By Ava Vautrin, CHS Tiger Times Contributor
Students in Laura Murawski’s living environment class recently got an up-close look at the effects vaping can have on human lungs.
The learning module, developed by Cornell University, allows students to directly test the effects of e-cigarette vapor and vape juice on living cells called Tetrahymena. The Tetrahymena has similar cell functions and processes to human cells.
“The heated vape juice killed the cell,” freshman Dachenar Luma said. “After a long period of time, the non-heated vape juice does the same.”
As students ran a variety of tests and viewed the results under microscopes, they expressed concerns about vaping.
“I think it’s affecting our school because kids are becoming addicted,” freshman Melody Hadley said.
A CDC survey found that e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among high school and middle school students. In 2019, 28 percent of teens and 11 percent of middle schoolers reported using e-cigarettes in the past 30 days.
Students logged their observations, with each test showing damage to living cells.
“It helped us understand the effects of vape juice,” freshman Brody Mero said.