Bemidji Middle School presents 'Medical Detectives' STEM elective to District 31 board

Kyle McMartin, the assistant principal at Bemidji Middle School, and Jeff Ostrom, the school's STEM teacher, presented the middle school's STEM offerings to the Bemidji Public School District 31 School Board during its March 17 meeting.

The presentation focused on a nine-week elective titled "Medical Detectives," which Ostrom described as organized around three units: disease detectives, mysteries of the human body and outbreak. "This medical detectives class is a 9 week elective class," Ostrom said, and he walked board members through representative lessons and student activities.

In the disease detectives unit, students measure vitals such as pulse, temperature, respiratory rate and blood pressure and design experiments (for example, testing how jumping jacks affect respiratory rate). Students study disease agents—bacteria, viruses and fungi—analyze case files, and run labs to determine effective antibiotics. Ostrom said students "work through a lab to determine the most effective antibiotic to treat their patient." The unit culminates with students interviewing patient actors, requesting lab results and using a diagnostic matrix to confirm diagnoses.

The mysteries of the human body unit emphasizes the nervous system. Students build 3-D neuron models, create stop-animation demonstrations of signal transmission and, in one activity, perform a sheep brain dissection to identify and label brain structures. "Students explore and label 22 basic parts of and structures of each of the regions of the brain," Ostrom said.

The outbreak unit gives students an applied epidemiology project: analyzing food logs, location menus and medical case files to deduce the source of a community illness, narrow candidates and run lab tests on patient samples. Students then prepare a press release and other public-facing materials; Ostrom played examples of student-created news segments during the presentation.

Kyle McMartin framed the program as one option for high-achieving students and praised Ostrom's community connections and role during the district's transition to online learning. "He's been a huge integral part of that," McMartin said, noting Ostrom's work to support staff during the district's adoption of Google Classroom during COVID.

Board members praised the presentation, noting the curriculum's combination of hands-on lab work and media/communication projects. One board member said the work "grows confidence, and it grows interest," while another asked whether students can steer projects; Ostrom replied that the medical detectives curriculum is more guided to maintain rigor, though students have flexibility in presentation methods.

The presentation did not include requests for additional funding or formal board action. The board received printed handouts and moved on to other agenda items after the presentation.