fast-forward footage. They also took videos of the blood stream and showed cells forming.

“One fish had a ‘broken’ heart,” he said. “It was because of a protein.”

The fifth graders concluded with an experiment, using magnifying glasses and microscopes to see a fish that had just hatched

This story also appears on the Colonial Times website.