Noteworthy: Bacon and Fox Chapel Area High School biology teacher Heather Skillen recently were named winners in the national DNA Learning Challenge. Four projects were named winners in the program, sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, a nonprofit in Half Moon Bay, Calif., and 23andMe Inc., a personal genetics company in Mountain View, Calif. Bacon and Skillen received two genetic DNA sequencing kits for their winning lesson plan on how to revolutionize genetic teaching in the classroom.
Age: 17
School: Rising senior at Fox Chapel Area High School
Residence: O'Hara
Family: Parents Maureen Porter and Brian Bacon, and sister, Sofia Porter Bacon, 14
Activities/interests: Color guard in the high school's marching band, member of the Fox Chapel Student Union and a part-time baker at Eat'n Park restaurant in Squirrel Hill. She volunteers at Cooper-Siegel Community Library in Fox Chapel and at First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh in Shadyside. An avid reader, she also enjoys genealogy. She would like to study genetic engineering in college.
Quote: “I really like genetics because of all the different possibilities that can arise from that and the study of genetics. And learning how genetics flow though families and the generations is really cool.”
— Tory N. Parrish
