There has been a recent and very tragic development in the research department of Minnetonka High School. The sole CO2 incubator in the department has broken, thus delaying the research projects of many students who require the incubator to complete projects studying bacterial growth.
This incubator has been present in the department for most of the year, and students have been continually struggling to ensure its calibration and proper function for most of that time. Between spending hours reading manuals and attaining the right equipment to make it all come together, they have developed a connection to this invaluable piece of lab equipment.
Adrienne Retzlaff, senior, vividly recalls the death of the incubator. Brimming with sadness at the sudden death of the machine she had formed a bond with over the course of the year, she remembers all the wonderful times that she had shared with it.
She “could feel [her] heart sink” after noticing the monitor displaying “err.”, heralding the doom of the incubator. “I knew it was gone. I knew there was nothing I could do,” she said.
The significance of this incubator’s death cannot be overstated, as it is the key to the completion of many students’ projects, whose reports are due within weeks of this incident. It is certain that they will press on valiantly, however, perhaps trying to revive the incubator, perhaps looking for alternative routes to completion.
The hopes of revival will not die anytime soon, as giving up hope is the last thing that the incubator would have wanted. Let us all mourn the death of the incubator, send our best wishes to the students who have been so greatly affected by this tragic loss, and hopefully, we will move forward and finish the year strong.